I agree if you look at the end of the chain at your house but my statement was look at the total impact from when fossil comes out of the ground (including the prep work to get it out of the ground) to your home the overall impacts are larger for fossil, its just that they are far away out of sight and out of mind.
Yes, that graph was this morning, late November, on a cloudy day. Here is the % for all of 2020 (from: https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/). Any way you slice it, NE cannot survive on wind and solar alone at the current generation levels.Originally Posted by rocket21
Tim
Bike, Hike, Ski, Sleep. Eat, Fish, Repeat.
I recollect from pre-colonial history class that the Native Americans in present-day New England used to purposefully burn large swaths of land on a regular basis. What a blatant disregard of their carbon footprint!
I'm not sure about that, but let me ask you a question: What kind of power plant would you rather have 20 miles down the road from you; wood/refuse, oil, natural gas, or nuclear? I'm discounting solar and wind since they don't produce power 24/7
Last edited by maineguy; 11-26-2021 at 11:59 AM.
Well I do have 2 power plants less than 20 miles away, both are biomass plants. They can run 24/7 from locally sourced low grade wood. No worries about pipelines and worldwide demand for natural gas. One is an older plant in Whitefield NH (upwind) but still has Electrostatic precipitators very effective on fine particulate with added on CO and NOx catalysts, its immediately upwind of the Presidential Ridge. If I extend out a bit I have East Ryegate and Bethelhem biomass plants upwind. The other plant is Berlin which has one of the most complex environmental control systems I have ever run into (Wet ESP and sorbent injection). You seem to have mixed up fuel sources, biomass plants are covered by a completely different subpart of the regulations than refuse. Biomass is subpart DDDDD while Refuse is subpart H. If a boiler is burning a mix of wood/refuse it would be subject to Subpart H which has far stricter regs and a lot more profitable as they get paid to burn trash. Why pay for wood when someone is willing to pay the plant to get rid of trash? A wood/refuse boiler is basically not something that exists unless it is burning contaminated wood. I wouldn't be any more or less upset if a natural gas plant was upwind except if their SCR was out of tune, that cat piss smell can carry for quite a distance and the cooling tower plume can have localized weather effects. As for nuclear upwind its definitely a rhetorical question as I dont see a lot of new plants going in. The new SMR designs are pretty well thought out and I would be far less concerned about them, than the Russian nuclear power barges being marketed worldwide as the Russians do not believe in containment.
BTW, The "green" city of Burlington VT gets most of its power from a biomass plant located right on the lake.
I am far more concerned by my neighbor's illegal outdoor wood boiler installation than power plants upwind. The state will not enforce the regs and the local town officials decided to ignore it.
Last edited by peakbagger; 11-26-2021 at 01:18 PM.
Personally, I wouldn't live near any biomass plants and am perfectly happy living within a 20 mile radius of a nuclear plant.
Last edited by maineguy; 11-26-2021 at 02:01 PM.
PB, didn’t the whitefield biomass plant recently change hands? What is the history with it and how much area does it service? Btw, although just a walk and not a hike, the pondicherry’s are beautiful to see especially in the fall.
Thanks, Tim and Rocket, for this information.Yes, that graph was this morning, late November, on a cloudy day. Here is the % for all of 2020 (from: https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/). Any way you slice it, NE cannot survive on wind and solar alone at the current generation levels.
Tim
Facts matter.
Southern NE states like Mass are happy ripping up the north woods so they can virtue signal. As I said upthread, a few Gas or Nuclear plants in their own states would be beneficial for all involved, but they're just not interested. This BS will go on for a few more years until the lights go out, and then some folks will wise up.
You are correct, Stored Solar (a reference that biomass is actually solar energy stored by photosynthesis in the form of wood ) from Maine bought. Whitefield NH, Springfield NH Tamworth NH and East Ryegate in VT. They already owned plants in Maine where they got a poor rep. I really do not know how many of the NH plants they bought are actually running. I think East Ryegate has a subsidy from VT so its probably running. The plants can vary in size but usually 20 MWs is normal. All biomass plants in NH except Berlin have been struggling as they all sold into the Mass renewable market and that is gone. Berlin has a special deal with NH but one of these days it will not be renewed. The number of homes the smaller plants could theoretically provide depends on how much an average home in the area uses. A really rough number would be 2000 homes each for the 20 MW plants. I think Berlin is 70 MWs.
Speculation is that Stored Solar is bought them cheap and hoping that new subsidies will come up for biomass. Add in the shortage of baseload generation and that many mean they can either run the at a profit or sell them.
Thanks. Why won’t Mass buy energy from these biomass facilities? Isn’t renewable?
That is incorrect.I recollect from pre-colonial history class that the Native Americans in present-day New England used to purposefully burn large swaths of land on a regular basis. What a blatant disregard of their carbon footprint!
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1937331
https://theconversation.com/native-p...ndscape-129429
No, It was renewable and then Mass changed the regulations to make it not renewable based on the flawed Manomet study. Some of NH plants had spent a couple of million to upgrade to new emissions regulations for NOX in order to sell in the Mass market and then Mass pulled the rug on them. Other states still regard biomass as renewable but their incentive programs for renewable are less lucrative or not applicable for out of state generated renewable power. I think VT has or had generous incentives but they are limited to instate generation. I think that may have changed as VT had previously excluded Hydro Quebec hydro power as renewable but in the run up to VT Yankee closing discussions the law was changed on the last day of a legislative session prior to the Christmas break with little debate to declare HQ power to be renewable. Subsequently a couple of the largest utilities in VT were bought by Canadian companies and now can access HQ power. They do not own the big transmission lines in VT so they can't get the power down to Mass. VELCO a non profit owned by VT utilities owns the transmission lines but they are in the business to supply power around the state rather than wheel power through their system. Last thing I knew they were barely able to keep the transmission system reliable enough to meet federal reliability standards. There have been a couple of attempts to build biomass power plants in southern VT but they have not stopped by ACT 250 and other local objections.
Last edited by peakbagger; 11-27-2021 at 10:15 AM. Reason: Added Yankee after VT
Thanks. That is helpful and interesting. I can see how for MA biomass isn’t sexy enough for their green movement. Thanks for that insight.
Stored Solar? OK, I guess then we can have "Stored Organic" for oil and gas companies and solar could become "NIMBY Nuclear".
That source does not fully support your claim. By the way, the history teacher I alluded to in the post (that I concluded with a wink) was a Massachusetts full-blooded Native American.
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