Seeking the Current filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair on the bank of Québec's Romaine River (photo courtesy Chercher le Courant)

This month, Seeking the Current wowed audiences across New Hampshire with the sublime beauty of Québec’s Romaine River – a wild, natural wonder that will essentially be destroyed by a new complex of hydropower projects, now under construction.  This complex is only one part of Hydro-Québec’s ongoing building boom – the keystone of the Canadian utility’s aggressive strategy to increase exports to the United States. The film also showed filmgoers that there are better, cheaper alternatives to new hydropower, including wind, solar photovoltaic, solar hot water, biogas, and investments in energy efficiency.  If these alternatives were scaled up and put in place throughout the province, Québec could still export more power to the United States – but without constructing new dams and reservoirs.

During the discussions after the film (one of which you can watch here), we heard the same question again and again – what can we do here in New England? The filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair observed that Hydro-Quebec’s strategy relies on opening new “doors” to New England and other export markets – like the Northern Pass transmission project. That’s another reason why CLF sees the permitting process for Northern Pass as so important – it is our opportunity to scrutinize whether we should open the door and on what terms, given all the impacts of the Northern Pass transmission project and the new Canadian hydropower the project makes possible.  And there is still time for all of us to tell the lead federal permitting agency for Northern Pass – the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) – to do its job by fully considering the impacts of Canadian hydropower.

Understanding Northern Pass’s power source is fundamental to understanding Northern Pass, especially with the developers of the project touting the environmental benefits of Canadian hydropower at every opportunity. PSNH President Gary Long even has said “we wouldn’t be doing” Northern Pass if it didn’t provide a “greener, cleaner energy future.” But when it comes to scrutinizing all the impacts of that same hydropower in the permitting process, the developers change their tune, arguing that the impacts of Hydro-Québec’s strategy to build more hydropower projects and export more power to the northeastern United States are “beyond the reach of” federal law.

On this point, the developers are wrong. Federal law requires that all direct and indirect effects of the Northern Pass project be analyzed and considered as part of DOE’s environmental review. In the words of the Council on Environmental Quality – the office that oversees all federal environmental reviews – “agencies must include analysis of reasonably foreseeable transboundary effects of proposed actions in their analysis of proposed actions in the United States.” The impacts of hydropower in Canada – so stunningly documented in Seeking the Current and so much more worse for the climate than the misleading story Northern Pass developers like to tell – are “reasonably foreseeable” consequences of the Northern Pass project, and the Department of Energy must consider them, alongside all the potential impacts of building a large-scale transmission line through New Hampshire. CLF made this clear in our comments to DOE a year ago, but it is critical that DOE hear from as many voices as possible.

Please join CLF in calling on the Department of Energy to consider the impacts of Northern Pass hydropower in Canada.  With only a few clicks, you can take action here.

It has been apparent for some time that anyone who lives, works or is generally attached to a coastal community should be very concerned about the effects of sea level rise flowing from global warming.

A comprehensive new scientific paper and data tool, that builds on prior analysis, like the “Climate’s Long Term Impact on Boston” from 2005, is getting broad and deep press interest.

What is particularly striking is the ability to use this tool to look at the likely and predictable effects of sea level rise on particular places.  For example, applying the tool to the Boston waterfront confirms that epicenter of new development in the city is right in the bulls eye of sea level rise and if current trends continue the only way to enjoy the new restaurants in that area will involve swimming.

This realization should drive us both to plan in a way that acknowledges this very real threat but also to be even more serious and focused in our efforts to sharply reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are the underlying cause of the damage that is being done to our climate.

