Northern Pass’s developer has a long track record of public statements attributing the deep New Hampshire opposition to the current proposal to the go-to developer bogeyman – “not in my backyard” obstructionism. Accusing critics of short-sighted “NIMBYism” is even part of Northern Pass’s expensive marketing campaign (which suffers from other deliberately false and misleading claims). Continuing this tradition, the CEO of the developer’s parent company recently derided opponents as “special interests.”

This is loaded, derogatory rhetoric, and exactly the wrong frame for having any constructive dialogue with the New Hampshire communities that face living with the project’s major new infrastructure, as I argued on NHPR last year. And on a personal level, after nearly a year and a half of advocacy on the Northern Pass project, I can say with certainty that the New Hampshire opponents of the current proposal don’t fit the caricature. Those with backyards that would be affected are indeed concerned about their homes, but also about the broader issues of whether the project will benefit their communities, New Hampshire, and the region. Like CLF, they aren’t seeing meaningful public benefits that would make the burdens of the project worth bearing.

Our colleagues at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests recently produced a pair of videos that help bring to life some of New Hampshire’s very real concerns about the project, many of which are key parts of CLF’s Northern Pass advocacy.

In this video, Appalachian Mountain Club’s Susan Arnold explains our history of protecting the White Mountain National Forest and the problems with Northern Pass’s proposal to build new towers through this nationally treasured landscape:

(If impacts in the White Mountain National Forest are of interest to you, I’d also recommend a recently launched resource with lots of information on the details of Northern Pass’s current proposal and the unique permitting process that applies: ProtectWMNF.org.)

In this video, you’ll meet a Deerfield, NH family that would be directly affected by the project:

(In line with prior non-responses to criticism and strong-arm tactics, Northern Pass’s developer posted an odd rebuttal to this video on its website, attacking as “inaccurate” certain general statements and images showing towers close to the family’s house. Leaving aside that accuracy in communications hasn’t been its own priority, the developer has released no detailed mile-by-mile design of the project to back up its post, nor does it deny that its representatives told the family that towers could be built very close to their home. And if you watch the video, it’s clear that the “rebuttal” is more about trying to discredit the Forest Society than providing a meaningful response to the video’s substance.)

From the families who live along the proposed route, to the small businesspeople in the state’s tourist economy who are concerned about the effect of the project on their livelihoods and communities, to the New Hampshire residents and groups questioning the wisdom of erecting massive new towers through treasured landscapes like the White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire’s many critical voices are focused on real, legitimate concerns about the impacts of Northern Pass on our state and beyond. We will not be marginalized, bullied, or deterred as we raise these issues in public forums and in the federal and state permitting processes to come.

CLF was not involved in the production or content of the videos above. They are posted here with the permission of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

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/brianjmatis

This week, the New England Power Generators Association (the trade group for most of the region’s power plant companies, also known as NEPGA) released a new study analyzing the potential effect of the Northern Pass project on New England’s energy market – the first independent study addressing this issue. More than two years after the deeply flawed energy study that Northern Pass’s developer commissioned and has cited unrelentingly since, NEPGA’s study is an important, credible contribution to the public discussion surrounding the Northern Pass project.

The new study’s conclusion: the supposed energy benefits of the project – that it will lower the region’s energy costs and diversify the region’s power supply – won’t materialize. The study also shows that the economic merits of the current proposal are much weaker today than they were when the proposal was formulated two years ago, due to reductions in the cost of natural gas.

You can read NEPGA’s press release about the study (PDF) here and the full study (PDF) here. You’ll find press coverage of the study in the Union Leader here, in the Concord Monitor here, on WMUR-TV here, and on New Hampshire Public Radio here.

