UNICORNLAND - Latest Sierra Club shilling for Maine renewable energy and attack on natural gas

Excerpts:

The announcement by Summit Natural Gas of the withdrawal of their plan to extend a fracked gas pipeline from Belfast through Thomaston is a win for our health, planet and economy. It’s also a testament to the power of community organizing..............

The best alternative to fracked gas and other fossil fuels is electrification. As we move to a renewable-energy economy, all electricity will become powered by renewable energy sources. Right now, there are incentives for heat pumps through Efficiency Maine. To help transition more people to clean electricity, Sierra Club Maine is advocating for a “Green Bank,” which will fund efficiency and clean-energy projects in Maine, with a specific focus on providing equitable financing opportunities, such as low-interest loans to low-income households, small businesses and those who otherwise would not be able to afford it.

It’s time to think of our future. Fracked gas isn’t a “bridge fuel.” It is just another fossil fuel that pollutes the planet. If we are to reach our climate goals, we must transition to clean electricity now.

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/06/sierra-club-maine-director-t...

The midcoast has a track record of bucking large energy projects

“It’s representative of a pretty strong environmental ethic that Maine people have that is demonstrated repeatedly,” said Pete Didisheim, Natural Resources Council of Maine Advocacy Director. “People care about preserving the character of Maine.

https://bangordailynews.com/2021/03/06/news/midcoast/the-midcoast-h...

(Pretty rich coming from NRCM, one of the largest proponents of industrial wind, the projects which have created the greatest permanent scar in history on Maine's countryside).

SIERRA CLUB and ignorance strike again: Bowing to opposition, Summit Natural Gas withdraws midcoast pipeline plan

Summit Natural Gas of Maine is withdrawing plans for a $90 million pipeline expansion into Maine’s midcoast region after facing opposition from environmental activists and failing to gain community consensus........................While the prospect of natural gas coming to the area was embraced by some municipal officials, including those in Rockport and Belfast, others questioned whether gas was the best choice at a time when Maine state policy favors a rapid transition to renewable energy.......................

Also in play was a growing campaign led by Sierra Club Maine to block what it called the fracked gas pipeline, a reference to the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract the fuel. It had begun seeking donations to organize opposition in the Midcoast and saw 276 people sign a petition over a few days.

“I want to stress that this was a local effort,” said Sarah Leighton, the group’s chapter director. “The fracked gas pipeline has been stopped because of the people in Midcoast Maine stepping up to say ‘no.’ This was a true demonstration of the power of local community organizing.”

Also in play was a growing campaign led by Sierra Club Maine to block what it called the fracked gas pipeline, a reference to the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract the fuel. It had begun seeking donations to organize opposition in the Midcoast and saw 276 people sign a petition over a few days.

“I want to stress that this was a local effort,” said Sarah Leighton, the group’s chapter director. “The fracked gas pipeline has been stopped because of the people in Midcoast Maine stepping up to say ‘no.’ This was a true demonstration of the power of local community organizing.”

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/02/gauging-opposition-summit-na...

Also in play was a growing campaign led by Sierra Club Maine to block what it called the fracked gas pipeline, a reference to the hydraulic fracturing process used to extract the fuel. It had begun seeking donations to organize opposition in the Midcoast and saw 276 people sign a petition over a few days.

“I want to stress that this was a local effort,” said Sarah Leighton, the group’s chapter director. “The fracked gas pipeline has been stopped because of the people in Midcoast Maine stepping up to say ‘no.’ This was a true demonstration of the power of local community organizing.”

Read the full article here:

https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/02/gauging-opposition-summit-na...

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Comment by Kenneth Capron on March 6, 2021 at 2:40pm

To most legislators, "changing the laws of physics" is the same as revising a statute. There are few that are scientifically well informed. And the left has counted on keeping people ignorant as a way to maintain control. The Sierra Club contradicts itself all the time. This session of the legislature will kill many climate initiatives just on funding alone. 