Seeking the Current filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair (photo: Red River Theatres in Concord)

The New Hampshire tour of Seeking the Current is off to an amazing start. So far, the documentary about Hydro-Québec’s Romaine River hydropower project has played to blockbuster audiences in Colebrook, Wolfeboro, Wilton, and Concord (including a sell-out last night), and we’ve had a great time participating in lively post-film discussions with filmgoers and the film’s director, Nicolas Boisclair.  Please join Nicolas and CLF at the remaining screenings and discussions that are coming up this week:

• Tuesday, March 13 at 7:00 pm – New Hampshire Audubon Massabesic Center, 26 Audubon Way, Auburn, NH.  This screening is very convenient to southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts filmgoers!  Admission is free, with $5 suggested donation. Sponsored by the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Audubon Society of New Hampshire, and CLF. 
• Wednesday, March 14, 7:00 pm – Howe Library, 13 South Street, Hanover, NH. Admission is free.  Sponsored by CLF and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
• Friday, March 16, 7:00 pm – Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center, 39 South Main Street, Plymouth, NH. $5 admission.

We also have a free showing of the film scheduled for April 5 in Keene, with a post-film discussion:

• Thursday, April 5, 7:00 pm – Putnam Theater, Keene State College, Keene, NH. Admission is free. Sponsored by CLF, the Harris Center for Conservation Education, and the Keene State College Film Society.

If you’ve seen the film, were as impressed as we were, and want to help show Seeking the Current in your community in the coming months, please let me know at ccourchesne@clf.org. We’d love to work with you to make it happen.

In conjunction with the film’s New Hampshire tour, CLF co-hosted a successful webinar last week on the environmental and energy implications of importing more large-scale hydropower into New England. During the webinar, Nicolas shared a preview of Seeking the Current, and participants learned how the issues raised by the film are critical to a full understanding of proposals to import more hydropower, including the Northern Pass project. You can download an audio-visual archive of the webinar at this link (~100 MB .wmv file; Windows compatible only).  To play the webinar, you may need to download some additional software, which you can access here.

Thanks to our many terrific co-sponsors (all of which are noted here) and the extraordinary people who helped bring Seeking the Current and its powerful message to New England audiences. Enjoy the show!

With Northern Pass and other new transmission projects on the horizon, CLF and other leading New Hampshire environmental organizations are presenting a special free webinar on what it really means for New England to import more hydroelectric power from Canada.

The webinar will be next Friday, March 9, 2012, 2:30 to 4pm EST. Click here to register. All you’ll need is a computer and an Internet connection. Please join us, and spread the word to friends, family, and colleagues. The webinar is sponsored by CLF and our friends at the Appalachian Mountain Club, Conservation New Hampshire, The Nature Conservancy in New Hampshire, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF). 

A scene along the Romaine River from Seeking the Current (copyright Chercher le Courant)

The idea is to provide an accessible summary of the environmental and energy implications of imports, including the often-overlooked impacts of the new hydropower developments in Canada that will supply the power. One of the key questions is what new imports will really mean for the climate, and I’ll explain the findings of a recent report commissioned by CLF on the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower. As we’ve often pointed out, whether and how to import more hydropower from Canada is a critical issue for the entire region’s energy future. And it’s not just about New Hampshire and Northern Pass — just last week, the developer of the Champlain Hudson project in New York announced that it is moving forward with a revised proposal for an underwater and underground transmisssion line between Canada and New York City that will have the support of state officials, municipal governments, and environmental groups.

During the webinar, you’ll hear from me, and also from Tom Irwin, CLF Vice-President and CLF-NH Director; Ken Kimball, AMC Director of Research; and Will Abbott, SPNHF Vice President for Policy and Land Management.

The webinar will feature a special guest appearance by Québecois filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair, who will be in New Hampshire this month for a series of screenings of his documentary film, Seeking the Current, which shines an unsparing light on Hydro-Québec and its ongoing $8 billion hydropower project on the Romaine River. We’ve put all the details on the screenings (and the webinar too) at this link.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northern-pass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

(photo credit: flickr/massdistraction)

We appreciate Northern Pass spokesman Martin Murray’s comment on my prior post regarding recent research on the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower and the implications for the Northern Pass project. We are also grateful for Hydro-Québec environment advisor Dr. Alain Tremblay’s comment, to which I responded here.

