Reply #15: Ms. Nagusky states it more explicitly. [View All]

[NNadir]

Maine's energy director, Beth Nagusky, pointed out that some 20 new electric generating plants have been built in New England in the past decade, all fueled by natural gas. As a result, Maine has gone from zero-dependency on this source in our electric generating mix to 40 percent today. We have gone natural gas in a very big way. One way to think of it is that we have replaced 700 megawatts of nuclear power supply from Maine Yankee with 1000 megawatts of natural gas-fired capacity in the last five to seven years.

This dramatic supply shift was at first greeted warmly by environmental and business interests, alike, because natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel and U.S., Canadian and Mexican supplies promised long-term security for capital investments. North American supplies are now dwindling faster than expected, and in the absence of greater supplies from abroad we in New England face a 50 percent chance within the decade of a severe crisis, with periodic blackouts and heating failures. One symptom of this was seen last January when one-fourth of New England's generating capacity fell idle because of fuel supply problems. The EPA's John Moskal reported that we came within several hours of rolling blackouts during an intense cold snap last January.

http://www.clf.org/programs/cases.asp?id=367

I am learning that my low opinion of the Mainer I know, notwithstanding, many Mainers are in fact alert and aware of the sleight of hand involving the "shut a nuclear plant and go solar" scam. The answer was not renewable energy; it was natural gas, a fossil fuel.

Here is a slide presented to the working group of the Maine EPA and the Wood and Paper Pulp Association:

http://maineghg.raabassociates.org/Articles/1.28.04%20ME%20EW%20Final.pdf

Check out what they put in red on page 17.

From the minutes of the meeting we have the following statement:

Matt Ogonowski from CCAP then gave a presentation of the Energy and Solid Waste Baseline and Inventory. The 1-15-04 presentation was updated on 1-27-04, and can be viewed on the website by clicking here. Ogonowski had used the IPM model in the 1-15-04 presentation, but updated the E&SW baseline (slide 6) with NEMS model in many places on the 1-27-04 version.

One Working Group member asked why CO2 emissions fell from 1990-1996, and then increased in 1997. Matt responded that was because of Maine Yankee...

CCAP is the Center for Clean Air Policy.

Finally there is this document from the Maine EPA which expressly identifies nuclear power plants in other states being relicensed so that GHG emissions can be kept down:

http://maineghg.raabassociates.org/Articles/EW_Ass_1_28_Final.doc

Scroll down to section 3.3 under the heading "Other Supply Efficiency Measures"
where we read in the table form:

Nuclear Plant Relicensing – After the first 40 years of operation, nuclear plants can apply for license renewal to operate for up to 20 more years. Nuclear plants that do not relicense result in loss of zero/low-emission baseload generation that must be replaced by other power sources. (No nuclear plants exist in Maine. This applies to nuclear plants in adjoining states in the same electricity pool as Maine – the New England Power Pool.)

and in section 3.4:

Nuclear Plant Uprating – Increasing output from an existing plant, by modifications to turbines and the steam system. (No nuclear plants exist in Maine. This applies to nuclear plants in adjoining states in the same electricity pool as Maine – the New England Power Pool.)

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Not in my backyard, but please, please, please, please uprate in New Hampshire.

It gives me great pleasure to inform the people of Maine that Unit 2 at Seabrook is unfinished. Maybe the people of New Hampshire can look into finishing it to help the people of Maine out of the terrible bind in which they've put themselves.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/seabrook.html