Act 250 and Wind Turbines in Vermont

Dividing Environmentalists about Wind Turbines

There's a major fight going on right now in the Vermont State House about wind.  Senate Bill 30 would require Act 250 review of energy projects.  As John Dillon of VPR wrote:

The legislation would give local communities an effective veto in deciding whether a renewable project is built in their town. The bill does that by saying projects must follow the land use criteria in Act 250, Vermont's main development control law. Act 250 says developments shall conform with town and regional plans
Steve Wright of Craftsbury is a former state fish and wildlife commissioner .... said he's incredulous that mainstream environmental groups...do not want to see the landmark land use law extended to energy projects.
"When the environmental community in Vermont won't support a bill that has as its core a more effective use of Act 250, that's a problem," Wright said.

Meanwhile, some groups, such as VPIRG, are doing a full court press against the legislation.  There's a film and gathering at the State House tomorrow.  Due to my former position on the Hartford (town) Energy Commission, I have already received several emails with links, urging me to email my senator in opposition to this bill.  According to the anti-Senate-Bill-30 campaign,  environmental groups oppose the bill as written because it overreaches and targets clean energy and not dirty energy projects. 

Act 250, Governor Shumlin and Animal Farm

Act 250 is a land use act that was passed in the early 70s.  When the interstate highways made Vermont more accessible to tourists, there was a gold rush to develop ski resorts and so forth.  Our mountains would have been completely chopped up by competing tourist businesses, and not all of the businesses would have been viable.  Act 250's  requirements for careful environmental review preserved our beautiful mountains.  Some would say its requirements are draconian, not merely careful. However, these requirements have been in effect for about forty years, and they seem to be working to protect our ridges.  They protect the ridges from everything...except wind developments.

Some "clean energy projects," such as wind turbines, have been given an exemption from Act 250.  They don't have to satisfy an Act 250 review. Among other things, this exemption takes land use powers from the local towns and given it to state siting commissions.  This sort of transfer of power from the towns to the state is unpopular with almost everyone in Vermont, which is why Senate Bill 30 has bi-partisan support. The bill gives land-use decisions back to the towns.

At one point in the past, however, Governor Shumlin stated that he wanted Act 250 review of an energy project.  In December 2010, I attended a conference on energy conservation and renewable energy.  Governor-elect Shumlin spoke at the conference.  At that time, he was asked about a biomass plant that was proposed for southern Vermont.  Shumlin was basically against it.  He said biomass is the "least attractive" renewable technology, and that he hoped the biomass plants underwent Act 250 review. 

And so we end with Animal Farm in which "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."  In Vermont, Act 250 review of energy projects is important, except in the case where the energy projects are more-equal than other energy projects.  In other words, except in the case where the administration supports the energy projects, and doesn't want anything standing in their way.

Wind in Vermont: a Video

The people in this video, Margaret Harrington and Annette Smith, are eager to shut down Vermont Yankee. They are speaking on a TV series called "Nuclear Free Future."  This makes parts of the video hard to watch.  However, Annette Smith is realistic about the inability of wind projects to replace Vermont Yankee.

VPIRG and Governor Shumlin and Green Mountain Power have been very active in favor of wind.   VPIRG's booklet about shutting down Vermont Yankee proposed hundreds of wind turbines to replace it.  The Coalition for Energy Solutions (I am part of that group) wrote a report two years ago which debunked the VPRIG report.  Here's my blog post about the press conference for our report.

Annette Smith does not buy into the "wind-instead-of-Yankee" scenario favored by VPIRG. This video is a reasonable review of the current wind situation in Vermont.

I do not agree with everything in this video, but it has many valid points.  For example, the ridgeline water issue is well described.  On the other hand, wind doesn't break up large animal habitat badly, once the construction is complete.

I do not plan to go through this video word for word, however. Overall, I think this is worth watching.

A Lengthy Debate and a Short Post about Mystery Stories

In late March, I debated James Moore of VPIRG at Harwood High School in central Vermont. Thanks to Cavan Stone, the debate is finally up at blipTV so I can embed it in my blog. Thank you, Cavan!

The debate is pretty long, but it was held at an interesting time, right after Fukushima, when the situation was still very unsettled. I talked a lot about Fukushima, because I felt Moore would hammer the industry relentlessly on the subject.

