New Polling Confirms Strong Support Across Eastern Region for Transportation Modernization

“The poll shows that people across the region want proactive leadership to address our transportation and climate challenges. We need bold solutions to make the shift to a clean transportation future, and an ambitious TCI program can jumpstart that transition.” — Jordan Stutt, carbon programs director, Acadia Center.

Read the full release from Our Transportation Future here.

Hydropower and Transmission: Updated Position Statement

As Acadia Center has examined the path to a rapid transition away from fossil fuels, it has considered the potential for hydroelectric energy from existing impoundments to replace some of the fossil fuels used in the Northeast’s energy mix. The Northeast is currently heavily reliant on fossil fuels, especially natural gas, for electricity generation. According to multiple studies, when electricity comes from excess generation at existing hydro impoundments, it results in dramatically lower carbon emissions than electricity generated by fossil fuels.[1]^,[2]

Beyond the question of whether carbon emissions from hydro are lower, Acadia Center has been open to hydropower imports from existing hydro projects, but only if specific critical conditions are met and expectations fulfilled. Because these conditions and expectations have not been met, Acadia Center has not endorsed either the energy contract between Hydro-Quebec and Massachusetts utilities or the NECEC line.

In January 2019, Acadia Center joined a multiparty settlement to impose economic and consumer protection conditions on Central Maine Power (CMP) in the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s (MPUC) proceeding on the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) transmission line.  In that proceeding, Acadia Center joined the settlement for a certificate of public need and necessity (CPCN) for the NECEC line because the settlement would strengthen Maine’s economy, protect consumers, and deliver a clean energy future for the state. However, Acadia Center stated that it would only support the line and the contract between Hydro-Quebec (HQ) and Massachusetts utilities if, and only if, CMP and HQ also:

• Ensure the project advances state and regional climate goals by verifying the emission reductions expected from the contract over its lifetime; and
• Thoughtfully and sensitively protect the Western Maine landscape from unacceptable siting impacts. (Acadia Center, New England Clean Energy Connect Transmission Line, Feb. 2019)

Contrary to Acadia Center’s sustained advocacy for transparency and accountability,[3] Massachusetts regulators approved a contract that fails to hold Hydro-Quebec responsible for verifying that electricity deliveries over the NECEC line, if permitted, will continue to produce real, incremental climate benefits over the life of the contract.  Additionally, the Maine DEP siting process is ongoing, and has yet to produce final assurances that the negative siting impacts will be avoided and reduced as much as possible.

Acadia Center will continue to hold CMP, Hydro-Quebec, and the Massachusetts utilities to their carbon-reduction and clean energy commitments should its contracts with Massachusetts proceed, and Acadia Center will heavily weigh the remaining unmet conditions prior to considering its full and unqualified support for NECEC.

Acadia Center aims to ensure that the Northeast region rapidly decarbonizes its energy system in line with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recommendations. To that end, Acadia Center works to build a comprehensive zero-carbon energy system by focusing on and prioritizing clean energy solutions, local clean energy resources, deep energy efficiency, utility reform, transportation improvements and innovations, and the phase-out of fossil fuels.[4]  Acadia Center remains committed to ensuring that Maine, Massachusetts, and this region work aggressively to reduce climate pollution to provide a climate safe future for all.

[1] I.B. Ocko and S. P. Hamburg, Climate Impacts of Hydropower: Enormous Difference among Facilities and over Time, Env. Sci & Tech., 2019, available here: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b05083

[2] London Economics International LLC, Independent Analysis of Electricity Market and Macroeconomic Benefits of the New England Clean Energy Connect Project, prepared for the Maine Public Utilities Commission, May 21, 2018.

[3] Reply Brief of Acadia Center, DPU 18-64- DPU 18-66, April 3, 2019, available here: https://fileservice.eea.comacloud.net/FileService.Api/file/FileRoom/10562132

[4] EnergyVision 2030.

A regional plan to improve transportation and reduce pollution

When RGGI was being developed, opponents said that it would raise electricity costs and hurt the economy. As it turns out, they were wrong on both counts. Since RGGI was put in place, electricity prices in RGGI states have declined 5.7% while they have risen 8.6% in the rest of the country, and the economies of the participating states have grown 31% faster than the rest of the country, according to the non-partisan Acadia Center. What happened? One part of the story is that the price of natural gas declined. But perhaps even more importantly, RGGI helped the Massachusetts energy sector become more efficient. Proceeds from the sale of RGGI credits fund programs such as the popular Mass Save that have provided consumers and businesses with billions of dollars in incentives to upgrade insulation, install new appliances, or make other cost-saving energy-efficiency changes. Programs like RGGI have contributed to Massachusetts being named the most energy-efficient state in the country for the 9th consecutive year. Lowering demand has helped drive down the cost that consumers pay for electricity.

Read the full article from Gloucester Daily Times here.

