A struggle over America’s vitality future erupts on the Canadian border

Hundreds of ft beneath a distant forest close to Hudson Bay, Serge Abergel inspected the spinning generators on the coronary heart of the largest subterranean energy plant on the planet, an enormous facility that converts the water of the La Grande River right into a present of renewable electrical energy sturdy sufficient to energy a midsize metropolis.

Abergel, a senior govt at Hydro Quebec, has for years been engaged on an bold effort to ship electrical energy produced from the river down by way of the woods of northern Maine and on to Massachusetts, the place it might assist the state meet its local weather objectives.

Yet at this time, work on the $1 billion venture is at a standstill.

Over the previous few years, an unlikely coalition of residents, conservationists and Native Americans waged a rowdy marketing campaign funded by rival vitality firms to quash the trouble. The opponents received a significant victory in November when Maine voters handed a measure that halted the venture. Following a authorized struggle, proponents appealed to the state Supreme Court, which can hear arguments on the case Tuesday about whether or not such a referendum is authorized.

At stake is a couple of transmission line. The fiercely contested venture is emblematic of fights happening across the nation as plans to construct clean-energy infrastructure run into opposition from residents immune to new improvement, preservationists and different firms with their very own financial pursuits at stake.

“At the end of the day, everyone might want more transmission for renewable energy,” stated Timothy Fox, vice chairman at ClearView Energy Partners, an unbiased analysis agency. “But no one wants it in their backyard.”

The venture in Maine, generally known as New England Clean Energy Connect, or NECEC, is the type of large-scale, clean-energy infrastructure that can be required if the United States is to shift away from fossil fuels — a transition scientists say is urgently wanted to stop additional catastrophic local weather change. According to a significant examine by Princeton University, the nation should triple its transmission capability by 2050 to have an opportunity at reaching its objective of not including any extra carbon dioxide to the environment by that time.

For years, all the things in Maine was going in keeping with plan.

State and federal regulators carefully studied the venture and gave approvals at each stage. Governors in Massachusetts and Maine had been on board.

And Hydro Quebec and Avangrid, its companion on the venture that may function the transmission strains and tools within the U.S., spent a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} readying building and putting in the primary 78 of greater than 832 new high-voltage transmission poles that may enable vitality produced in northern Canada to maintain the lights on in Boston.

But there was resistance to the venture nearly from the beginning. Maine residents, annoyed by years of poor service by Central Maine Power, an area utility owned by Avangrid, discovered widespread trigger with environmental organizations skeptical of hydropower.

Those native teams discovered deep-pocketed supporters in three vitality firms that function pure gasoline and nuclear crops within the area and that stood to lose cash if cheaper hydropower entered the New England grid.

After opponents received a referendum query concerning the venture on final November’s poll, each side threw cash on the problem, spending greater than $100 million — a report for a Maine initiative — on a slugfest that tied the transmission venture to hot-button points like gun rights and the Affordable Care Act.

Although Hydro Quebec and Avangrid outspent the opposition by a margin of 3-1, residents weren’t offered on the deserves of the venture. On Election Day, 59% of Maine voters authorized a measure that introduced work on the NECEC to a screeching halt, at the very least in the interim.

If the Maine Supreme Court sides with Hydro Quebec and Avangrid, work on the venture might resume and electrical energy may very well be flowing from the reservoirs of Canada into the New England grid as quickly as 2024.

But if the NECEC is scrapped, it can characterize a significant setback for these working to wean the United States off fossil fuels, in keeping with unbiased vitality specialists. Development of a utility-scale clean-energy venture requires money and time, and the prospect that it may very well be killed by voters — even after it’s vetted and permitted by authorities regulators — would inject a degree of danger that would scare away funding.

“As hard as it is to explain and defend a project like this, it is so easy for people to come and torpedo it, and they don’t even have to tell the truth,” Abergel stated. “If you can put a stop to these long-term projects a year before they’re completed, it raises big questions about the energy transition and how we’re going to get it done.”

‘Rich With Water’

Before there was a expensive and acrimonious battle in Maine, there was a easy, idealistic mandate: Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, a Republican, wished to scale back his state’s dependence on fossil fuels.

On a sunny Monday in August 2016, Baker appeared earlier than the statehouse in Boston and signed a regulation meant to ramp up using renewable vitality in Massachusetts. Hydroelectricity, he stated, would “play a crucial role in the Commonwealth’s new balanced and diverse energy portfolio by offering clean, reliable and cost-effective baseload, 24/7/365.”

Baker’s give attention to the always-on nature of hydroelectricity was intentional. While wind farms and photo voltaic panels can now produce substantial quantities of energy, they can not generate electrical energy when the air continues to be or the solar just isn’t shining. But Massachusetts occurs to be comparatively near one of many largest sources of fresh, constant vitality on the planet: Canadian hydropower.

Engineers have been tapping the Quebec area’s intensive community of rivers to provide renewable electrical energy for greater than a century. Today, Hydro Quebec’s 61 hydropower crops produce 95% of all electrical energy within the province, and costs are decrease than anyplace within the United States.

Hydro Quebec has additionally been exporting energy to the United States and different Canadian provinces for many years. Five strains run from the corporate’s grid into New York, Vermont and Massachusetts, and one other main transmission venture is within the works to deliver hydropower into the New York grid.

“We were blessed with a geology that is rich with water,” stated Sophie Brochu, the corporate’s CEO, sitting in her workplace in downtown Montreal. “The electricity is competitive and clean.”

So when Baker set a objective of drastically lowering Massachusetts’ emissions, Hydro Quebec appeared like an apparent selection.