Although we welcome the feedback and dialogue, we are discouraged that Mr. Murray’s comment addresses none of the substantive points raised by the Synapse report (PDF) or my post discussing the report. We are disappointed as well that the comment dismisses the fundamental need identified by the Synapse report – an honest and credible accounting for the effect of new imports on overall greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of working on providing such an accounting and engaging in a real dialogue about this issue, Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT) has invested heavily in advertising for the Northern Pass project, including the promotion of an emissions reductions figure reliant on new reservoirs that is based on an erroneous zero-emissions assumption. That assumption is contradicted by the Synapse report and Hydro-Québec’s own research, and the marketing claims on this issue (see, for example, here) are thus false and misleading and should be withdrawn immediately, as we have requested in a separate communication to NPT.

The citation to the Climate Action Plan sidesteps the merits of the emissions reduction issue entirely:

• First, the Task Force did not have the information in the Synapse report at its disposal in making its recommendations.
• Second, the Climate Action Plan contains important qualifications on its import recommendation that NPT does not acknowledge.  The recommendation itself contains the proviso that new imports should be pursued “with consideration for the broader environmental impacts of the power sources as well as the impacts that this imported power would have on the development of in‐state renewable resources.” That consideration is the work CLF believe needs to happen but has not.  In this regard, NPT’s dismissal of all questions or “challenges” on these issues is flatly inconsistent with the Climate Action Plan’s recommendation.
• Third, the Climate Action Plan appendix discussing the recommendation (PDF) states that “[t]he benefits to electric customers would be determined by the specific terms of any purchased power agreement and  the reductions to New England fossil fuel generation which would be subject to state regulatory  review and confirmation at the time of any filings for state approval.” (p. 29) In other words, the economic and environmental benefits from imports depend on the details of the proposal, specifically the terms and what generation is displaced. Yet the current proposal includes no Power Purchase Agreement that would benefit PSNH’s own energy consumers, assumes that any future power purchase agreement will be for only a small amount of power, and provides no guarantee or commitment that the imported power will reduce emissions in a meaningful way. The Synapse report directly refutes the only analysis of emissions reductions that NPT has made publicly available. The Climate Action Plan underscores the fundamental need for imports to provide real environmental and economic benefits for New Hampshire, and the current proposal on the table does virtually nothing to meet that need.
• Fourth, unlike all other recommendations in the Plan, enabling importation of Canadian hydro received a number of “no” votes from the Task Force, “due to concerns over the potential environmental impacts of the imported power and the effect imported power might have on development of in-state renewable resources.” Public comments  from a number of stakeholders, including CLF, questioned the entire recommendation based on these concerns. (Comments are summarized at pp. 246-258 of this PDF.) There was a debate then, and that debate should continue now, based on well-sourced and credible information like the Synapse report.

We agree that there is no one single solution to the climate challenge. But any serious effort to confront climate change in New Hampshire must also confront the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the state – PSNH’s aging, inefficient, and uneconomic fossil fuel power plants. As Dr. Tremblay of Hydro-Québec admitted, in comments that NPT is now approvingly citing, “the major environmental challenge facing North America is to replace coal to generate power….” CLF couldn’t agree more.

It seems NPT and its affiliates do not agree with Dr. Tremblay. Importing an additional 1,200 megawatts of hydropower from Canada will not help move New England toward a clean energy future if, as the current proposal is structured and as PSNH has repeatedly claimed, imports would only displace relatively clean natural gas generation, and not the power plants that are worst for the climate, like PSNH’s coal-fired units at Merrimack and Schiller Stations.

With Northern Pass proponent PSNH fighting tooth and nail to protect its guaranteed ratepayer subsidy to keep running those units, the supposed commitment of Northern Pass’s developers to reducing greenhouse gas emissions appears to be a textbook example of a greenwash. Given the emissions data presented in the Synapse report, it is clear to CLF that, if Northern Pass proceeds as proposed, our region will forfeit a major opportunity for meaningful action to confront climate change.

Hydro-Québec hydroelectric projects recently commissioned or under construction (Source: Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources and Wildlife)

Reducing the region’s emissions of greenhouse gases is supposedly the Northern Pass project’s marquee public benefit, its raison d’être as they say in Québec. But would the Northern Pass project do the job?