A few key takeaways:

• The study’s finding that natural gas prices have declined is not news to Hydro-Québec or to Northern Pass’s developer, which is trumpeting new domestic natural gas supplies as a “game-changer.” What this means, in practical terms, is that the project will not put much downward pressure on the already-low regional market price of power. That’s a problem for Northern Pass: reducing regional energy costs is at the heart of the Northern Pass sales pitch. (As we’ve pointed out before, this “benefit” in fact perversely would put upward pressure on – rather than lower – the rates that most New Hampshire consumers pay.)
• With the economics of the project so tenuous, there is a clear risk that the proponents will seek to qualify Northern Pass power for the benefits afforded to new renewable energy sources under state clean energy laws, a legal change that would unfairly undermine the market for renewable energy development in New England. (The risk that hydropower imports will need subsidies to cover new transmission costs has also recently been cited by critics of the Champlain Hudson Power Express project in New York.) If it’s true, as proponents insist, that Northern Pass doesn’t need subsidies, New England should accept nothing less than a binding legal commitment from Hydro-Québec and Northern Pass’s developer not to seek or accept them.
• NEPGA’s study suggests that Northern Pass would shift Québec hydropower exports from New York and Ontario to New England. This effect may completely offset the supposed carbon emissions reductions from Northern Pass (which are inherently dubious for other reasons) because it is extremely likely that New York or Ontario would ramp up natural gas power plants to make up any deficit. In this regard, the study shows yet again that a rigorous big-picture regional analysis – of the kind that could be provided in the comprehensive regional assessment of our energy needs and the role, if any, for more Canadian imports that CLF and others have sought and Northern Pass’s developer has opposed – is essential to making a well-informed decision on a proposal like Northern Pass.
• The developer’s hair-trigger response – to question the credibility of the sponsors of the study and not the study’s actual findings, a classic Bulverism – speaks volumes. At every turn, the developer has refused to acknowledge or address the problems with its current proposal, even in the face of unequivocal facts that debunk the supposed benefits. Sadly, we can expect the potential rollout of the “new route” for a piece of the project later this summer to follow a similar script.

Above all, NEPGA’s new study underscores that that no one should rely on the stale, incomplete, and misleading information that Northern Pass’s developer is using to sell the project to the public and to government agencies. We need a much deeper, clear-eyed understanding of what Northern Pass would mean for the region’s energy consumers, New Hampshire communities, and the environment on both sides of the border.

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.

This summer, New Hampshire is bracing for news of the Northern Pass project’s future and its “new route.”

It’s now been nearly a year since the federal permitting process for the Northern Pass project was put on indefinite hold. North of Groveton, New Hampshire, the developer – Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT) – is still working behind tightly closed doors to string together a new section of the project route, where there are no existing transmission corridors, by paying landowners substantial sums for property – in many cases, well above market value.

Earlier this month, the chief operating officer of NPT’s parent company, Northeast Utilities, told investors:

Where we are right now is in procuring the last 40 miles of the right-of-way, and I can tell you we are making very, very strong progress in lining up the right of way. I think we’re on track for the middle of the year, approximately August timeframe to have the right-of-way secured and then to be prepared to file with the [U.S. Department of Energy] the route….

NPT’s apparent plan (assuming it really can overcome the considerable obstacles to a new route):

• Declare that it “heard the objections” to the original route (a posture it previewed last April when it agreed to look for new routes)
• Announce a new NPT-controlled route having the “support of property owners” (as it no longer has resort to eminent domain)
• Marginalize those with legitimate objections as “special interests” and
• Seek a speedy, narrow review of the proposal from federal and state regulators (after itself having put the permit process on hold for a year).

Not so fast. Before the news arrives (if it does), it’s worth remembering that whatever new lines the developer manages to draw on the map do nothing to change the project’s DNA or to demonstrate that the project will benefit New Hampshire. A brief review is in order:

Where are the benefits for New Hampshire?

Through  costly marketing efforts, NPT has been trying to sell New Hampshire on the tremendous economic and environmental benefits of Northern Pass. But the supposed benefits just don’t hold up to scrutiny:

• Reduced emissions from “clean power”?