So. A member of the audience came to me after the debate and said I talked too much about Fukushima. She said that people in Vermont care about Vermont, not Japan. You can't please all of the people all of the time, I guess.

I saw several anti-nuclear local heavy hitters in the high school auditorium audience, which surprised me. This was at a high school, part of an "Energy Project" the high school was doing. As I left, Moore was speaking to some of them, perhaps doing a retrospective-lessons learned about debating me. Or perhaps I flatter myself.

I am very grateful that Howard Shaffer was there with me and we drove together. Shaffer gave me emotional and technical support. He answered some of the hard questions! He also had a 7-curie tritium exit sign, which we used as a significant show-and-tell.

People in Vermont have been convinced that the Vermont Yankee tritium leak was pretty close to "the end of the world as we know it." When Howard holds up a sign that contains about three times as much tritium as leaked from the plant, it makes a difference to people's perceptions! Seeing is believing.

Forbes has a good article on tritium exit signs, by the way.

Something Completely Different: Mysteries and Thrillers and Other Light Reading

I have a light-hearted blog post at ANS Nuclear Cafe today: Mysteries and Thrillers and What I learned about Nuclear Communication. My three teachers: Richard Hannay of 39 Stepa, Harry Bosch of the LAPD series by Michael Connolly, and of course, Miss Marple.

The Debate Gets Weird

The Debate

In December, Howard Shaffer and I debated James Moore of VPIRG and State Senator Dick McCormack (formerly on the VPIRG board) about Vermont Yankee. I blogged about it in my post The Debate Goes On. If you have the time, you can even watch the entire debate on that post. Little did I know that the debate recently caused James Moore to call the Vermont Attorney General's Office and the Montpelier Police Department, believing he had received a death threat.

The death threat did not happen during the debate. It apparently happened in a newsletter, written by John McClaughry, the head of Ethan Allen Institute. The Energy Education Project, which I direct, is part of the Ethan Allen Institute.

The Statement

Back to the debate with Moore and McCormack. At least twice during the debate, James Moore said that Vermont Yankee hadn't killed anybody "yet" with an emphasis on "yet." The implication, of course, was that the plant was about to kill someone. During the debate, I found this hard to answer.

Moore had made a a bizarre statement, when you think about it. What he said is true of just about anyone or anything. My lawn sprinkler hasn't killed anyone "yet." I haven't killed anyone "yet." I presume James Moore hasn't killed anyone "yet." By saying "the plant hasn't killed anyone yet," Moore managed a soundbyte that was threatening but ultimately meaningless. Moore didn't give a reason or method that Vermont Yankee might kill someone in the future, he just said that it hadn't happened "yet."

Aftermath, Part 1

For a few days after the debate, at random moments, I had random thoughts. Some of my thoughts included:

• I should have challenged Moore. I shouldn't have let him just say that with no explanation. I should have asked him why and how he expects the plant to kill someone.
• I should have asked him if they should never open the Kleen Energy Plant in Connecticut because it already killed six people when it blew up shortly before opening.
• Or maybe a natural gas plant gets to kill someone and it's okay. Maybe if a natural gas plant kills someone already, that is better than a plant that has not killed anyone yet.
• I should have....

After a while, though, I forgot all about this exchange and all the answers I did not give. I am bit of a worry-wart. I am always sure I could have done a better job of debating. Or a better job of whatever I do. After a while, I let it go. You might say that I let "yet" go.

Aftermath Part 2: The Joke

However, what I worry about, others think is funny. Apparently, someone watched the video and made a joke to John McClaughry. This person said that the plant hadn't killed anyone yet, and he hadn't killed anyone yet, either, but he was thinking about James Moore as a candidate. McClaughry published the remark in his newsletter. To see the original joke within the newsletter, follow this link and look at the bottom of page 6.

Aftermath Part 3: The Police

Anne Galloway of Vermont Digger saw the remark in McClaughry's newsletter. The comment about the debate was two sentences long. She notified James Moore and then posted a lengthy blog about what happened next. An excerpt follows:

When I asked Moore about it earlier this week, he hadn’t seen the newsletter. But when he read the comment, he immediately called the Vermont Attorney General’s Office and the Montpelier Police Department.

