[HN Gopher] Maine voters reject Quebec hydropower transmission line
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Maine voters reject Quebec hydropower transmission line
Author : algo_trader
Score : 32 points
Date : 2021-11-03 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| Another interesting tidbit of Maine news is that a municipal
| Portland election ended in a tie in the final round of ranked
| choice voting. Around ~19,000 votes total.
|
| By state law they'll resolve the tie by drawing lots at the city
| hall building tomorrow morning:
| https://www.pressherald.com/2021/11/03/tied-instant-runoff-f...
| algo_trader wrote:
| This is beyond depressing (I am not a US resident..)
|
| The entire New England is going brown by closing nuclear
| reactors, fighting wind and now this.
|
| IIRC, out of $1BN, about $300M was compensation and pork for
| local residents
| paleotrope wrote:
| I have family in Maine and have spent alot of time there
| recently. The voters up there are schizophrenic. Very little
| makes any sense. A high tax state, high cost of living that is
| 1/2 retirees from southern new england, 1/2 dirt poor people.
| They vote against anything that would improve their economic
| conditions. It's like Alaska and Florida combined without oil
| or sun.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| This is a warped view of Maine's demographics and pretty
| insulting.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| Ironically, much of the funding for 'Yes' (which was in
| opposition to the new power lines) was provided by a nuclear
| reactor in New Hampshire that didn't want to compete against
| the lower electricity rates this would bring.
| snsr wrote:
| I guess Quebec hasn't heard, they are now allowed to
| advertise a position on US ballot initiatives.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/02/foreign-m.
| ..
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| I believe HydroQuebec put in more money than anyone for
| this referendum.
| TrisMcC wrote:
| Mainers HATE Central Maine Power. Anything that hurts them is
| seen as a positive. The lease they got on the land for
| transmission lines was ruled illegal.
|
| We have tried (and still are trying) to create a public utility
| to replace CMP called Pine Tree Power. It was passed in the
| legislature but vetoed by our governor this year.
|
| There was also a story about the First Nations of Quebec not
| having their voices heard regarding the transmission lines that
| pass through their lands.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Mainers hate Massholes too. They get two give two groups they
| hate the bird with just one vote. Of course they voted the
| way they did.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The company that wanted to build the line (CMP) spend the last
| 20yr burning any political capitol it had. They've screwed
| people out of lots of money while delivering crap service. Now
| they wanna build a line to line their pockets while mostly
| befitting Massashusetts, a state full of people that everyone
| in Maine not employed in tourism hates (and the tourism simply
| tolerates).
|
| You don't get to do business like that and expect voters not to
| see the opportunity to screw you back. People aren't that
| stupid.
| favorited wrote:
| "From what I've seen, it's not going to be that beneficial to
| Maine," said one voter[0].
|
| Oh, is your end of the boat not sinking? You're probably fine,
| then.
|
| Luckily the referendum is being challenged in the courts.
|
| [0]https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/03/science/maine-
| voters-...
| algo_trader wrote:
| Its still a cold/rural zone. When a carbon tax/madate is
| inevitably enforced, they are going to end up with escalating
| bills for heating and transport.
| paleotrope wrote:
| They are going to end up burning their precious woodlands.
| algo_trader wrote:
| No doubt they will start by cuttings up trees along the
| transmission corridor, just to spite everyone else /s
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The problem is, to make a difference you also need to get 7bn
| other people to do something...
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| Protecting woodlands is important but cutting through woodlands
| for transmission lines shouldn't be a big deal. Hydro is pretty
| clean power so it seems silly not to bring more of that in. Plus
| they have already cut most of it..
|
| "More than three-quarters of the corridor has already been
| cleared, with about 100 poles installed, Avangrid said last
| week."
| oblio wrote:
| The thing is, how much are they really cutting for transmission
| line poles? Their footprint is probably really small,
| inconsequential, really. It's not like they're building a
| highway :-)
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| 75 feet wide over a 53 mile section of land already owned by
| the local power company.
| https://www.pressherald.com/2021/10/17/qa-on-
| question-1-will...
| loeg wrote:
| 75 ft x 53 miles is a total of 0.74 square miles. The North
| Maine Woods are 3.5 million acres, or ~5500 square miles.
|
| The total area consumed by the corridor will be about
| 0.014% of the woods.
| Gracana wrote:
| It pretty much is like building a highway. Transmission tower
| lines are very big and wide. We (in Maine) also suffered the
| results of a natural gas pipeline installation, with people's
| yards taken by eminent domain laws to make way for the
| construction.. I'm not surprised people voted against it this
| time around.
| oblio wrote:
| I'm confused, how could they be like a highway?
|
| Don't your power lines look like this?
|
| https://energytransition.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/04/Wind...
|
| 1 pole of maybe... I don't know, 30m by 10m, every several
| hundred meters? That's a tiny footprint.
|
| Isn't the rest just electrical cables hanging 20m in the
| air?
| fhood wrote:
| By size maybe. Way less disruptive than a highway though.
| subpixel wrote:
| Arguments were effectively made that it's not all hydro power -
| it's a connection to the grid not a single source of energy.
|
| But in the end this was doomed by the route. If it were
| economically possible to go around the north woods it would
| have had little opposition.
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(page generated 2021-11-03 23:00 UTC)