SOMETHING IS MISSING from our roadmap to net-zero emissions: the input of the people living in communities that will be most impacted by our future energy decisions. Why are their voices going unheard? It’s not for a lack of trying. Rather, it is a result of the opaque, highly technical, and largely inaccessible decision-making structures […]
Energy
Posted inOpinion
Power grid most important piece of climate puzzle
IN FIVE OR SO YEARS, many of you will drive a car that you plug in at night rather than fill at the pump. You’ll keep your homes warm with electric heat pumps instead of oil or gas furnaces. In ten years, most of you will. In fifteen years, almost everyone will. That means that most […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment
Healey announces 3-state offshore wind procurement
NERVOUS ABOUT rising prices for offshore wind power, the states of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are banding together to solicit larger wind farm projects that hopefully will come with lower price tags. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey announced the three-state partnership at an offshore wind conference in Boston Wednesday morning. Individually, the three states were […]
Posted inEnvironment
Advocates press Healey to scrap Hanscom expansion
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE IN A NEW SURGE of opposition, advocates are calling directly on Gov. Maura Healey to stop the expansion of the publicly owned airfield in Bedford that holds the most private jets in New England. The Massachusetts Port Authority, a quasi-public agency, has proposed adding 27 hangars at Lawrence G. Hanscom Field […]
Posted inEnergy
DPU approves termination of SouthCoast wind contract
THE MASSACHUSETTS Department of Public Utilities on Monday gave its blessing to an agreement terminating offshore wind contracts between the state’s three utilities and SouthCoast Wind, even as utilities in Connecticut moved to terminate an offshore wind contract there. The agreement approved by the DPU requires SouthCoast to pay a total of $60 million in […]
Posted inOpinion
Why is the US locking down for climate change?
AMERICANS REALLY hated locking down for COVID-19, so why does the US keep locking down for climate change? Sometimes we are locked in, due to wildfire smoke and heat; and sometimes we are locked out, with homes leveled due to flooding and fire; but the bottom line is–we keep locking down. Our children aren’t playing […]
Posted inEnergy, Opinion
It makes no sense to eliminate the competitive electricity market
THIS PAST YEAR has not been kind to Massachusetts electric ratepayers—at least some of them. For customers who do not shop and choose their own energy provider, the average residential rate hike in National Grid’s service area was more than $110 per month this past winter, a 64 percent increase. In Eversource’s service area, rates spiked 42 […]
Posted inEnergy
Utilities need to stop building natural gas infrastructure
THIS SUMMER, the Commonwealth and our neighbors across New England have experienced the hottest month on record, historic flooding, and dangerous levels of air pollution. These unprecedented, unnatural disasters have put our communities, homes, and health at risk, especially for those with the least resources to bear the burden of climate change’s devastating impacts. Our only hope […]
Posted inOpinion
Unjamming the heating oil industry’s road to carbon neutrality
AT A RENEWABLE fuels conference in January, Kevin Beckett, CEO and president of oil burner manufacturer R.W. Beckett Corp., announced that after years of research and development, the company’s much-anticipated B100 residential burner was finally entering production. About the size of a home office printer, this 100-percent biofuel compatible burner is poised to unjam […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment
SouthCoast Wind agrees to pay $60m to terminate power purchase agreements
THE DEVELOPER of SouthCoast Wind on Tuesday agreed to pay more than $60 million to the state’s three leading utilities to terminate power purchase agreements the company negotiated last year to build its wind farm south of Martha’s Vineyard. The SouthCoast proposal, if it is approved by the Department of Public Utilities, would be the […]