The answer appears to be: probably not any time soon. Today, CLF is releasing a ground-breaking new technical report regarding the greenhouse gas emissions of Canadian hydropower. The conclusions of the report show that large-scale hydropower, especially new reservoirs, is worse for the climate than Northern Pass’s developers are claiming, with substantial greenhouse gas emissions that are comparable to those of modern natural gas-fired power plants. The current Northern Pass proposal substitutes hydropower for natural gas in New England’s energy mix, meaning that the project won’t reduce emissions by much if any, especially in the near term.

Authored by Synapse Energy Economics, the technical report released today, Hydropower Greenhouse Gas Emissions: State of the Research, is an independent survey of the recent science regarding the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower. The science is clear that the reservoirs behind hydropower dams emit greenhouse gases, relative to the forests and wetlands they flood (which often take greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere). Overall, reservoirs in Québec emit more greenhouse gases over the course of their lives than renewables like wind, solar, and run of river hydropower.

A crucial finding of the report concerns new reservoirs. In the first several years after a reservoir is dammed, large amounts of newly inundated organic material decompose, emitting carbon dioxide that diffuses through the water into the atmosphere. As a result, a reservoir’s net emissions in its early years are very high – starting out even higher than emissions from a natural gas power plant per unit of power generated. This effect is evident in recent, rigorous analyses by several teams of scientists, based on data collected at Hydro-Québec’s Eastmain 1 reservoir in northern Québec. This reservoir is the very same project that Northeast Utilities’ CFO testified under oath last year would be the primary, if not exclusive, source of Northern Pass’s power. Even when their emissions are projected over their lifetimes, newly flooded Canadian reservoirs may emit nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gases emitted by natural gas power plants. By contrast, reservoirs emit only about 20% of the greenhouse gases emitted by typical coal-fired power plants.

This conclusion is the death knell for Northern Pass Transmission, LLC’s (NPT) claim that the current Northern Pass proposal would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 5 million tons. We explained the claim’s key flaw – the report on which it is based erroneously assumes that hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions – back in August. In light of today’s report, CLF is calling on NPT and its partners NU, NSTAR, and PSNH to stop citing that erroneous number and to withdraw all marketing materials for the Northern Pass project that state or imply that Canadian hydropower has no or minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Hydro-Québec is building new hydropower projects that are intended to facilitate new exports to the northeastern United States. To the extent that the prospect of exports is driving the construction of new reservoirs, Northern Pass and projects like it will be responsible for those reservoirs’ emissions and also their other adverse environmental impacts. And if, as the developers’ analysis concluded, the power to be displaced by imports through Northern Pass is overwhelmingly from natural gas plants, the emissions from a succession of new reservoirs in Canada may replace – perhaps completely for a period of time – the emissions of displaced natural gas power. In that scenario, the Northern Pass project would do little – or even nothing – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at least in the near-term.

The report makes another critical point about a different kind of displacement that could occur with Northern Pass. According to a recent study, stepping up Hydro-Québec’s exports to the United States may actually decrease its exports to other provinces in Canada, where the need for fossil fuel-fired power then increases, resulting in additional emissions. Those emissions may cancel out any reductions from displaced power in the United States. This effect is a potential blind spot that needs to be considered and analyzed as part of the public review of any new imports.

The report’s findings are important information regarding the environmental impacts of the project that the U.S. Department of Energy must consider as part of its review of Northern Pass’s application for a Presidential Permit. For that reason, earlier today, CLF submitted the report to DOE along with Synapse’s analysis of the potential effect of Northern Pass on the regional market for renewable energy.

To CLF, the report suggests that new imports could be part of the region’s climate strategy if imports:

• displace dirty power, like project sponsor PSNH’s uneconomic, subsidized power plants, to achieve a meaningful net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without increasing the use of fossil fuel-fired power plants in Canada;
• support – rather than undermine – local renewable projects and energy efficiency efforts in New England; and
• have minimal impacts on the environment and communities on both sides of the border.

PSNH is in a unique position to take its coal units offline, in conjunction with its potential power purchase agreement with Hydro-Québec that is supposedly in the works. Instead, PSNH is marching on with its broken coal-based business model at great cost to New Hampshire consumers and the environment. Unless the proposal changes, the Northern Pass project does not deliver on the developers’ claims and will not advance a cleaner energy future for New England.