The current ASCE Infrastructure report is pretty damning across the nation. There are a lot of people who are financially on the verge of bankruptcy. We've got a lot of catching up to do, but I suspect someone has plans to repeat the torment of 2020 and COVID all over again.

Comment by Whetstone_Willy on March 6, 2021 at 1:20pm

"all electricity will become powered by renewable energy sources".

What kind of moronic prediction is this? Has the writer somehow gotten the Maine legislature to change the laws of  physics?

Comment by Penny Gray on March 6, 2021 at 12:52pm

Why isn't the fate of a project that has such a positive economic and environmental impact on businesses and residents of the region put to a vote?  Can a handful of signatures stop a project that big?  Anyone truly concerned about reducing CO2 and maintaining our modern lifestyles would be promoting nuclear.  Promoting the proven Unreliables is neanderthal.  Sorry, couldn't help it.

Comment by Art Brigades on March 6, 2021 at 12:17pm

In testimony last session before the Environment & Natural Resources Committee, a representative from the Dragon Cement plant disclosed that his one facility was the largest single CO2 emitter in Maine, contributing a whopping one percent of all Maine CO2 emissions. All the electricity generating power plants in Maine combined only emit 8 percent of the state's CO2. Sierra and NRCM were at the hearing, in their customary front row box seats.

Converting the Dragon plant from coal/coke to NG would have been a boon to any honest person who is truly concerned about CO2.  

Comment by Art Brigades on March 6, 2021 at 12:10pm

From the Press Herald Article: 

"Informing Summit’s decision is the growing national opposition to the concept that natural gas is a preferable, cleaner-burning “bridge” fuel to move from dependence on oil and coal to a future energy mix dominated by solar and wind."

But wait. That's electricity. This midcoast gas pipeline was not planned to supply a gas fired power plant, which ostensibly could be replaced in electricity generation by "solar and wind."  The line was planned to get residents and businesses off oil and (more expensive than NG) propane. Businesses and restaurants now using oil or propane would have benefitted hugely from having NG as an alternative.  So would the environment.

Maine Chapter of Sierra is an oafish, but dangerously powerful force for bad in this state. 

Comment by Robert Feller on March 5, 2021 at 12:05pm

For more than two decades, renewable-power profiteers have colluded with climate alarmists and politicians who support big government energy and environment programs to push wind and solar power, supposedly to fight catastrophic climate change. Government has provided subsidies, tax breaks, tax credits, grants, and government-backed loans to get utilities to adopt wind and solar energy. In addition, 29 states and Washington, D.C. require utilities to use wind and solar power, through renewable energy mandates (REM). They have done this even though electricity generated by wind and solar power has consistently been more expensive than traditional sources used to generate electric power, including fossil fuels, hydropower, and nuclear. They did this even though, as I detailed in last week’s Climate Change Weekly, wind and solar power are poor choices to generate large-scale power on interconnected electric power systems because they introduce variability and intermittency into a system that demands constancy and reliability.

Wind and solar still undermine the reliability of power grids, but after decades of government support and mandates, the costs of wind and solar have fallen dramatically. As a result, one can hardly swing the proverbial (electronic) dead cat on the Worldwide Web without hitting a report generated by renewable energy supporters and uncritically parroted by gullible mainstream media sources saying the cost of electricity generated by wind or solar power has fallen so far so fast that it is now cheaper than electricity generated by coal and even natural gas. Data show this isn’t true. Costs have fallen, but not by enough to beat traditional energy sources.

The National Conference of State Legislatures admits wind and solar power are largely a creation of state governments’ efforts to fight climate change and diversify the grid: "Roughly half of the growth in U.S. renewable energy generation since the beginning of the 2000s can be attributed to state renewable energy requirements." The other half has been driven not by any price advantage of wind and solar power but by federal, state, and local subsidies.

Proving the criticality of federal support to wind and solar energies’ fortunes is the fact that at the end of every year when the previous year’s "temporary" extension of the tax credits and subsidies for wind and solar facilities lapse, new construction and new requests to build new solar and wind facilities come to a screeching halt—only to rise again like a government-propped Phoenix once the tax credits are resurrected in the newest pork-laden omnibus bill Congress cobbles together each year to fund the government. Such support would not be necessary if wind and solar were truly competitive or, better yet, cheaper than coal and natural gas. Without federal and state support, new large-scale wind and solar would have limited appeal.

Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) offers further proof wind and solar power don’t benefit consumers and business by producing cheaper electricity than traditional electric power generating sources.

As noted above, 29 states and the District of Columbia have imposed renewable energy mandates forcing investor-owned (and in some states municipal- and co-op-owned) electricity providers to incorporate some politically (not scientifically) determined amount of wind or solar power into the electricity they provide. The amount required varies by state, but it has been growing in recent years. Eight other states have established voluntary green energy goals for utilities to meet. (In the past year, a couple of states turned their voluntary goals into mandates, though the requirements have not taken hold yet.) Thirteen other states have neither required, nor encouraged by setting a goal, their utilities to incorporate wind or solar power into their electric power grid.

The effect on prices in instructive. In 2020, the average retail price of electricity for the United States as a whole was 10.54 cents per kilowatt hour (cKWh). Hawaii (with an REM) and Alaska (without an REM) are the two states with the highest electric power prices, because of their relative isolation and unique circumstances.

Including Alaska and Hawaii, the average electricity price for the 10 states with the highest prices topped 18.19 cKWh. Excluding Alaska and Hawaii, the average electricity price for the 10 states with the highest prices was 15.9 cKWh. Every state on the top 10 list of states with the highest prices (excluding Alaska) has an REM.

By comparison, the average electricity price for the 10 states with the lowest electric power prices was 8.18 cKWh—less than half the price in the 10 highest-price states. Only two states in the top 10 list of states with lowest prices have a REMs: Washington (which gets more than two-thirds of its electric power from highly subsidized hydropower facilities built by the federal government) and Texas (which has a competitive electric market other than the REM).

The average retail price of electricity in states with REMs (including Hawaii) is 12.41 cKWh, and absent Hawaii it is 11.88 cKWh, whereas the average retail price of electricity in states without REMs (including Alaska) is 9.62 cKWh, and absent Alaska it is 9.09 cKWh.

So an apples-to-apples comparison shows electricity prices in states with REMs are 29 percent higher than in states without them (with Hawaii and Alaska included) and 31 percent higher if we exclude Alaska and Hawaii as outliers.

Wind and solar power look even worse when comparing EIA data to rankings of "Community Power" from the Institute for Local Self Reliance (ILSR). The data show the greater the government intervention into energy markets to promote wind and solar energy to fight climate change, the higher the energy prices.

All the states receiving grades of A through C (passing) from ILSR go beyond just mandates for renewable power, and all have higher prices than the national average. For instance, all the states receiving A or B grades from ILSR, except for California and Illinois, are part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative of New England and mid-Atlantic states. These same states, including California, compose the list of states with the 10 highest electric power prices (excluding Hawaii and Alaska). Only one state receiving an F from the ILSR, Montana, has a renewable mandate, and each of the states on the top 10 list of lowest electricity prices receives a failing grade of either D or F from ILSR. This in not coincidence. When comparing ILSR’s list to EIA data, one finds as a general rule the greater the number of energy policies aimed at fighting climate change a state or locality has imposed, the better it ranks on the ILSR list and the higher its electric power prices.

The inescapable conclusion is that wind and solar power are more expensive than coal and natural gas, despite the constant bombardment of propaganda claiming the opposite. The evidence indicates residents and business in states requiring wind and solar as part of their power supply pay more for electricity than those in states lacking such mandates. No public relations media blitz by bought-and-paid-for politicians or renewable energy profiteers can change this fact.

Comment by Penny Gray on March 3, 2021 at 6:34pm

"Texas, Take Two", coming soon to a theater near you!

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on March 3, 2021 at 3:11pm

Energy Secretary Granholm on Biden Killing Coal Jobs: They Can ‘Mine the Critical Materials that Go Into Batteries’

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/03/03/energy-secretary-granhol...

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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