The Portland (Maine) Press Herald is reporting:
The six New England governors have set in motion a first-of-its-kind plan to increase the region’s natural-gas pipeline capacity by nearly 20 percent in three years and build at least one major electric transmission line to bring renewable energy from Canada.No new wind farms? No solar farms?
Utility customers would be asked to help pay for the projects, which together could cost billions of dollars, through electricity rates. But the costs soon would be recovered by savings on energy bills as the projects increase supplies of lower-cost power, said Tom Welch, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission and an architect of the plan.It will be interesting how long it takes John Kerry and the president to act on that transmission line from Canada. Let's see, is 2014 an election year?
The plan, made public Thursday, requests that the operator of the region’s electricity grid, ISO-New England, seek permission from federal regulators to charge electricity customers for gas pipeline expansion.
“It’s an unprecedented and remarkable approach,” Welch said. “But it reflects the fact that the price of natural gas drives the price of electricity in New England.”
Natural gas now fuels more than half of all power-generating plants. A shortage of gas in the region on very cold days last year sent wholesale electricity prices up 57 percent over the 2012 average.But the activist environmentalists won't give up:
Maine manufacturers that use a lot of energy say it wouldn’t bring enough gas into the region to erase the wide price difference between New England and other regions. Environmental activists who support a greater shift to wind, hydro and solar energy say it would make New England even more reliant on natural gas.In case you missed it, the professionals say the plan is not "enough." New England will still be "short" the energy it needs.
Something tells me the activist environmentalists are quickly going to be marginalized.
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