Courtesy of bradlee9119@flickr. Creative Commons.

The triple bottom line has become both a catch phrase and, increasingly, a realistic goal for everyone from investors to activists and urban developers. But in Massachusetts, aging MBTA trains and infrastructure coupled with proposed fare hikes and service cuts stand in the way of achieving the triple-bottom-line promise of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).

TOD projects are generally comprised of mixed-use or mixed-income developments that are situated within a half-mile of a mass transit station. They provide residents with easy access to the places they want to go (jobs, doctors, movie theaters, etc.) and place businesses within reach of employees and consumers along the mass transit system.

One of the advantages of TOD projects is their potential to achieve triple-bottom-line returns, providing economic, environmental, and community benefits simultaneously. By encouraging people to use mass transit and rely less on automobiles, TOD projects help to reduce both noxious auto emissions and climate-altering greenhouse gases. In fact, people in highly walkable neighborhoods drive nearly 40% fewer miles than their counterparts in the least walkable neighborhoods, which can reduce traffic-related emissions by as much as 2,000 grams of CO₂ per person per day. Furthermore, the increased walking (at least 10 minutes daily on average) reduces the risk of obesity, regardless of age, income, or gender.

So TOD opens up new opportunities for growth without requiring the costly, carbon-intensive infrastructure needed for cars, and contributes to healthful, walkable neighborhoods that attract both businesses and residents. Sounds great, right?

Unfortunately, there’s a hitch. TOD projects rely on the assumption that the transit system is capable of supporting them. Here in Massachusetts, proposed MBTA fare increases and service cuts, as well as our aging transportation infrastructure, may prevent TOD projects from delivering on their promise. This is a bad thing for Massachusetts residents, for our economy, and for our environment.

The MBTA is old. After putting off badly needed maintenance on the Red Line for several years, an entire section has been shut down on weekends for emergency repairs, cutting off access for parts of Cambridge, Somerville, and beyond. And faced with a $161 million budget deficit, the T is now considering drastic fare increases and draconian service cuts, including potential elimination of over 100 bus routes as well as weekend service on the commuter rail and some subway lines.

The MBTA’s proposed fare increases and service cuts are unacceptable for MBTA riders and could prove disastrous for TOD projects, past, present, and future. Discouraging people from taking public transportation—either by eliminating MBTA service or making that service prohibitively expensive for riders—undermines the triple-bottom line goals of TOD. It may sound obvious, but TOD requires a healthy, functioning, financially accessible transit system to realize its full potential.

CLF is asking the state legislature and the governor to find a comprehensive solution to the MBTA’s funding problems, not just a band-aid for the coming year’s operating budget. And CLF Ventures is committed to finding triple-bottom-line solutions, like TOD, where profitable developments can also yield environmental and community benefits. Without continued investments in our transportation infrastructure in Massachusetts and a comprehensive solution to the T’s funding problems, TOD could become a triple-bottom loss for the economy, the environment, and for MBTA riders.

The nation’s attention may be focused right now on the twists and turns of New Hampshire’s First in the Nation primary. But new pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency put a more troubling spotlight on New Hampshire – and on its largest utility, Public Service Company of New Hampshire (PSNH). 

According to the data, PSNH is the region’s top toxic polluter, and PSNH’s coal-fired power plant in Bow, Merrimack Station, releases more toxic pollution to the environment than any other facility in New England. Because of PSNH, New Hampshire as a whole is first in New England in toxic pollution.

The numbers tell a striking story.  In 2010, Merrimack Station released 2.8 million pounds of toxic chemicals to the environment, mostly in air pollution.  That’s an astonishing 85% of the 3.3 million total pounds of toxic pollution released in New Hampshire in 2010. When you add in PSNH’s coal-fired Schiller Station in Portsmouth and its gas and oil-fired Newington Station in Newington, PSNH was responsible for a total of 3 million pounds of toxic pollution in 2010, more than 90% of New Hampshire’s toxic pollution. 

