Evaluation: Maine’s inexperienced objectives shaded by oil and fuel dependence

Roughly 14 years in the past, I persuaded a lobsterman to take me out to his fishing grounds off Saint John, New Brunswick. I used to be there to write down concerning the growth of a brand new liquefied pure fuel import terminal constructed by Irving Oil, New Brunswick’s largest firm, and Repsol, the Spanish multinational vitality firm.

The 600-foot-long New England, a tanker operated by Irving Oil, unloads its cargo on the Buckeye-Irving terminal in South Portland on Oct. 23, after crusing from Irving’s refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick. Maine will get greater than 80% of its gasoline and heating oil from Canada, and far of it comes from Irving’s Canaport crude oil terminal. Tux Turkel/Employees Author, File

Why did I need to write about this venture? As a result of a few of the fuel being introduced from abroad was going to be injected right into a lately constructed pipeline system working by means of Maine. It was going to be an necessary, new supply of vitality for us.

The lobsterman was involved about how LNG tanker site visitors would possibly have an effect on his livelihood. He already needed to stay with the parade of supertankers that arrived subsequent door at Irving’s Canaport crude oil terminal, the biggest in Canada.

I didn’t understand it then, however that’s the place an excellent larger story was going down.

The crude arriving at Canaport is pumped to Irving’s refinery, 5 miles away. Some comes again within the type of gasoline, heating oil and jet gasoline, to be delivered by smaller tankers.

Right here’s what I neglected, 14 years in the past. A important share of that manufacturing is exported to Maine, in ships that dock in South Portland, Bucksport and Bangor. At present, Maine will get greater than 80% of its gasoline and heating oil from Canada, and far of it comes from Canaport.

Did you fill your automotive with gasoline right this moment? Even should you didn’t go to an Irving station, certainly one of which appears to be on nearly each nook in Maine, there’s a good probability you went to at least one that buys its fuel from an Irving terminal.

Tankers shuttle refined petroleum merchandise, comparable to heating oil and gasoline, from Saint John to Portland Harbor 12 months spherical. Final fall, after I was writing about heating oil costs, I photographed the 600-foot-long oil tanker New England unloading on the Buckeye-Irving terminal. If you happen to occur to drive throughout the Fore River on Interstate 295, look towards the harbor and the tank farms. Possibly you’ll spot one of many Irving ships in port.

I’m relating the Canaport story to make some extent. Mainers like to consider themselves as an impartial bunch. Relating to vitality, although, we’re not as self-reliant as we might imagine we’re, or as we’re striving to be.

SURPRISING DEPENDENCE ON IMPORTED ENERGY

Let’s keep on with gasoline and heating oil for a minute.

We’ve established that the fuel you’re pumping doubtless got here from Canada. However Irving doesn’t publicize the place the crude comes from.

We will assume some comes from tar sands in Alberta. Ten years in the past, the Canadian firm now referred to as TC Power Corp. wished to construct a pipeline working from Alberta east to Canaport. Plans had been dropped in 2017, following sturdy opposition. In desperation, some tar sands crude has since been shipped from British Columbia by means of the Panama Canal and up the East Coast to Saint John, a visit that takes a month.

Nonetheless, Canada’s federal vitality regulator says nearly all of Canaport’s crude comes from non-Canadian sources. That means a lot of the gasoline we put in our vehicles comes from crude oil that originated abroad.

Our dependence will ease as extra Mainers drive electrical vehicles. However until you may have photo voltaic panels and stay off the grid, you’re linked to New England’s electrical transmission system. Besides on sunny days, you’re charging your battery-powered automobile with a mixture of vitality sources at completely different instances of the day and the 12 months.

Maine is a part of ISO-New England, the impartial system operator of the six-state electrical grid. Energy flows forwards and backwards, with turbines dispatched primarily based on successful bid costs in a aggressive market.

The largest year-round gasoline supply for energy era is pure fuel, used to generate half the area’s electrical energy. Most of it comes from home pipelines into New England. However on the coldest days, some comes from the Caribbean, by means of Boston Harbor and Saint John. And when it’s so chilly that there’s not sufficient pure fuel for each heating and energy manufacturing, or when wholesale fuel costs are particularly excessive, our era combine also can embody oil. Some might come from Maine’s personal Wyman Station energy plant in Yarmouth.

You possibly can see this era combine each minute of the day, by way of a pie chart on ISO-New England’s web site. I watched how this performed out in December, and it’s fairly revealing. Listed below are two examples.

• Dec. 7: Heat and wet, 50 levels in Boston. New England’s producing combine was dominated, because it usually is, by pure fuel, at 40%. Subsequent was nuclear energy at 24%; imports from Canada at 19%, and home hydro at 9%. Different renewables, led by wind, contributed 8%.

• Dec. 25: A frigid, partly-sunny Christmas morning, with Boston temperatures within the teenagers. Oil was the highest gasoline, at 31%, as a result of on that day it was cheaper than pure fuel. Oil was adopted by nuclear, at 22%. Pure fuel was a low 18%. Canadian imports had been subsequent, at 11%, adopted by home hydro at 10%. Different renewables had been contributing 7% to the combo. Of that, 38% got here from wind farms; 30% from waste-to-energy crops, 22% from biomass and seven% % from photo voltaic.

ISO-New England additionally tracks carbon dioxide emissions. On that chilly Christmas morning, a really excessive 222 metric tons of CO2 had been being emitted, of which 174 metric tons had been attributed to grease.