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, CLF’s report on the most recent science demonstrated that new hydropower projects to supply power for Northern Pass are much worse for the climate than NPT’s false advertising claims have led the region to believe and are not meaningfully better than natural gas power plants (the power NPT predicts that Northern Pass would replace) in the early years after reservoirs are developed. As a result, contrary to mistaken but widely disseminated assumptions, importing hydropower from Canada is not a short-term solution that will reduce New England’s or New Hampshire’s carbon emissions. Indeed, the current proposal would have the perverse effect of protecting – rather than hastening the transition away from – PSNH’s low-performing, high-emitting power plants, which are New Hampshire’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. (Despite marketing the project based on its “clean” source of the power, NPT also refuses to acknowledge the relevance or importance of the troubling damage to ecosystems and communities that large-scale hydropower causes in Canada.)

• Lower electric rates?

Those who would live with the new transmission lines, customers of NPT affiliate PSNH, are the least likely to benefit. Despite nearly two years of promises that PSNH would announce a plan to purchase Hydro-Québec hydropower for New Hampshire residents, there is still no agreement to do so. Any modest effects on the region’s wholesale electricity rates (which NPT’s consultant predicted based on outdated economic assumptions about energy costs) don’t translate into lower rates for PSNH customers (who instead are stuck paying the bill for PSNH’s inefficient and dirty power plants). In fact, if Northern Pass succeeds in lowering wholesale rates, it will likely worsen PSNH’s death spiral of increasing rates and fewer customers, leaving those residents and small businesses still getting power from PSNH with higher bills.

• Growing New Hampshire’s clean energy economy and jobs?

There is a substantial risk that Northern Pass would swamp the market for renewable energy projects in New England, especially if state laws are amended to qualify Hydro-Québec power as “renewable.” Furthermore, the project’s high voltage direct current technology means that its massive investment in transmission capacity will wholly bypass the potentially fertile ground for renewable energy development in northern New England. Whatever the short-term construction jobs required (and NPT’s estimates are disputed), the current Northern Pass proposal may diminish the prospects for New Hampshire’s clean energy economy, including needed permanent jobs in the renewable and energy efficiency sectors.

No regional plan addressing new imports

Québec continues to implement its ambitious plan to develop more wild Boreal rivers into a new generation of massive hydropower projects, which will increase its export capabilities. This January, Hydro-Québec commissioned the final turbine at its latest hydropower facility (Eastmain 1-A) and will commission other turbines (at Sarcelle) as part of the same overall project later this year. Construction at the $8 billion Romaine River hydropower project (the subject of the film Seeking the Current) has begun and is ongoing, with the first unit expected to come online in 2014. Northeast Utilities has affirmed that Northern Pass will tap the power from these new projects. Meanwhile, Northern Pass competitors are moving forward with new transmission projects in eastern New England and in New York, among others:

Northern Pass and competitor transmission projects (source: ISO-NE)

More than a year ago, CLF and others urged the Department of Energy to weigh the region’s energy needs and develop a strategic regional plan that would determine a well-informed role for new Canadian hydropower imports in the northeastern United States’ energy future – before moving forward with the permitting process for Northern Pass. NPT’s only response was that responsible planning – encompassing the other pending transmission projects and a full consideration of the reasonable alternatives – would unacceptably delay its project – a truly ironic claim given NPT’s own, unforced, ongoing delay. More incredibly, the Department of Energy has so far sided with NPT, without explaining why.

So as Québec builds more dams and NPT buys up land, our region has no plan of its own. With no framework to understand the nature and extent of the appropriate role for Canadian hydropower, it is difficult if not impossible to make a sound, well-informed decision on whether Northern Pass – or projects like it – should proceed.

Community and grassroots reaction throughout New Hampshire

Since Northern Pass was announced in 2010, the project has inspired a broad-based and spirited movement of people throughout New Hampshire to oppose the current proposal. Last spring, there were massive turnouts at the Department of Energy’s public hearings on the project, with literally thousands attending and providing written and verbal comments both questioning the merits of the current proposal and urging a thorough environmental review. And earlier this year, a coalition of citizens and organizations of many political stripes succeeded in persuading New Hampshire’s legislature to enact a bill preventing projects like Northern Pass from using eminent domain. In another effort, more than 1,500 donors contributed total of $850,000 to enable the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests to preserve the treasured New Hampshire landscape surrounding the historic Balsams resort, including a parcel that NPT had sought to purchase as part of Northern Pass’s transmission corridor. To date, town meeting voters in 32 local communities have passed resolutions and ordinances against the current proposal. Critically, most of these communities are located along the NPT’s “preferred route” that follows PSNH ‘s existing transmission corridor, south of any “new route” that NPT may announce.

