Vermont’s Smart Green Move

by Tom Evslin

Would you say that hydropower is renewable? Well, if you live in New England or certain other states including California, your state law says large scale hydropower coming from Canada is NOT renewable.

Current Vermont law defines renewable energy as "energy produced using a technology that relies on a resource that is being consumed at a harvest rate at or below its natural regeneration rate" but doesn't stop there. "For purposes of this chapter, the only energy produced by a hydroelectric facility to be considered renewable shall be from a hydroelectric facility with a generating capacity of 200 megawatts or less." Whoops, there goes a million kilowatt dam.

Vermont, however, has just become a leader in recognizing energy and environmental reality. H.781 of this session of the Vermont Legislature repeals the exclusion of large facilities; effective July 1, 2012, hydropower generated by Hydro Quebec (HQ) from its facilities on James Bay IS legally renewable. HQ was very eager to have green Vermont set an example and will even share some of the financial benefits with Vermont if other states use HQ power as renewable.

Why in the name of Webster's Unabridged, you may ask, does it matter, whether the law says hydropower is renewable or not? The water is going downhill anyway and we don't use it up by routing it through a turbine and harvesting multi-megawatts as it goes by; what could be more renewable?

But it does matter what state law calls "renewable". Many states have requirements that their utilities obtain an increasing amount of power from "renewable" sources. If you rule out large hydro (or out-of-state sources of all kinds), it becomes both difficult and expensive to meet that requirement. There aren't many new hydro sites available in the US. Solar electrical generation in the Northeast is impractical without huge government subsidies and even then is very expensive for electric customers and still has limited potential. There are a relatively small number of sites for effective wind turbines and the best ones are in scenic places and attract heavy local opposition.

Some numbers help. Wholesale power from the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant (not renewable), currently costs about $.04 per kilowatt hour (kwh); power from HQ under the current contract is around $.066/kwh; power from coal (which we don't use much in New England) is in this price range or cheaper. Most Vermont residents pay about $.15/kwh at retail for home electricity. However, Vermont utilities were recently required to buy solar power at $.30/kwh – twice retail –and those projects still require tax breaks and other subsidies to break even. We ratepayers, of course, end up paying the bill twice – once to the electric utility and once more in taxes. There was huge controversy over the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod. After many years it was finally approved. The first wholesale contract signed for its output was at $.30/kwh with an annual escalator! Even though the wind is free, building offshore is expensive. If we are going to rely on local wind and sun for our renewable energy, we are going to be facing very high energy bills. In Vermont the problem is exacerbated, of course, by the pending expiration of Vermont Yankee's license and the real possibility that it won't be renewed.

OK, you say, this shouldn't be about money; we should use less electricity anyway. Higher prices will discourage electricity use. That's dead wrong from either a carbon-phobic or energy independence point of view. We need to use more electricity so that we use less oil. 73% of us in Vermont heat our homes with oil and propane compared to the national average of only 15.5%; most of us drive a lot. 61% of our household CO2 emissions come from heating; 31% from driving. If we're going to reduce our dependence on oil significantly, it will be because we use MORE electricity.

So both energy independence (at least independence from oil producers) and lower CO2 emissions depend on reasonably priced electricity. That's why not only Republican Governor Douglas but also the Democratic chairs of both the House and Senate committees with environmental responsibility supported the designation of Hydro Quebec power as renewable and why most environmental groups in Vermont supported the change in the law. However, there is still opposition to declaring large hydro renewable from both those who believe that aboriginal people are being disadvantaged by the flooding of their historical hunting ground (despite the compensation they agreed to accept) and those who would rather not compete with low-cost large-scale hydro for the lucrative business of supplying "renewable" energy; it was this coalition which was originally responsible for voting Canadian hydro off the renewable island.

See http://vtdigger.org/2010/06/09/irwin-a-requiem-for-vermonts-green-stamp/ for the antiHQ argument by Keefer Irwin and http://vtdigger.org/2010/06/09/deen-lawmakers-paid-close-attention-to-hydro-quebec-impacts/ for a rebuttal by David Deen, who is Chair of the House Committee on Fish, Wildlife and Water Resources and has impeccable environmental credentials.

Here's how they see the story in Montreal.

Comments

[aynerand]

Tom thank you for continuing to share your wisdom, which is always not about what is the status quo but instead about practical, common sense.

Its true that VT's carbon problem, to the extent that we have one (VT is a net sink, meaning we absorb more carbon than we emit), comes from cars and furnaces.

We are still living in an "electricity is evil" mindset left over from the post oil embargo 70's and early 80's when much of our electricity was generated by burning oil. That is no longer the case. In VT it's hydro, in and out of state, nuclear and biomass.

So today, with the coming of smart meters and dynamic pricing consumers can make informed choices about the best price and best environmental solution to meet their energy needs. That could mean they plug in their car and heat their home with geo-thermal made economic by running the pump at night off peak!