The stage for this case was set on Christmas Eve, when some turbines within the area had been unable to satisfy their contract obligations. To guarantee sufficient capability reserves, ISO-New England referred to as on oil crops, estimating this month that they burned 31 million gallons in the course of the interval.

So there we had been. Burning soiled, climate-changing oil to maintain the lights on.

AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE CANADIAN IMPORTS?

Whereas their contributions and sources range, Canadian imports can embody: From Quebec, hydroelectricity despatched into Vermont. From New Brunswick, oil-fired energy from Coleson Cove, a plant much like Wyman Station; coal era from Belledune, a plant within the north, and nuclear energy from Level Lepreau, a reactor close to Saint John.

Maintain on. Greater than 70% of Maine’s in-state electrical energy era got here from renewable sources final 12 months. Our legacy hydroelectric dams generated roughly 1 / 4 of that complete, adopted intently by a brand new vitality supply for Maine, wind energy. Biomass equipped one-fifth, though that share will want adjusting as a result of some wood-fired crops have shut down.

Sure, large-scale photo voltaic farms are popping up in fields throughout Maine. However as of final 12 months, they equipped solely about 3% of the overall in-state manufacturing, in accordance with the U.S. Power Info Administration, the data-collecting arm of the Division of Power.

So regardless of the expansion of renewables, Maine doesn’t generate sufficient energy for all its wants. We nonetheless get 30% or so from the New England grid and from Canada. And clearly we are able to’t depend on wind when it’s calm, or on photo voltaic at evening or on stormy days. Power storage will change this sometime, however large-scale, long-duration storage is a approach off.

In the meantime, 40% of the state’s complete vitality wants are glad by petroleum, with 60% going to gasoline motor autos. Six out of 10 Maine properties nonetheless use oil or kerosene as their major heating gasoline, the very best share within the nation. So relating to weaning the state off the carbon-based fuels that contribute to local weather change, it’s sophisticated.

This winter is displaying us simply how sophisticated and risky issues are.

• Heating oil: Statewide common costs peaked at $5.71 a gallon in mid-November. They backed off under $4.50 in early January, however are nonetheless excessive.

• Electrical energy provide: One of the best PUC-negotiated commonplace provide bid is 50% greater than final 12 months, going to 17.6 cents per kilowatt-hour. That pushes the overall, common CMP residence invoice to $154 a month.

• Gasoline: Costs have been sliding. The statewide AAA common was $3.40 in early January, down 33 cents from a month earlier.

Warmth, gentle and transportation. Most Mainers are affected by no less than two of those three requirements. Consultants generally name it the overall family vitality burden.

HOW ARE WE RESPONDING?

Maine voters rejected 1,200 megawatts of energy from Quebec over the proposed New England Clear Power Join line. Some didn’t need extra clear-cut corridors by means of western Maine. Others doubted all the ability would come from hydro. Some folks simply don’t like Central Maine Energy. Every thing’s on maintain till April, when the case is scheduled for trial.

In the meantime, building has began on a venture that can carry roughly the identical quantity of electrical energy 339 miles, from Quebec to New York Metropolis. The Champlain Hudson Categorical is a part of New York state’s plan to get 70% of its energy from renewables by 2030. However there’s a serious distinction: All of the transmission traces might be underwater or underground.

Nearer to residence, there’s a brand new proposal for one more Maine transmission line. The Public Utilities Fee has tentatively authorized contracts for 1,000 megawatts of wind energy over a line connecting Aroostook County. Final month, Massachusetts agreed to purchase as much as 40% of the output. Now it’s as much as the PUC to find out if the deal is nice sufficient for Maine electrical prospects.

What’s extra, Wyman Station is poised to run extra usually. The 610-megawatt, oil-fired plant got here on-line in 1978 however has been principally idle current years, It was too costly in comparison with pure fuel, however that modified after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shook up exports markets.

Thrice over the previous few months, oil barges had been unloading at Wyman. On the coldest days this winter, search for an enormous plume of smoke over Casco Bay. Air air pollution and local weather change might be a secondary concern. Wyman might be serving to to maintain the lights on.

Additionally serving to might be liquefied pure fuel, with tankers loaded in Trinidad and Tobago crusing 2,200 miles to Boston Harbor. At a time when American pure fuel is being exported around the globe at file ranges, New England has a doubtful distinction. It’s the one a part of the mainland United States that should import LNG from different nations. That dependence is making Maine electrical payments rise this winter.

Juxtapose all this in opposition to Maine Received’t Wait, the state’s 2-year-old Local weather Motion Plan. It goals to lower greenhouse-gas emissions within the state by 45% by 2030 and 80% by 2050, and obtain carbon neutrality by 2045.

The plan requires no less than 100,000 new warmth pumps by 2025. It goals to weatherize 7,000 properties by 2025, and 35,000 by 2030. A few of these objectives will profit from the brand new federal Inflation Discount Act, which can funnel hundreds of thousands of {dollars} to Maine. However between the price of the measures, the accessible workforce, provide chain points and different obstacles, these upgrades will take time.

The place does all of it depart us? In a tough transition, the place native aspirations are clashing with international market realities. We need to management our personal vitality future. We need to get our vitality from native sources that don’t worsen local weather change. We need to section out imported fuels that, excluding Canadian hydro, are largely petroleum primarily based.

In brief, Mainers are witnessing, and dealing with, a historic shift in how we use vitality to energy our lives, the place that vitality comes from and what it prices. The one factor that appears sure is the uncertainty over the way it will all play out.

This piece is tailored from a Camden Convention presentation that might be supplied by way of Zoom on Thursday. For extra data, go to camdenconference.org.

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