HOUSE LEADERS, OFFERING UP SOME TANTALIZING CLUES about the omnibus energy legislation they are developing, said the bill will emerge sometime around mid-April and deal in some fashion or another with hydroelectricity, offshore wind, natural gas, and solar. The officials described their efforts as a balancing act, promising the package will not increase the average price of electricity beyond what it is now.
Reading between the lines, the lawmakers appeared to be indicating they would back new natural gas pipeline infrastructure to help bring down the price of electricity even as they put forward measures to subsidize hydroelectricity from Canada and offshore wind.
“It’s a balancing act,” said House Majority Leader Ronald Mariano of Quincy. “Hydro comes in at one price per kilowatt hour, wind comes in higher because of the high infrastructure costs. You’ve got to balance this thing out.”
Mariano said that as much as he and his colleagues support the development of renewable forms of energy, price has to be a primary consideration. “We’re in an election year,” Mariano said. “If we come in and we’re 10 to 12 cents higher per kilowatt hour, we’re all going to be looking for jobs.”
Rep. Thomas Golden of Lowell, who as co-chair of the Legislature’s energy committee is helping to draft the omnibus energy legislation, declined to go into specifics about what would be in the bill. He said it would deal with offshore wind, hydroelectricity, and natural gas. He said a legislative conference committee is working on reshaping a key solar incentive; if that conference committee is unable to reach an agreement, he said that issue would probably be rolled into the omnibus. He declined to provide any details on what about natural gas would be included in the legislation; federal regulatory agencies have the final say on whether new pipelines get built or not.
Mariano and Golden spoke after they and four of their colleagues (Sen. Marc Pacheco of Taunton and Reps. Patricia Haddad of Somerset, Sarah Peake of Provincetown, and James O’Day of Worcester) spoke glowingly on Monday about a visit to Denmark last year to learn about the offshore wind industry in Europe. The lawmakers gave their presentation as part of a two-day US offshore wind conference at the Inter-Continental Hotel.
Haddad, the Legislature’s biggest offshore wind champion, has been pushing for a special set-aside for the technology. The third-ranking leader in the House said she wants the state to commit to purchasing a significant quantity of offshore wind – as much as 2,000 megawatts over a 10-year period – to help build the industry, which she believes in the long run could produce lots of jobs and lots of power at reasonable prices.
But Haddad, like her colleagues, warned those in the audience that the omnibus energy bill may not be entirely to their liking. “There’s a really big picture here,” she said, noting that pricing has to be reasonable and natural gas is also needed. “We are not walking away from wind, but we’re going forward in a way that’s good for consensus,” she said.
Mariano said the omnibus energy legislation may not be a bill that the audience would love, but it could be one they like. “We cannot come in with a cost that’s going to be a shock,” he said.
Earlier in the day, US Sen. Edward Markey told the conference that offshore wind in the United States is poised to take off. He said offshore wind needs supportive policies at the federal and state level. He said he intends to push for legislation in Congress that would extend the 30 percent investment tax credit for offshore wind through 2025.
Markey barely mentioned the cost of offshore wind in his remarks, instead focusing on the geopolitical and climate benefits of building an offshore wind industry in the United States. He said the industry could employ thousands of people and provide clean energy that would allow the country to lessen its dependence on oil from the unstable Middle East.
“We are at a crossroads for America’s energy future,” Markey said. “The answer to American’s clean energy future is really blowin’ in the wind.”
Don’t be fooled. Legislators are forcing the early retirement of existing nuclear and coal to be replaced with Canadian hydro and Pennsylvania natural gas.
In spite of the promise to avoid sticker shock, there is no way to leave stranded serviceable power plants, build new pipelines to Pennsylvania, and high voltage lines to Canada without skyrocketing electric rates. And that is if we avoid planting useless wind turbines all over the place.
Sounds like a good start, but where is nuclear in the mix?
Great plan, back to importing natural gas and Canadian hydro energy and exporting Massachusetts energy money and jobs. And for the most blatant hypocrisy of all, importing Canadian hydro while suffocating local Massachusetts Small and Micro hydro with over-regulation and lack of government support. Look at the Department of Energy Resources website, they don’t even list hydro as a renewable !
Whether there is “sticker shock” or not depends upon whose ox is doing the goring.
What I don’t trust is for the legislature to summarize the costs in an honest or transparent manner, claiming that, say, lifetime costs of wind and solar are one thing, but failing to mention the lifetime costs of having ratepayers pay for pipelines.
And the business from Mariano about “We’re in an election year, If we come in and we’re 10 to 12 cents higher per kilowatt hour, we’re all going to be looking for jobs” is a fig leaf, an excuse, and a demonstration that the present Beacon Hill barons are incapable of properly leading the state to where it needs to be. Remember, this energy policy will govern for the next 20 years.
No matter, whatever they decide, people with in-place investments will respond appropriately, and technology will support them, even if it is in a manner the public, the barons, and ISO-NE do not like.
Of course, they are *still* kicking the can down the road. Their practice of doing that is why we are in the mess we are in in the first place.
Dunno, if I were a high-tech company, Rhode Island, New York, and Maine are lookin’ better all the time. As is grid defection.
Moreover, those “high voltage lines to Canada” are contingent upon the good people of Maine and New Hampshire agreeing to build those lines across their land.
Come to think of it, the same would be true of powerlines from offshore wind, but across Massachusetts.
The idea that power prices would stay the same when the price of oil, coal, solar, & wind are all dropping should leave people’s heads scratching. The region has lots of excess generation capacity so the final bill need not be weighted to adding a lot of power supply. Cut out some of the subsidies for transmission and pipelines and shift the investment into things that balance the grid. Renewables will push aside oil and coal gradually; no need to rush the conversion and end up with an overbuild of gas infrastructure. Offshore wind producers should be given a chance!
Marie Jane says:
A question to each of you who so glowingly speak of your wind-industry-paid-for-junket to Denmark.
After your meeting with the wind industry/DongEnergy, did you take a moment to visit with the man in the street, the people in Denmark who are paying some of the highest energy costs in the world and not unlike many you represent, here, in your state of Massachusetts, are suffering the ill-effects of the industrial wind turbine. You may want to take a moment and view the video ” Wind Turbine Syndrome, a matter of bad prevention? ” Did you seek out Professor Moller an acoustician and researcher of low frequency noise who was let go from Aarlborg University, perhaps as a result of his revealing research?
When you came back, did you pursue supporting an in depth health study about the impacts of low frequency noise and infrasound on humans? Did you take a moment to think about possible further destruction to our significant fishing industry? Land based, we know industrial wind turbine to negatively impact the environment, do we really know the impact of offshore wind turbines on sea life and pollution? Did you ask yourself why you would want to put your people in further debt by offering significant tax incentives for a product that is fairly short-lived and for an industry and energy source that has known serious health and environmental impacts and is, in essence, ineffective and inefficient?
There really is no balancing act or averaging this thing out. Election year or not, every year and all the time, we want to know the details and truths about each of the considered energy option’s costs, efficiency and effectiveness separately, no bundling. We want and expect research and results and remedies for known and inherently detrimental side-effects before legislation or implementation. Without knowing any of these details, our efficient, effective and dependable energy resource industries, coal and nuclear, have been decimated and replaced with legislated mandatory unrealistic renewable energy goals, leaving the population of the U.S. quite vulnerable.
Blindly accepting the industrial wind turbine agenda for geopolitical “benefits” is unacceptable because the industrial wind turbine will not benefit the “climate” or remedy any other of the world’s problems.