Now we're actually getting off that darn foreign oil for real in contrast to say wind power, not to knock it, but wind turbines displace natural gas fired power in New England, not oil..

[Daniel Foty]

Tom, I hate to say this, but reading through this had me shaking my head - since it served to further hammer home how shriveled and effete (and absurdly self-congratulatory) what now passes for governance in Vermont has become.

This isn't something that deserves such effusive praise. The "200MW" cut-off was created by an earlier legislature for a simple reason - seeing that reality didn't conform to their ideology, it was just too bad for reality; an alternative non-reality reality would be edicted into being to "correct" the "problem."

An earlier legislature edicted that "2+2=5." Now (and maybe not even for the right reasons) that's been "fixed" by admitting that "2+2=4." That's better than nothing, but if that's what passes for accomplishment in Montpelier these days then things are even worse than the harshest critics have been saying.

If other jurisdictions were silly enough to do similar things, more the fool them. But comparing us to other decaying jurisdictions (such as California) is grossly insufficient. We should be trying to draw comparisons to saner jurisdictions that never messed around with these sorts of things in the first place. If we're not willing to compare ourselves to the best, then we shouldn't be pouring congratulations all over ourselves.

And rediscovering that "2+2=4" seems to fall far short of a claim along the lines of "Vermont, however, has just become a leader in recognizing energy and environmental reality." It's nice that the non-reality has been undone - but its original existence was an embarrassment in the first place. This is the kind of thing that one should correct - followed by a few nervous laughs and then attempting to just forget it ever happened. Actually bragging about it seems to be grossly disproportionate.

As you note, the "200MW" limit was explicitly targeted at Hydro Québec; the details and history are more complicated, and this anti-reality legislative edifice was constructed for two reasons.

First, if HQ power were indeed regarded as "renewable," then Vermont's proportion of electric power that came from "renewable" sources would have been very high - and well beyond even modest stated goals.

That would have been great, right? Time to declare victory and move on?

Well, not quite. If the "renewable" percentage were already very high, that would mean that there would be no need for all the pet, faddish focus on more-local "renewables" - and the vast gusher of subsidies that is reaped by favored interests.

And second, the "200MW" limit was a statement of contempt for HQ - and its repeal simply reflects a repeal of that status (while the underlying reality hasn't undergone any meaningful change).

Back nearly 30 years ago, HQ was the greatest thing since sliced bread - and it had grand ambitions. HQ was going to build up a huge amount of generation capacity - both to provide electricity explicitly for customers outside Québec province, and also to provide a catalyst for industrial development in the province. With HQ providing a large, dependable, low-cost (!!) supply of electricity, the province could attract conventional industry (at some point, this caused Hyundai to announce plans to open an assembly plant somewhere in the Eastern Townships - I actually don't know if this ever happened) and uniquely electricity-intensive industry (such as aluminum smelting).

So a quarter century or so ago, HQ was the toast of Vermont. We had a wonderful supply of reliable, low-cost, clean-and-green energy forever.

Then one day a group of Cree Indians paddled (literally - if I recall correctly) into Burlington. They were on an educational tour and they didn't need to make their entry that way - but the theatrics were intentional and effective.

Their story was simple - that HQ (which is operated by Québec province) was a criminal enterprise. The evil palefaces in Montréal and Québec City were using the authority of the province to drive the Cree off their land and steal it for a pittance - to build the dams and (more extensively) to provide the space for the vast reservoirs that would build up behind the dams.

Suddenly, HQ was evil. So a sleight-of-hand was needed to reclassify HQ from the "good guys" side of the ledger to the "bad guys" side (over with all the hydrocarbon and uranium stuff).

So now I guess HQ is being declared to be a bunch of good guys again?

Well, one wonders what George Orwell would have made of this - since it all has the distinct bouquet of being, well, Orwellian. I guess it's our equivalent of "Oceania has always been at war with East Asia" and such.

Geoff hit the right note elsewhere on the page today. It's amazing to observe the disconnect between the screwed-up world that we peasants are trying to cope with out here while what passes for a government congratulates itself and passes out "awards" to each other.

This won't end well....

[T. Shea]

Ayn wind does not displace natural gas.

...although the promoters would like you to think it does.

It displaces... nothing.

[Brattleboro_conservative]

Mr. Evslin,
31% need our cars in order to live and work in this state. The 61% need to burn oil because there is no other alternative. The sooner people like you let that fact sink in, the quicker we can dispense with this "carbon footprint" nonsense. Hey Tom, we got rid of passenger rail in this state long ago when it proved economically impractical. We are stuck with what we have unless you would like the rest of us to travel by horse and buggy or burn more wood.

Electricity in this state is unreliable as the recent power outage down here proved. We pump our water with it and need it to run our oil burners, but the infrastructure is old and the least little storm can knock us out for days. All this pollyanna talk about needing to use more electricity is a lot of nonsense.