NPT’s refusal to consider routing and technological alternatives

At every turn, NPT has rejected calls for in-depth consideration of potential alternatives to its current proposal, including use of an existing high-voltage transmission corridor that extends from Canada, through Vermont and western New Hampshire, to Massachusetts; burying transmission lines in transportation corridors, as is proposed in the New York and eastern New England projects mentioned above; or adding capacity to that same New York project, consistent with that project’s original proposal (it has since been scaled back). Indeed, Northern Pass’s response to the public’s opposition to the project was to “withdraw support” for alternative routes and double down on its “preferred route.” While this stance may be in the economic interest of NPT and PSNH, it’s grossly at odds with a fair, well-informed permitting process that would vindicate the public’s interest in a solution with minimal environmental and community impacts.

If and when NPT comes back from its year of buying up North Country land and relaunches its effort to secure approval of the Northern Pass project, with the only change to the proposal consisting of a new line on the map north of Groveton, there should be no mistake: the fundamental flaws in the current proposal remain. Likewise, whatever NPT’s “preferred route,” CLF remains as committed as ever to securing a comprehensive and rigorous permitting process that identifies superior alternatives and a final outcome that moves us toward – and not away from – a clean energy future for New Hampshire and the region.

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.

Amid new scrutiny, it’s time for Massachusetts to reckon with the elephant in its climate plan (photo credit: flickr/David Blackwell)

The 5 million ton elephant in Massachusetts’s nation-leading climate action plan – the oversold and overstated greenhouse gas emissions reductions from new imports of Canadian hydropower comprising more than 20% of the state’s goal – is too big to ignore. That’s why it’s encouraging that the plan’s misplaced reliance on the Northern Pass transmission project is receiving new scrutiny.

Last December, CLF identified a significant problem with Massachusetts’s “Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020”: it adopted and relied on Northern Pass’s sales pitch that the project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 5 million tons annually and then claimed all those emissions reductions for Massachusetts. After examining the basis for the 5 million ton figure, we concluded that – no way around it – the figure was just wrong; it was calculated on the false assumption – belied by Hydro-Québec’s own data – that imported hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions.  The way Massachusetts was relying on Northern Pass was dubious for other reasons, including the unfairness of Massachusetts claiming all the benefits of a project that will not be located in the state and the fact that there is no concrete commitment regarding how much Northern Pass power Massachusetts electric customers will actually receive.

In February, the problem was confirmed in a technical report (PDF) commissioned by CLF and authored by Synapse Energy Economics, which found that hydropower facilities, especially new projects being built in Québec to supply new imports into New England, have substantial greenhouse emissions – emissions that for several years after construction can be comparable to the natural gas power that Northern Pass would replace.

Last month, Massachusetts think-tank MassINC released an independent analysis (PDF) of Massachusetts’s progress in meeting its ambitious emissions reduction goal – 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2020. The conclusion: Massachusetts is making great strides in some areas, but needs to redouble its efforts if it intends to achieve the goal. One of the biggest uncertainties: the Massachusetts climate plan’s reliance on new imports of Canadian hydropower through Northern Pass.

