Update On Massachusetts' Plan To Bring Hydro-Electricity In From Canada -- February 2, 2018

The continuing balkanization of America.

See this note from January 28, 2018, for background. 

From Worcester Business Journal:

A permit that the Northern Pass project had been counting on was denied by New Hampshire site evaluators on Thursday, jeopardizing the Bay State's newly minted plan to transmit hydropower from Quebec to Massachusetts.

The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee's (SEC) unanimous vote occurred a week after Massachusetts officials and utilities selected the project – a joint effort of Eversource and Hydro-Quebec to run transmission through the White Mountains – after a major renewable energy procurement.

My thoughts, not ready for prime time, when a reader sent me that note:

Some years ago I suggested (to myself) that we were seeing the Balkanization of the US.

Balkanize: divide (a region or body) into smaller mutually hostile states or groups.

I don't recall what was happening then that made me think of the balkanization of the US but it certainly seems that is what we are seeing here. I thought the balkanization of America would end at the regional level (south vs north; west vs east; west vs midwest; etc) but now we are seeing it intra-regionally: states with similar values and background are unable to come together to help each other out. 

It seems Massachusetts could find some help from the federal government but because the "trade" is coming from Canada, maybe there is no case of "restraint of interstate trade."

The New Hampshire vote appeared not to be close.