“Most people agree that we should not tolerate violence in public discourse, much less promote it,” Moore wrote in an e-mail. “This kind of threat is really irresponsible and runs counter to Vermont’s proud history of community debate and discussion. The Ethan Allen Institute should know better than to spread this kind of dangerous rhetoric through its official newsletter.”

McClaughry’s response? “I think Paul Burns (VPIRG’s executive director) should lighten up.”

“It was a droll remark made after Moore introduced the subject of killing,” McClaughry elaborated.

Moore said it isn’t the first time VPIRG staff have been threatened, though not this personally in a long time.

He was somewhat relieved to hear that McClaughry said it was a joke, Moore said: “There are people out there who aren’t mentally stable.”

Bob Stannard, a lobbyist for Citizens Action Network, an anti-Yankee group, who has worked with Moore for three years, said McClaughry crossed “the line of civility here in Vermont.”

“It is unconscionable that John McClaughry would publish this quote with emphasis on YET,” Stannard wrote in an e-mail. “McClaughry has made a career of being a public figure. He knows the rules. He’s either getting old or is much more vicious than most people would be inclined to believe. At the very least he owes Mr. Moore an apology.”

Giffords

Now, I haven't been hiding under a rock for the last few weeks. I am fully aware that we are more concerned with the dangers of death threats against public figures since the horrible event in Arizona. Still, two sentences in a newsletter doesn't seem to me to be worth quite this much angst. We aren't talking about stalkers, people who are obsessed with other people, or anything like that. It was clear to me, reading the newsletter, that the sentences were a joke.

However, the sentences were not directed at me, so I admit it was easier for me to see that they were a joke.

Even if they had been directed at me, though, I would look at this a little differently. John McClaughry is a former Vermont Senator, and a man who has held many responsible positions. If he had heard a real death threat against Moore, he would not have taken it lightly. Someone made a joke, McClaughry published the joke, and meanwhile...

Meanwhile. Times changed. A gunman in Arizona changed everyone's opinion of what is or is not a threat.

Overblown

And yet, even with Giffords in our minds, I think this entire incident is overblown. I am truly sorry Moore felt threatened. I also wonder how much he exaggerated the idea of being threatened for his own rhetorical reasons. I don't like to hear McClaughry described in nasty ways. I wish none of this had ever happened. I had forgotten about all the "yet" business, and I plan to forget it again. It's all too bizarre.

However. I think it's all going to get even more bizarre around Vermont as the winter and spring roll forward. I am pretty sure that I haven't seen anything yet.

Image of The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse, 1902. From Wikipedia. Trying to discover the events that haven't happened yet.

The Debate Goes On

This morning, Howard Shaffer wrote an excellent post at the ANS Nuclear Cafe blog: Vermont's nuclear debate, continued. In Howard's blog post, he mentioned the real-time debate/discussion that we had on the Walking Through Life local access television show about a week ago. This show, hosted by Linda Carbino, often deals with issues of healing and recovery. She is a gracious moderator, and frequently interviews local politicians.

On Carbino's program, Howard Shaffer and I debated Senator Dick McCormack and Mr. James Moore. Moore is Clean Energy Program Director for VPIRG. McCormack has been on the VPIRG board. They are both foes of Vermont Yankee.

I decided to post the video here. It is a full hour long, so I doubt many people will watch the whole thing. If you want to skip ahead to the 25 minute mark, you can see Senator McCormack say something like: "the idea that people are entitled to all the electricity they want, when they want it, is maybe an outdated concept." A little later in the show, I point out that many places in India have this situation: people cannot have all the power they want whenever they want it. McCormack may like the idea of poor people doing without electricity, and rich people having diesels in the backyard. I don't like it.

Well, here it is. Our debate in all its glory.



By the way, local commentators seem surprised that some people think Vermont Yankee might continue to operate. This morning's article by Terri Hallenbeck of the Burlington Free Press is titled Some Hold Out Hope Yankee Can Stay Open. The article has already had 88 comments.

Nucleonics Week

I said that I would keep people informed of reactions and reviews of the Coalition for Energy Solutions report Vermont Electric Power in Transition.

