Wind Power in Vermont, After the Election: Guy Page Guest Post

Since Election Day,  the future of Vermont wind power is less certain

 Guest post by Guy Page

Election Day, November 8, 2016, was bleak for the future of ridgeline wind power in Vermont. The outcome of local, state and national voting signaled a vote of no confidence in the growth of utility-scale wind power in the Green Mountain State.

Local voting
Iberdrola, developers of the 24 turbine Styles Brook project, promised host towns Grafton and Windham there would be no development without voter approval by referendum. On November 8, Grafton voted 235-158 and Windham 180-101 against construction, and Iberdrola has said it will honor its commitment.

Local Vetoes a Harbinger
The Windham-Grafton vote was the latest in a line of anti-wind development referenda. Unimpressed by the 2016 Vermont Legislature’s conditional gift of slightly more say in the energy siting process, municipalities are now bypassing Montpelier. If this trend of “permission by referendum” continues, towns will have carved out a local veto power for themselves over ridgeline wind development. A new precedent is being set. This is Vermont, after all. One way or another, local people will jealously protect their control of the landscape.

State Results
During the governor’s race, candidate Phil Scott promised a moratorium on ridgeline wind development if elected governor. His opponent, Sue Minter, did not. Voters chose Scott by a nine-point margin. Minter even lost hometown Waterbury, where just 34 percent of residents (Waterbury Town Plan, page 65) support local development of utility-scale wind power. Of course, many others issues stirred voters, but the impact of the unpopularity of ridgeline development cannot be denied.

Statewide Policy
Gov. Scott is expected to keep his promise of a moratorium. He will almost certainly appoint a like-minded commissioner to lead the Department of Public Service, the state’s energy regulator. Most importantly, the term of Vermont Public Service Board Chairman James Volz expires in March 2017. Under his watch, ridgeline wind projects in Lowell, Georgia and Sheffield were approved and constructed. Governor-elect Scott’s choice to chair the PSB is anyone’s guess, but the logical choice would be a fellow ridgeline wind skeptic.

Presidential Election
President-elect Donald Trump has said wind power kills too many eagles and is an inefficient energy source, according to many media outlets. Trump also publicly called global warming a hoax and said he would restore the U.S. coal industry. In December 2015, he lost a lengthy battle to stop a wind turbine project offshore from his Scotland golf course.

National Outlook
The wind industry can be thankful that Congress extended the 2.3 cent/kilowatt-hour Production Tax Credit in 2015, even though it drops 20% every year and expires in 2019. In an impromptu interview with VTEP in Montpelier on November 22, U.S. Congressman Peter Welch said the Republicans who now control both houses of Congress “hate renewables” and that Trump supports fossil fuels. Wind power backers should not expect any new help from Congress or the new administration, he said.

This is especially likely to be true if Trump’s next Secretary of the Energy is his energy advisor, Oklahoma billionaire Harold Hamm. According to a November 19 Forbes article citing him as a leading DOE Secretary candidate, Hamm is the son of a poor sharecropper who built a trucking empire and then earned another fortune by hydrofracking oil and natural gas. Far from supporting wind subsidies, Hamm says wind should be taxed similarly to oil and gas – two percent on production in the first three years, and seven percent thereafter.

None of these local, state and national developments mean ridgeline wind has no future in Vermont. What government giveth, it taketh away, and may someday giveth back again. Thus, the next two state and federal election cycles may have different results. Still, one must wonder about the long-term sustainability of an industry that must rely not only on the ever-changing winds of nature, but also on the fickle winds of electoral politics.

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Guy Page with Great Grandfather
Urban Woodbury
Vermont Governor and
Civil War "empty sleeve"

Guy Page, a Berlin resident, is the Communications Director of the Vermont Energy Partnership, a coalition of Vermont individuals, trade, development and labor organizations, and businesses committed to clean, safe, affordable, reliable power in Vermont.  He is a frequent guest blogger at this blog.  His most recent post described how the Vermont Yankee decommissioning fund is supporting local schools.

Energy and the Vermont Election

Recently, I was asked my opinion about how the Vermont election results would (or would not ) change Vermont Energy policy. I wrote a lengthy email, which has now morphed into this blog post.

Bottom line: despite Governor Shumlin's squeaker (probable) victory, not much will change,

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Scott Milne

The election

Over here in Vermont, we don't actually have a newly-elected governor.  The race was very tight, and in these cases, our constitution says that the legislature votes for Governor.  Governor Shumlin had a razor-thin margin over Republican challenger Scott Milne, but the legislature will decide.  If the Libertarian vote was combined with the Republican vote, Shumlin would have lost, but that is not very relevant.  Governor Shumlin says he is "personally humbled" by the election results.

Our legislature will decide.  Despite gains by the Republicans, our legislature has a heavy majority of Democratic/Progressive members, and so we can assume that our current Governor, Governor Shumlin, will be re-elected when the legislature convenes in January. Milne has not conceded victory.

In other words, Vermont's energy policy is unlikely to change very much on the basis of this election. The majority leader of the Vermont House is resigning, but I doubt if any relevant committee chairs will change.

The gas pipeline

The Governor (and others of his party) must be aware that he lost votes by supporting the Addison gas pipeline extension.  That awareness probably will not stop the pipeline, but it may affect Vermont energy policy going forward.  Also, Green Mountain Power is buying a great deal of its power from the grid, and its Hydro-Quebec contracts are "market-follow."  So I expect electricity price rises in Vermont, starting in January.  However, this has nothing to do with the elections: the purchase agreements are already in place.

