EVERSOURCE ENERGY said its customers will pay about 8 percent less this winter for electricity, suggesting that constraints on natural gas supplies coming into the region won’t have a major impact on rates this coming year. Eversource, in partnership with Spectra Energy of Houston and National Grid, wants to build the Access Northeast pipeline to […]
Plugging In
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Robbing MIT to pay international reactor
THE DECADES-LONG QUEST to produce inexpensive carbon-free energy from nuclear fusion is making tangible progress. There is much work ahead but recent research is bringing the elusive goal into clearer focus. Unfortunately, non-scientific barriers – political, funding, and management issues that won’t yield to the skills of the even the best physicists – have emerged […]
Posted inEnvironment
Eversource confident on gas pipeline project
EVERSOURCE ENERGY officials confidently predicted this week they would begin construction of the $3 billion Access Northeast natural gas pipeline in 2019 and floated several possible ways to finance it. Eversource had pinned its hopes on having electric ratepayers in New England foot the bill for the natural gas pipeline, but that plan unraveled this […]
Posted inEnvironment
Gas pipeline dealt possibly fatal blow
THE PUSH FOR A NEW PIPELINE into New England may have been dealt a fatal blow when Connecticut officials called off a process to procure more natural gas largely because of decisions in Massachusetts and New Hampshire that eliminated a financing mechanism for the project. In announcing its decision on Tuesday, the Connecticut Department of […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Measuring the impact of offshore wind, hydro
PURCHASES OF LARGE-SCALE hydroelectric and offshore wind resources as required by the recently passed energy law would reduce the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions by 9 percent at a cost of $5.70 to $8.50 a month for the typical electric ratepayer. Our analysis suggests the incremental cost of removing a metric ton of carbon dioxide […]
Posted inEnvironment
3 Boston institutions finance NC solar farm
THREE BOSTON-AREA INSTITUTIONS are financing the construction of one of the largest renewable energy projects in the United States, a 60-megawatt solar farm in North Carolina. MIT, Boston Medical Center, and the Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation said on Wednesday they had signed a 25-year contract to purchase the power output from the project’s 255,000 […]
Posted inEnvironment, Politics
Warren redistributes solar income
NEWTON MAYOR SETTI WARREN announced a small solar project on Wednesday that will slightly trim the city’s electric bill and funnel the bulk of the savings to about 1,250 low-income residents of the community. The low-income residents will save about $40 to $50 a year, officials said. The project itself is no different from countless […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Charting the path to zero carbon emissions
CLIMATE POLICY is in a holding pattern. The D.C. Circuit court is deliberating on the future of EPA’s “Clean Power Plan” regulation of carbon pollution from existing power plants. Stakeholders in the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative are pondering emission cap targets for 2020 through 2030 that may do anything from hold steady at 2020 […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
States are where clean energy action is
ON THE ISSUE OF CLIMATE CHANGE and energy policy, the candidates for president couldn’t be farther apart, as evidenced by their brief exchange at last week’s first debate. For Hillary Clinton, decisive action is needed immediately to head off “the most catastrophic consequences” of global warming. Donald Trump has often used the word “hoax” to […]
Posted inEnvironment, Opinion
Pilgrim is safe, shouldn’t close early
DESPITE ASSERTIONS TO THE CONTRARY, the facts demonstrate that the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station has run very reliably in recent years. For calendar year 2014, our capacity factor was 97 percent — better than any other generator in New England. Even with a planned refueling outage in 2015, we were online 85 percent of the […]