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Maine voters reject Quebec hydropower transmission line
- nielsbot 5y agoBlame NextEra Energy: > But opponents, supported by U.S. power company NextEra Energy Inc (NEE.N), which has competing generating projects in New England, argued that the line would cause permanent damage to Maine’s north woods and hurt the region’s tourism industry. Also note the line is already 75% completed.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIt has little to do with NextEnergy and everything to do with how universally hated CMP (the company that wants to build the line) is. Protip: Don't make your customers hate you if you need their permission to do your projects.
- algo_trader 5y agoThis is beyond depressing (I am not a US resident..) The entire New England is going brown by closing nuclear reactors, fighting wind and now this. IIRC, out of $1BN, about $300M was compensation and pork for local residents
- paleotrope 5y agoI have family in Maine and have spent alot of time there recently. The voters up there are schizophrenic. Very little makes any sense. A high tax state, high cost of living that is 1/2 retirees from southern new england, 1/2 dirt poor people. They vote against anything that would improve their economic conditions. It's like Alaska and Florida combined without oil or sun.
- TrisMcC 5y agoThis is a warped view of Maine's demographics and pretty insulting.
- lovich 5y agoI live near enough to the border that most of Maine is a day trip away and that’s the impression I get from local news, and friends and family living in Maine. Only other stereotype I can recall being told on top of the GP is that it’s very insular and if you’re not a Maine native then don’t expect to ever win an election. Again all anecdotal but it’s what your neighbors think of you at least
- catawbasam 5y agoA local term for one group of neighbors is "Massholes", so guess the feeling is mutual.
- lovich 5y agoYea, and I don’t know anyone from the area whose been called that and didn’t at least begrudgingly accept it. Sometimes the nicknames are accurate
- spywaregorilla 5y agoMassholes use this term as well, so, not too bad.
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- favorited 5y ago“From what I’ve seen, it’s not going to be that beneficial to Maine,” said one voter[0]. Oh, is your end of the boat not sinking? You're probably fine, then. Luckily the referendum is being challenged in the courts. [0]https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/03/science/maine-voters-reject-transmission-line-that-would-bring-clean-energy-mass/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/03/science/maine-voters-...
- LatteLazy 5y agoThe problem is, to make a difference you also need to get 7bn other people to do something...
- clairity 5y agono, that’s a defeatist position promoted by polluting industries. eliminating the top 5%[0] of the most polluting power plants would make a significant (but not wholly sufficient) dent in the emissions problem. that’s on the order of changing the behavior of a few hundred people (not easy, but not as hard as literally everyone). [0]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90660435/just-5-of-power-plants-are-responsible-for-73-of-electricity-emissions https://www.fastcompany.com/90660435/just-5-of-power-plants-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- eldaisfish 5y agothis is 100% false. Multiple billions of your supposed 7 billion people doing nothing are living in squalor and poverty. Their carbon footprint is negligible today and for the foreseeable future. The people who need to do something and now are mostly in the developed world.
- algo_trader 5y agoIts still a cold/rural zone. When a carbon tax/madate is inevitably enforced, they are going to end up with escalating bills for heating and transport.
- CircleSpokes 5y agoProtecting woodlands is important but cutting through woodlands for transmission lines shouldn't be a big deal. Hydro is pretty clean power so it seems silly not to bring more of that in. Plus they have already cut most of it.. "More than three-quarters of the corridor has already been cleared, with about 100 poles installed, Avangrid said last week."
- subpixel 5y agoArguments were effectively made that it’s not all hydro power - it’s a connection to the grid not a single source of energy. But in the end this was doomed by the route. If it were economically possible to go around the north woods it would have had little opposition.
- SonicScrub 5y agoWhich is a nonsense argument as easily seen by a single google search of Hydro-Quebec's energy sources.
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoThe 'greenwashing' risk is real. They may provide their electricity via hdyrothermal, but could potentially resell energy from any other source connected to their grid.
- 908B64B197 5y agoThey could. They agreed to sell to Mass. at 0.05$/KWh. I don't think there's anything apart from hydro they can sell at this price (and still make a profit on).