PSNH’s pollution isn’t saving energy consumers anything – PSNH’s rates are among the highest in New England because of the escalating costs of maintaining PSNH’s old, inefficient power plants. And those rates are slated to steadily climb as PSNH customers – mostly residents and small businesses – watch large commercial and industrial customers reject the costs of PSNH’s above-market coal-fired power to buy from cost-effective, competitive suppliers. As a result, most New Hampshire residents are left with the raw deal of paying among the highest rates for the dirtiest power in New England.

The data is a fresh reminder of why CLF is fighting so hard to hold Merrimack Station accountable for violating the Clean Air Act. In November, CLF made the case in federal court that PSNH’s failure to obtain permits for changes at Merrimack Station has meant that PSNH has evaded requirements for state-of-the-art pollution limits that would reduce its emissions of a wide range of toxic and other pollutants.

It’s true that PSNH’s much-touted and hugely expensive scrubber project now coming online at Merrimack Station will ultimately reduce some types of toxic pollution to the air. But PSNH wants to increase its energy rates by 15% to pay for the scrubber. Other required pollution controls, including those imposed by important new federal rules, may lead to further costs. This will make PSNH’s power plants an even worse deal for New Hampshire ratepayers.

Merrimack Station also sends more carbon dioxide into the air than any other source in New Hampshire, and the scrubber won’t change that. Burning coal is a dirty way to generate power that imperils the climate, and it is time for New England to abandon it for cleaner alternatives that safeguard our health and environment and transition us toward a new energy system.

New Hampshire may never be willing to relinquish its leading spot on the presidential primary calendar. But living with New England’s largest source of toxic pollution despite its unacceptable costs – to ratepayers and the environment – is a distinction that New Hampshire should be doing everything in its power to lose.

photo credit: flickr/OpenThreads

The Northern Pass transmission project is being pitched by its developers as a clean energy proposal for New Hampshire. As I’ve pointed out before, Northern Pass is a regional proposal with dubious benefits in the Granite State. Unfortunately, the developers’ hollow promises have found an audience further south, in Massachusetts.

From the public discussion as well as the developers’ PR blitz, you might think that the Northern Pass – a high voltage transmission line that would extend 180 miles from the New Hampshire-Canada border, through the White Mountains, to Deerfield, New Hampshire – is just a New Hampshire issue. It’s not: the ramifications of this project extend well beyond New Hampshire.  The implications are both regional and enduring, as they will shape the energy future of New England for decades to come.

Given this context, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) should be leading a pro-active, regional assessment of the options for additional imports of hydroelectric power from Canada. So far, DOE has squandered its opportunity to lead such an assessment while the Northern Pass permitting process remains on indefinite hold. Since April of this year, CLF has been urging the DOE to use this delay to deliver a fair, big picture review of the Northern Pass. It’s what New England deserves, and what DOE owes the public.

Although you wouldn’t know it from the media or the developers’ “MyNewHampshire” advertising campaign, Northern Pass also is a Massachusetts issue. Why? As if hidden in plain view, it’s at the center of Massachusetts’s plan to combat climate change. You might say it’s the elephant in the room.

Massachusetts’s 2010 “Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020” (the Plan) seeks to reduce Massachusetts’s greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 25% below 1990 levels by 2020. CLF has applauded the Plan as an aggressive, nation-leading effort. However, we long have been dubious of the Plan’s reliance on potential imports of Canadian hydropower.

Regrettably, the final Plan (at pp. 45-46) uncritically bought the Northern Pass developers’ line that Northern Pass will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.1 million metric tons annually by 2020. Where does the Plan get that figure? The figure was never publicly vetted or discussed during the public planning process in which CLF was an active participant. The only citations are to the developers’ website and to a 2010 report by an energy consulting firm hired by the developers. That’s it. Massachusetts is taking the developers’ sales pitch at face value.

The Plan goes on to claim that Massachusetts can take credit for the entire reduction, even though the current Northern Pass proposal, by design, does not guarantee that Massachusetts customers will purchase any hydropower from Hydro-Québec through Northern Pass or otherwise. So, just how much of Massachusetts’s ambitious GHG reduction goal does Northern Pass’s supposed 5 million tons represent? More than 70% of the Plan’s reduction goal for the electric sector and more than 20% of the Plan’s goal overall. Of the Plan’s “portfolio” of initiatives, the Plan credits Northern Pass with achieving the single highest amount of emissions reductions.