MassINC’s new report signals, as CLF has argued, that Massachusetts must look elsewhere to secure sufficient emissions reductions by 2020. The MassINC report makes the critical point that it is not up to Massachusetts whether the Northern Pass project is built – and there are many reasons to doubt that it ever will be – not the least of which are the extensive permitting processes and the committed and well-founded community opposition that the project must overcome. Citing Synapse’s findings on the greenhouse gas emissions of hydropower and the higher emissions associated with new hydropower facilities, the MassINC report suggests that any reliance on new imports as an emissions reduction strategy requires a credible, scientifically sound accounting of the targeted reductions, including whether and to what extent the power will come from new hydropower projects. Massachusetts needs to temper its enthusiasm for additional hydropower imports with the same scientific rigor and attention to detail reflected in the Patrick administration’s proposed regulations for biomass power.

The MassINC report is making waves, earning the lead, front page story recently in the Boston Sunday Globe and media coverage throughout the state. Consistent with the MassINC report, CLF does not rule out the possibility that new hydropower imports – if they have minimal environmental and community impacts on both sides of the border, avoid undermining local renewable and energy efficiency, displace our dirtiest power, and provide verifiable emissions reductions – could play a constructive role in a cleaner energy future for the region, particularly when considered over the long term.

But it’s time for the Patrick administration to reconsider its unfounded confidence that Northern Pass is some kind of clean energy panacea that will deliver a fifth of all needed emissions reductions by 2020. The science is clear: it’s not.

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.

The American developers of the Northern Pass project are misleading the public about the project’s most touted environmental benefit (without which they “wouldn’t be doing this”): reducing New England’s greenhouse gas emissions. Presented with clear, unambiguous evidence that the current proposal would not meaningfully reduce emissions and that their public relations campaign is trading in falsehoods, the developers have done nothing to correct the record or provided any substantive response to the evidence.

In mid-February, CLF released a report on the science regarding large-scale hydropower’s emissions of greenhouse gases, the pollutants that are driving climate change. The conclusion: large-scale hydropower projects, especially new facilities, have substantial greenhouse gas emissions that, in their first years of operation, are equivalent to emissions from modern natural gas power plants.

This conclusion means that the proposed Northern Pass project, which would import up to 1,200 megawatts of new Canadian hydropower into New England and displace power from domestic natural gas plants, would not meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as the developers are claiming.  CLF’s report also demonstrated that the assumption at the heart of the developers’ claim that the Northern Pass project would reduce emissions by 5 million tons per year – that Canadian hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions – is unequivocally false.

CLF sent a copy of the hydropower emissions report to Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT). In our transmittal letter, we made clear that the science summarized in the report (some of which was included in NPT’s own regulatory filings) clearly contradicted NPT’s marketing claims and urged NPT to:

• correct the regulatory and public record by retracting and withdrawing all NPT prior statements that hydropower results in no emissions of greenhouse gases and that the Project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by any specific amount, and
• refrain from making any claims regarding carbon dioxide emissions reductions associated with the Project unless and until those reductions are substantiated in a new technical analysis subject to public and permitting agency review.

To date, NPT has taken neither step. The false “no emissions” canard and the unsupported claim of 5 million tons of annual emissions reductions from the project are still prominent fixtures at NPT’s MyNewHampshire.com:

"No greenhouse gases" (source: http://www.northernpass.us/pdf/ads/Jack.pdf)

NPT spokesman Martin Murray did post a non-responsive comment on CLF’s website, to which I responded in detail here. On its own website, NPT then heralded a Hydro-Québec press release responding to the report, and I explained here why the press release neither reflected a close reading of the report nor challenged the report’s fundamental conclusions but, instead, underscored Hydro-Québec’s position that the major promise of new hydropower imports was as a long-term replacement for dirty, costly coal power plants like New Hampshire’s own Merrimack and Schiller Stations – not natural gas.

Where do NPT’s non-responses leave us? Unfortunately, NPT seems poised to continue on with its false and misleading public relations campaign and has shown no interest in an open, honest debate. CLF will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to ensure that the public and decision-makers are fully aware of all the issues associated with the Northern Pass proposal. 

You can support our work by becoming a CLF member and also by telling the permitting agency now reviewing the Northern Pass proposal to consider hydropower’s greenhouse gas emissions – and all the other impacts of Northern Pass power in Canada – as part of the agency’s environmental review – click here to take action.

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/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

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.

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.