- sudosysgen 5y agoHydro Quebec only generates hydroelectricity in the main grid. Some islands that aren't connected may use thermal generators. So no, there is no such risk.
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- throwawaycuriou 5y agoAnother interesting tidbit of Maine news is that a municipal Portland election ended in a tie in the final round of ranked choice voting. Around ~19,000 votes total. By state law they'll resolve the tie by drawing lots at the city hall building tomorrow morning: https://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/03/tied-instant-runoff-for-portland-council-seat-will-be-decided-by-drawing-lots/ https://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/03/tied-instant-runoff-f...
- rsj_hn 5y agoFor some reason, this warms my heart so much. I love it. It would of course be better if they played a round of poker.
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoFirst to shuck 50 oysters would fit local flavor.
- rsj_hn 5y agoYes!! We must do this! Someone grab a napkin and amend the Maine constitution.
- HWR_14 5y agoI'm not sure "ability to bluff" is the characteristic I want to select for in my politicians. I'd select for a lack of ability to bluff, but then they would just try to fake that... Luck seems as good a way as any. Or math problems? I'd love a test of science, but the makeup of that test might be too political and I don't want bible trivia on the next one.
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoVideo of the drawing. Everyone's super tame, knowing it's just a formality since a hand recount will likely determine the winner, and no recount is allowed until there is a 'loser'. https://twitter.com/randybillings/status/1456263758834069512 https://twitter.com/randybillings/status/1456263758834069512
- catawbasam 5y agoSo the interstate commerce clause was created why?
- hirundo 5y agoFor commerce between states, which doesn't include Quebec.
- dctoedt 5y agoThe Commerce Clause also gives Congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, not just between the states. https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8 https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section8
- rurp 5y agoTo ban intrastate marijuana production and use, of course. https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1077&context=mulr https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?re...
- bigbillheck 5y agoMaine voter here who voted 'yes' and would do so again. Utility companies don't just get to do whatever they want, and I'm hoping the efforts to get the state to buy back CMP pan out. EDIT: I meant to say that I voted 'yes' to say 'no' to the corridor.
- TrisMcC 5y agoDo you mean you voted 'yes' to reject? :)
- throwawaycuriou 5y agoThe referendum was sneakily worded. Based on your sentiments, I expect you meant to vote 'yes' to suspend the project?
- adam12 5y agoVoting no supports the corridor...
- toss1 5y ago>>Many more must be built in the coming decades to modernize the nation’s creaking grid systems and connect far-flung renewable energy sources to population centers. That is straight-up opinion. There is nothing that says all expansion of the grid needs to be large-scale wind and solar. Sure, there are some economies of scale, but there are also structural economies and reliability benefits of locating more smaller sources nearer to the power users.
- chris_va 5y ago(disclaimer: I work in a climate&energy R&D lab) > since hydropower production emits no greenhouse gas emissions. ... that is incorrect. Hydro reservoirs emit a fair bit of CO2 and CH4, especially cold northern lakes with large surface area [1] that have inundated a fair bit of biomass. The emissions can be mitigated, but there is no economic incentive to do so, so it doesn't happen. The total is generally far less than, say, the CCGT equivalent, but not always. The cost is not strictly proportional to the power output, so it's usually counted a sunk cost... :) [1] https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/11/949/2754271 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/66/11/949/275427... - see supplemental data
- 908B64B197 5y ago> Funding was provided by the Hundred Talent Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 31670473) [...] the CNPq/Brazil fellowship 202937/2014-3 to Bezerra-Neto Interesting that financing for this research came from the country building the most new coal plants right now, and on an out of control trajectory for emissions. The other one, of course, has the president that think it's ok to cut down the Amazonian rainforest. Both of them have a pretty good reason to discredit hydro.
- sudosysgen 5y agoWhat? China loves hydro. They're building the most hydro in the world. They have the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (built with the help of Hydro Quebec btw, though the Federal government didn't like that iirc)
- 908B64B197 5y agoChina's emissions are going up at an alarming rate despite them building out Hydro, thanks to their addiction to coal. [0] - a 7x increase per capita since 1973 (+532%) - 48% increase for its global emissions since 2007 It's in their interest to make Hydro not look so great so they can claim that the west isn't much cleaner than they are. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/china