Northern Pass is a highly questionable element of the Plan for a number of reasons. First, it’s not clear how much power Massachusetts will actually get from Northern Pass. Second, the project faces myriad permitting hurdles and isn’t anywhere close to a done deal. Third, Massachusetts has no direct role in the project’s development.

But it’s worse than that. The report by the developers’ consultant – and its 5.1 million ton estimate of Northern Pass’s reductions of GHG emissions – is simply wrong. The report’s error is a contagion that directly undermines the Plan’s ambitious GHG reduction goal.

To make a long story short, the report assumes that Canadian hydropower results in no GHG emissions. That assumption is contradicted by Hydro-Québec’s own field research on the GHG emissions from the recently constructed Eastmain reservoir – the very reservoir where, according to testimony by a developer executive, Northern Pass’s power will be generated.  Together with other scientific literature, the research demonstrates that reservoirs have long-term, non-zero net GHG emissions (in part because they permanently eliminate important carbon “sinks” that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as boreal forests). That makes the  5 million tons, at a minimum, blatantly inflated.

But even more importantly for Northern Pass and Massachusetts’s GHG reduction goal, the same research suggests that Northern Pass may not reduce GHG emissions at all before 2020, if ever. According to Hydro-Québec, a newly inundated reservoir has GHG emissions comparable to a modern natural gas power plant in the decade following flooding.  This chart from a Hydro-Québec paper, which itself likely underestimates reservoir emissions over time, tells the tale:

Natural gas plant and reservoir (Eastmain 1) emissions are similar in first decade of reservoir operation

And according to the developers’ projections, Northern Pass would overwhelmingly displace natural gas-fired generation (itself a missed opportunity to displace the output of coal-fired power plants).  If Northern Pass relies on new hydroelectric facilities in Canada for its power (as the developers and their consultant are assuming), Northern Pass as proposed will have no net effect on emissions in its early years and may never result in meaningful reductions, let alone 5 million tons per year.

Without the claimed reductions from Northern Pass, the Plan cannot come close to achieving the bold 25% reduction in GHG emissions that made headlines, even if every element of the Plan is implemented. In other words, there is a 5 million ton hole in the Plan that Massachusetts needs to fill with real and verifiable reductions.

CLF has been making this case during Massachusetts regulators’ review of the proposed merger of Northeast Utilities and NSTAR – the same companies behind Northern Pass – that week approval to form the largest electric utility in New England. Piggybacking on the Plan, Northern Pass’s developers are citing the emissions reductions from the project as the premier “climate” benefit that Massachusetts will supposedly get from the merger. That benefit appears right now to be a zero; particularly in light of the merger’s negative impacts, Massachusetts deserves a lot more to satisfy the “net benefit” standard that the merger must achieve to gain approval.

In the months ahead, we also will be pushing back against Hydro-Québec and its corporate allies in Massachusetts, who are now urging radical changes to Massachusetts’s clean energy laws that would subsidize large-scale hydropower imports, at the expense of local renewable energy projects that provide jobs and economic benefits in Massachusetts and throughout New England. The Plan itself explains the reason this is a bad idea – large hydro is a mature technology that is economic and cost-competitive without any additional public support; large hydro also has caused dramatic environmental damage and major disruptions to native communities in Canada. If imports secure little or no reduction in GHG emissions, the case for new subsidies disappears altogether.

Some may be hoping that no one is looking seriously at what Northern Pass would mean for the climate and that the Northern Pass debate will remain within New Hampshire’s borders. CLF, however, is committed to securing real scrutiny of Northern Pass’s misleading claims, ridding Massachusetts’s climate plan of its faulty reliance on Northern Pass, and advancing clean energy solutions that will, in fact, meaningfully reduce our region’s carbon footprint while enabling Massachusetts to achieve its full 25% reduction in GHG emissions by 2020.