Vermont's green future
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Published: August 15, 2010
The contract signed by Vermont utilities with Quebec’s provincial utility on Thursday ought to guarantee that Vermont enjoys a sizable block of reliable, reasonably priced and green electric power for many years to come.
If the deal is approved by the state Public Service Board, Hydro-Quebec will sell 225 megawatts of power for the next 26 years, enough to satisfy about one quarter of the state’s power needs. If the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant shuts down as expected in 2012, then Vermont utilities would have access to even more power from Hydro-Quebec.
Hydro-Quebec is a huge producer of electricity, generating power from a series of massive dams and from a burgeoning sector of wind power. The company’s power is an important resource, not only for Canada and its neighbors, but for the world.
The Vermont Legislature endorsed Hydro-Quebec as a power source earlier this year when it declared the state of Vermont would view Hydro-Quebec’s power as renewable. Hydro-Quebec hopes that other states follow suit, which would allow utilities in the United States to use Quebec power to satisfy demands that they increase reliance on renewable power.
Some environmentalists opposed giving Hydro-Quebec the green imprimatur of Vermont’s backing. They point to environmental damage caused by large-scale hydropower and also worry that the use of large amounts of Quebec power will reduce the incentive of energy developers in Vermont and elsewhere to develop diverse, small-scale sources of power.
These worries ignore the true scale of the problem we face as we try to reduce reliance on fossil fuels in order to stave off the worst effects of climate change. The fossil fuel infrastructure in the American Midwest, where coal is burned in huge quantities, is massive, and replacing the power produced there will require massive alternatives. To spurn Hydro-Quebec while we await the construction of a sufficiency of wind mills or benign little dams on Vermont’s little rivers is to engage in fanciful thinking.
The creation of energy requires the destruction of something, whether it is the burning of wood or coal, the splitting of atoms, the flooding of valleys, or the construction of wind mills on scenic ridgelines. If our sensitivities were so exquisite that we were unable to see the advantages of Quebec’s hydropower, we would be entertaining a dangerous kind of timidity and our world would be left with no way at all to address the advance of climate change.
It is important that we develop all the alternatives to fossil fuels, including wind, solar, hydro, biomass and conservation. We are making strides in that direction, though not fast enough. If utilities filled their portfolios with power from Hydro-Quebec, avoiding the need to invest in new wind farms or other renewable sources, that would mean that we had succeeded in one goal and would need to set a new one. Use of hydropower must be viewed as success. We ought not refrain from using a reliable green source because success would remove an incentive to achieve new success. We would need merely to establish new incentives.
The pricing mechanism that is part of the utilities’ contract with Hydro-Quebec appears designed to protect the state from the kinds of fluctuations that have troubled contracts with Hydro-Quebec in the past. There was a time in the 1990s when, because of changes in the market, power from Hydro-Quebec was relatively costly for Vermont, and the state’s utilities were looking for a way out. The new deal would tie the prices to the market, but with protections that would keep the price from spiking too high or dipping too low.
The contracts with Hydro-Quebec put Vermont in a good position for a future without Vermont Yankee. The nuclear plant in Vernon provides about one-third of the state’s power, but its license is due to expire in 2012, and there is little likelihood that the plant’s owner, Entergy Vermont Yankee, will regain sufficient credibility by then to win the backing of Vermont’s Legislature or regulators. The company has established a well-documented record of neglect and untrustworthy behavior.
Entergy has not given up on Vermont and will seek to persuade legislators next year that it has mended its ways. But a recent report by the Legislature’s oversight panel suggested that Entergy has not yet established trustworthy practices or a willingness to spend what is needed to maintain the plant in good order.
It is to Vermont’s advantage that the state has a ready source of a large bloc of reliable, green power just over the border with our neighbor to the north. The utilities’ new contract is an important step in making use of that valuable resource.
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