A brief review of the report is in Nucleonics Week, May 5 edition. The review is by Suzanne McElligott and appears on page 8 of the magazine. Since I know what our report says, I was more interested in the article's quote from James Moore of VPIRG. Moore is the author of the Repowering Vermont report which we reviewed.

A few days ago, Moore had this to say about us and our report in the Brattleboro Reformer: Their analysis, if you can call it that, is disingenuous," he said. "It’s a Vermont Yankee support group manipulating the numbers to paint the picture that they want."

In Nucleonics Week, he seems to have changed his tune. Instead of "their analysis, if you can call it that," his new words are "no surprise." Here's the quote:

If coalition members “were just focused on capital costs then yes, building hundreds of megawatts of renewable generation costs a lot. Building hundreds of megawatts of anything costs a lot, this shouldn’t’ be a surprise.”

I was wondering what part of our analysis was disingenuous. That word has a nice ring to it, but it is more accurate to acknowledge that the high costs of renewables are "no surprise."

I am glad Moore noticed, however belatedly, that our report simply quantifies a situation that is intrinsically-- no surprise.

Matt Dunne

While I was in Montpelier for the press conference, I gave a copy of our report to Matt Dunne, a candidate for the Democratic Gubernatorial nomination. Today, Vermont Buzz has a review of his web site and energy policies. Like all the Democratic candidates, he wants to shut down Vermont Yankee. Still, I found the review interesting because Matt acknowledges the need for baseload power, but plans to supply it with biomass. Many environmentalists in Vermont seem to think that baseload is "your father's Oldsmobile."

Otter Creek

This just in....

The small Otter Creek Hydro station, which has supplied locals with inexpensive power for years, needs maintenance and has been sold to CVPS. It is 18 MW (actually, we are talking about a series of hydro plants here) and was sold for $33 million. A further $13 million in maintenance will be required. Rates are going up for the plant's customers.

Even existing renewables are not free.

Some Results from our Press Conference

I guess we really won't know until we see what kind of coverage we get, but I wanted to post about our Montpelier press conference yesterday. At this conference, the Coalition for Energy Solutions announced and released our evaluation of VPIRG's report on replacing Vermont Yankee with renewables.

First of all, it was a gorgeous day. Just before our conference, the Race to Replace (Vermont Yankee) took off from the Statehouse steps. These were forty Middlebury College students riding to insist upon clean, affordable, renewable energy. (Well, it works for them.) I took some pictures as the bike riders indulged in the dangerous process of eating bananas, completely careless of the radiation consequences.

The bike ride had invited all the gubernatorial candidates to speak, and the five Democratic candidates came. I listened to them all bash Vermont Yankee. Some, like Matt Dunne, were upbeat about the challenge, and the great future Vermont would have in leading the world in renewables. (Did I mention that I know Matt's wife, Sarah Stewart Taylor? It is typical of both of them to be upbeat. I gave Matt a copy of our report.)

Other candidates, like Peter Shumlin, preferred to attack. The tritium, the aging hulk, the out-of-state owners who will not fund de-commissioning, how you need someone who will hold their feet to the fire.

Vermont Digger videotaped most of it. Here's Shumlin if you want to see him.

Meanwhile, I continue to learn how things work. Turns out that the two legislators, Senator Peg Flory and Representative Patty O'Donnell, did not introduce us at our press conference. They did not consider themselves to be sponsoring this press conference, but they were enough in favor of it to reserve the room for us. (They probably hadn't even had a chance to read the report.) If an ordinary citizen reserves the room, a legislator can "bump" the person from the room and reserve it herself. In that case, our press conference would have been sunk. We thank Representative O'Donnell for making the reservations that ensured we would be able to use the room.

The conference itself went well. All the Coalition members were there, and we all spoke, which made it run a little long. Some of the press were there, and Anne Galloway of Vermont Digger recorded part of it. (Some of the video may appear on the Digger website.) James Moore of VPIRG was also there part of the time. (Moore wrote Repowering Vermont.) He hung out in the back of the room and left early.

It was a busy day in the Statehouse, as the legislature tried to take care of the overdrawn unemployment fund, the state budget and...well...everything. The floor vote bell chimed almost constantly. We heard that other reporters would probably review our report later, when things stop hopping in Montpelier. The legislative session is supposed to close next week.