Cities Look to Natural Gas Bans to Curb Carbon Emissions

In Massachusetts, residential buildings account for roughly 15% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions. Commercial buildings represent another 9.5%. Power plants, by contrast, are responsible for almost 20% of Massachusetts’ greenhouse gases.

“If we are going to decarbonize the economy, we have to stop putting gas in new buildings now,” said Deborah Donovan, Massachusetts director at the Acadia Center, an environmental group. “Building stock built now will be us in 2050 when we need to be decarbonized.”

Read the full article from Scientific American here.

CT sets ambitious plan to put 500K electric vehicles on the road by 2030

“We have these goals that, frankly, we’re not hitting,” said Amy McLean Salls, Connecticut director at the nonprofit Acadia Center, a clean-energy advocate. “We’re behind.”

Read the full article from Hartford Business Journal here.

Climate Justice for Providence

Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza had powerful words about the role equity must play in climate work when the city released its Climate Justice Plan in late October.

“Despite being one of the three pillars of sustainability, equity is often an afterthought when it comes to climate action planning,” Elorza wrote in the plan’s introduction. “In creating this plan, we chose to lead with equity and partnered with those who are most impacted by the climate crisis and other environmental injustices.”

Acadia Center is proud to have supported Providence and its Racial and Environmental Justice Committee (REJC) in developing a plan that charts an equitable, low-carbon, climate-resilient future for residents.

Overall, the Climate Justice Plan is built around carbon-reduction targets in two key sectors – buildings and transportation – and a complete transition to carbon-free electricity sources like solar and wind. Acadia Center developed those targets in a two-step process. First, analysts in our CLEAN Center projected the city’s emissions out to 2050 assuming no new climate action and taking into account existing technologies and trends. Next, Acadia Center built another scenario to put Providence on track for at least an 80% greenhouse gas emissions reduction — and carbon neutrality — by 2050. Figure 1 below shows the emissions reduction trajectory by sector.

In addition to recommending targets, Acadia Center supported the REJC’s development of approaches to achieve deep reductions in carbon emissions and local air pollution to improve community health. The policies listed below are among those that will help Providence reach the necessary emission reductions.

Buildings:

Transportation:

Clean Energy:

Figure 2 below shows that the three sectors contributing the most to the city’s overall GHG emissions reductions in 2050 are clean electricity (44%), fuel switching to heat pumps (25%), and penetration of electric vehicles (22%). Eliminating energy waste through energy efficiency and reducing reliance on vehicles are also contributors.

Much hard work remains to put the plan into action. In addition to carbon reduction strategies, it calls for systems-level changes in the city’s governance structure and economic system and assurance that frontline communities will not be displaced as Providence becomes climate-ready.

Pol Tavarez, a member of the REJC, told The Providence Journal, “I have faith that this report is really the first step in community members coming together to recognize their influence and their power to reach these objectives.”

Visit Providence’s Climate Justice Plan home page for more resources including a Spanish translation and audio “future stories.” Complete information on Acadia Center’s modeling approach is found in the Technical Appendix.

by Erika Niedowski

CT debates emissions, cars

“We’re not going to meet these goals with the way we’re going right now,” said Amy McLean Salls, a senior policy advocate at the Acadia Center, a member organization of the Connecticut Electric Vehicle Coalition. She said that overall, the Acadia Center was “pretty happy” with the draft road map.

Read the full article from Yale Daily News here.

Marks joins Acadia Center as senior policy advocate

Jeff Marks joined Acadia Center as senior policy advocate and Maine director.

Marks previously served as executive director of E2Tech, a business trade association of Maine’s energy and environmental companies. Prior to that role, he was deputy director of the Maine Energy Office where he advised state officials and agencies on energy, environmental and economic policy.

Read the full article from Portland Press Herald here.

Deep State: Conservation — The Forgotten Alternative

The Acadia Center, a regional environmental group based in Rockport, recommends 500 new inter- and intracity electric buses for Maine at a cost of $750,000 each.

The center’s Jordan Stutt told me that this very large expense ($375 million, plus the cost of electricity-charging stations) could be financed by a “cap-and-invest” (a.k.a. cap-and-trade) agreement with oil companies similar to the existing emissions-trading agreements between power plants and 11 Northeastern states, including Maine, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).

Read the full article from The Free Press here.

How much credit does RGGI deserve for the Northeast’s progress on emissions?

A report released last month by nonprofit environmental group Acadia Center found that the RGGI states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont — reduced carbon dioxide emissions in the power sector by nearly half, exceeding the national rate by 90%. At the same time, the economies in the partner states grew by 47%, much faster than the rest of the country, the report concludes.

And it’s clear that RGGI drove at least some of this movement, said Jordan Stutt, carbon programs director at Acadia Center.

“The RGGI states took a bold step when they created the program,” Stutt said. “That risk has paid off.”

Read the full article from Energy News Network here.