And whereas Massachusetts was paying for the venture, clients elsewhere, together with in Maine, stood to learn. Both states draw vitality from the ISO New England energy grid, a community of energy crops and transmission strains that serves the northeast United States. Lower vitality costs from hydropower would cut back prices for residents from Connecticut to Vermont.

By final 12 months, work on the venture was properly underway. Hydro Quebec was clearing forest the place it might set up about 60 miles of transmission strains in Canada. Foliage had been cleared alongside many of the 145 mile-long transmission route by way of Maine. And in Lewiston, Maine, land had been ready for a $330 million facility that may plug the electrical energy from Canada into the U.S. grid and ship substantial tax revenues to town.

Many Mainers noticed it in another way.

Sandi Howard was rafting by way of a picturesque gorge on the Kennebec River in May 2018 when she first heard about plans to construct transmission strains close by. While a lot of the realm across the river is crisscrossed with logging roads and cleared of bushes, it is usually a preferred vacation spot for rafters, snowmobilers and campers.

Howard quickly emerged as one of many venture’s main antagonists. Armed with a Facebook group and a ardour for the land, Howard unfold the phrase about what she stated was a essentially flawed venture.

“As I started learning more, the concerns started to mushroom,” she stated. “There’s a number of reasons why the project is simply a bad deal for Maine.”

Chief amongst Howard’s worries is the impact the brand new transmission poles can have on the native surroundings.

While roughly 100 miles of the brand new wire can be strung alongside an current high-transmission hall that can be widened, the venture will even require a lower by way of 53 miles of largely uninhabited forest close to the Canadian border. Steel poles can be erected close to streams the place brook trout spawn and in areas that would disrupt scenic vistas.

Those issues, together with questions on whether or not the venture would really scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions, persuaded distinguished environmental teams, together with native Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, to oppose the venture. Critics of hydropower contend that the large-scale flooding required to create reservoirs results in emissions of methane, a potent planet-warming gasoline.

And they are saying the general local weather advantages can be minimal as a result of Hydro Quebec wouldn’t be producing new clear vitality for the New England grid, simply lowering the quantity of hydropower it sells to different markets. A greater resolution could be the set up of rooftop photo voltaic throughout New England, the Natural Resources Council of Maine stated, whereas different Maine residents level to what they are saying is a superior proposal to deliver Canadian hydropower into the U.S. by way of an underground line in Vermont.

Native American tribes in Maine and Canada additionally joined the opposition, protesting the truth that firms stood to “make billions of dollars in profits without consulting or compensating the First Nations on whose ancestral territories its electricity is produced and through which it will be transported.”

In a letter to President Joe Biden, the chief of the Penobscot Nation in Maine, Kirk Francis, stated that “the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ignored its responsibility — and our requests — to consult with us and gave the NECEC its stamp of approval with blinders on.”

Yet one other level of rivalry was the truth that many residents harbor deep animosity towards Central Maine Power and Avangrid. A historical past of poor customer support has made Central Maine Power one of many least fashionable utilities within the nation, in keeping with a examine by J.D. Power.

As if all that weren’t sufficient, there was the truth that Avangrid is owned by a Spanish firm, Iberdrola. That, together with Hydro Quebec’s involvement, led to claims that the venture amounted to a international takeover of America’s vitality infrastructure.

Although a various group opposed the plan, it was in no way clear how they may cease a venture that was already underway and had the help of senior state and federal officers. But Howard and her allies quickly discovered well-funded companions that shared their agenda: three vitality firms that function pure gasoline and nuclear crops within the space and would probably take successful to their earnings if the NECEC venture had been to be accomplished.

The firms — NextEra Energy, Vistra Energy and Calpine — had been quickly funding a marketing campaign to defeat the venture, spending a complete of $27 million on the trouble, in keeping with state filings.

Vistra and Calpine didn’t reply to requests for remark. NextEra stated it was against the NECEC for quite a lot of causes, together with the truth that finishing it might require an costly improve at considered one of its nuclear energy crops in New Hampshire.

By final 12 months, commercials for and in opposition to the NECEC venture had been flooding the Maine media market, unleashing a dizzying collection of claims and counterclaims that blurred the strains between truth and fiction. Battles raged over whether or not the venture would lead to total greenhouse gasoline emissions, how extreme the environmental results could be and the way a lot Maine would profit. Opponents of the venture falsely claimed that hydroelectricity was dirtier than coal, whereas supporters tried to influence voters that passing a retroactive regulation may in the future jeopardize their gun rights.

The debates performed out on the town corridor conferences, TV advertisements, junk mail and social media. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has a house in Maine, produced a phase bashing the venture. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Twitter touted the venture’s potential to scale back carbon emissions and decrease vitality costs.

Hoping to win over skeptical Maine residents, Hydro Quebec and Avangrid modified the brand new transmission poles so they may additionally carry high-speed web cables and supplied the state a reduced charge on some vitality.

It didn’t matter. On Election Day, Maine residents authorized a fastidiously worded poll measure that, if upheld by the state Supreme Court, will successfully kill the NECEC.

“The grid is going to have to get built out significantly to reach our decarbonization goals,” stated Kathleen Theoharides, the Massachusetts secretary of vitality and environmental affairs. “What makes me concerned is the idea that a project that was fully permitted by state entities could go to the ballot and get a retroactive decision from the voters based on a lot of misinformation from energy companies that stood to lose money from this new line coming through.”

“This basically sets the precedent that voters can block these really important infrastructure projects,” stated Robin Millican, director of coverage at Breakthrough Energy, a bunch that’s selling varied efforts to scale back emissions however just isn’t concerned within the venture. “That’s not good for climate overall.”

This article initially appeared in The New York Times.