Meanwhile, the Brattleboro Reformer covered our report. As I am posting this, there are 21 comments, many positive toward the report. (And thanks to Rod and David who wrote comments.) I will keep you informed as more articles are published.

Press Conference

Repowering Vermont?

Last summer, VPIRG issued a report Repowering Vermont, explaining how renewables will provide power after (they hope) Vermont Yankee is closed. I discussed this report to some extent in my recent post on the Legislative Consensus economic report.

The Group and The Evaluation

I belong to a group, Coalition for Energy Solutions. We are all local energy professionals: one physicist, one chemist (me), and four engineers. Some of us have active careers and companies, some are semi-retired. At any rate, we felt that this VPIRG report overstated the ease of replacing Vermont Yankee with renewables, and understated the costs. (Actually, they didn't state the costs.) We began doing research for a report on the costs and engineering feasibility of their recommendations.

It has been a long road, in which we evaluated the capacity factors of wind farms in Maine, called foresters to assess the sustainable yield of our northern forests, and tried to assess the costs and reliability of cow power. And of course, we argued with each other, and improved our estimates, and argued and improved some more. All six of us seem to be from Missouri...Show Me! We finally finished the report: well-documented, a little geeky, low on graphics, but we backed up every straight-forward number, and argued out every estimated factor. Let's put it this way: I think it's the best report out there on renewables for Vermont, and I'm not just saying that because I am one of the authors.

Launching Now!

So, now it's Showtime! We are having a press conference at the Statehouse in Montpelier to launch the report tomorrow afternoon. We all chipped in for xeroxing and we will give a copy to every legislator in Vermont tomorrow. Patty O'Donnell, the representative from Vernon, reserved the room for us. We will be introduced by Representative O'Donnell and Senator Peg Flory, a Senator who voted for Vermont Yankee.

I include the press release below. A summary of the report is on our website, and the entire report can be downloaded from that page of the site. (You don't have to register.)

A Thank You

A huge thank-you to Rod Adams of Atomic Insights for his post about this press conference.

Press Release

PRESS CONFERENCE

STATE HOUSE - Cedar Creek Room

APRIL 30

1:30 -3:00 pm

Subject: Release of Vermont Electric Power In Transition (VEPIT), an Evaluation of the feasibility of the renewable proposals in the 2009 VPIRG report, Repowering Vermont.

The VEPIT Evaluation has been prepared by the Coalition for Energy Solutions, a group of six engineers and scientists from the Upper Valley, four of them Vermonters. They are: Meredith Angwin, Wilder; Steve Fox, South Pomfret; Willem Post, Woodstock; Peter Roth, Quechee; Robert Hargraves, Hanover, NH; and Howard Shaffer, Enfield, NH.

Our Evaluation makes the same assumptions about total electric demand, total purchases from the grid, and complete use of renewables (no extensive gas-fired back-up) as Repowering Vermont. Both Repowering Vermont and our Evaluation assume that Vermont Yankee power will not be available to Vermont. Both consider only the issue of where Vermont (not New Hampshire or Massachusetts) get their energy supply. Both consider solar, biomass, wind, cow power, hydro and landfill methane.

However, our Evaluation also considers the engineering realities of cost, location, and environmental impact. Our evaluation uses appropriate capacity factors for wind, solar, and biomass availability, and documents its sources. The Evaluation uses the best cost data it could find, and documents its sources. Repowering Vermont does not state its capacity factors, and its “economic evaluation” is not traceable.

Our Evaluation separates engineering from policy. It includes some policy recommendations in an Afterword. It finds that the proposed supplies could be built if sufficient funds were available. Building all those renewables will take far longer than estimated in Repowering Vermont, because of the impacts discussed.

Our Evaluation does not discuss Vermont Yankee issues. However, the conclusions of the Evaluation, and the general opinion of the Coalition members, favor extending VY’s license while building renewables at an achievable pace.

Our Evaluation, and more information about the Coalition and its members may be viewed at:http://www.coalitionforenergysolutions.org.

For more information contact Howard Shaffer or Meredith Angwin.