The Governor's race in Vermont was very tight, but we can expect Governor Shumlin to be re-elected by the legislature when it comes into session in January.  (Such an election is required by Vermont's constitution in situations where neither candidate has over 50% of the votes.) This means that Vermont energy policy is unlikely to change very much.  However, Shumlin supported the Addison gas pipeline extension.  His tight race may have taught local politicians that if they support gas pipeline extensions,  they themselves will lose supporters.  This could have an effect on Vermont energy policy in the future.

Many pundits seem to agree, however, that energy policy was not the deciding factor in this election.  Issues included that Governor Shumlin never explained how he was going to fund Single Payer health care. Also, his attempt to buy land super-cheap from an impoverished neighbor led to doubts about his personal integrity.

Electricity

Governor Shumlin

Other factors, not dependent on this election, will have the major effects on Vermont electricity

Vermont Yankee will close down in December, and it produces about 70% of the electricity that is produced within the state.  This may affect Vermont power costs or reliability. Even though Vermont utilities did not explicitly purchase Vermont Yankee power, the power was very available on the local grid and was part of the  "grid power" that they bought.   Now much more power will have to be imported.

Vermont utilities have some PPA power, such as 60 MW fixed-price Seabrook power. However, much of their power (market purchased power, Hydro-Quebec "market--follow" contracts) follow the prices on the grid. Therefore, in general, we can expect Vermont electricity prices to rise and be closer to parity with the prices of other New England states.

Also, some New England states no longer buy RECs (renewable energy certificates) from Vermont. Inability to sell RECs may accelerate Vermont's electricity price rise, because less out-of-state money will be flowing to our local utilities.

In short, the election itself will have few immediate effects.  Yet we can expect long-reaching changes  to electricity costs in Vermont.

Shumlin Won. Scott Won. Referendum on Vermont Yankee? I Don't Think So.

Election is Over! Thank Heavens!

And I think I can speak for many when I say I thought the campaign would never end. It's been negative. Very negative.

Shumlin Won.

Oh yeah. It's over and Peter Shumlin won the race for governor. Did I mention that?

Peter Shumlin stated, over and over, that he was against Vermont Yankee being relicensed. He won the election. On the other hand, in the early days, when he talked almost exclusively about the Radioactive Peril and how he would Shut It Down, he was losing. As I noted in an earlier post, when he changed his tune to women's reproductive rights, jobs, and single-payer health care, he pulled ahead. I find these New York Times charts of election projections over time fascinating. Dubie was ahead while Shumlin ran against Vermont Yankee. When Shumlin finally noticed and began running on the Democratic agenda, he pulled ahead.

Also, the most recent vote count is Shumlin 115,222 (49%) and Dubie 111,728 (48%) Not exactly a Shumlin landslide. A squeaker. And if Shumlin hadn't gotten off the "Vermont Yankee and only Vermont Yankee" rhetoric sometime in September, he would have lost.

Phil Scott Won

If the people of Vermont hate Vermont Yankee, they should have handed Mr. Phil Scott a resounding defeat. He's a Republican during a year of the Democrats sweeping Vermont. He was running for Lieutenant Governor; the Democratic candidate for Governor won. Most importantly, Scott was one of the four honorable Vermont Senators who voted FOR relicensing Vermont Yankee in February. Remember that 26 to 4 business? Scott was one of the four.

Poor guy. Everything was against Mr. Scott, if you are one of the people who believes that Shumlin's attack on Vermont Yankee was the source of Shumlin's squeak to success.

Phil Scott won by a far bigger margin, about 10 percent. Scott credits his success to his experience in the Senate, and to running a positive race. Clearly, supporting Yankee didn't defeat Scott. A little more about Scott at this article in Vermont Digger. Among other things, he's a serious race-car driver.

(Hint for future candidates: Scott talked about jobs and the economy and being bi-partisan. As the Clinton campaign said, ever so long ago: "It's the economy, stupid.")

Referendum? No.

I don't think this election was a referendum about Vermont Yankee. However, if it was a referendum, the clear supporter of the plant won by a far greater margin than the plant's chief detractor.

MORE TO COME

The plant is up for sale, legislators are commenting on it, and is the Secret Garage Meeting one of the issues?

Last I looked, there was only one of me, and I have to give a talk about reprocessing in France at a class this afternoon. So...for now, a quote from the Entergy Press Release:

Entergy Corporation (NYSE: ETR) announced today a process is under way to explore the potential sale of Vermont Yankee, its 605-megawatt nuclear plant in Vernon, Vt.

The sale process is being conducted on a confidential basis and no additional details will be released at this time. While no decision has been made to sell the plant, the company expects interest from multiple parties. The plant has an outstanding operational record. It completed 532 days of continuous operation in April 2010, the second breaker-to-breaker run in the last five years. The record run for the plant is 547 days, which ended in 2007.

"Our motivation for exploring the sale of the plant is simple - we want to do whatever is in the best interest of our stakeholders, including the approximately 650 men and women who work at the plant," said J. Wayne Leonard, Entergy's chairman and chief executive officer.

The Secret Garage Meeting and the Implausible Denial

This is worth a couple of posts, really, but I have to get ready for class...

There was a meeting in a garage (really) with Democratic Movers and Shakers, including Peter Shumlin. Supposedly, Mr. Shumlin said that..yeah, with some other company owning the plant, and a good power deal for Vermont...he might give the matter some more thought. Someone leaked this to the press.

Shumlin was asked about it, and said he "couldn't remember saying that." (Really? Have we elected a man in early stages of memory loss? Or is there another explanation?)

Later Shumlin compared Vermont Yankee to a junker car that would not run better because it had a different owner. However, Shumlin never stated: "I never said that, in that garage. Whoever said I said anything like that, that person is a liar." Since Shumlin calls a person a liar at the drop of a hat, this means...they weren't lying. Shumlin said it, in that garage. That's my opinion.

Vermont Tiger broke this story at Deal Us In. They covered it further in An Unequivocal Non-Denial.

As I said. More later.