Another Whack at RGGI - Granite Grok

Another Whack at RGGI

Wind mill fall downNH Watchdog (NHWD) is reporting that State Senator Jeb Bradley, in an effort to get something out of the Senator with the letters RGGI on it, has proposed another version of his amendment.  It would tie our departure from the program to a New England state with 10% or more of the total load of the ten states in RGGI.

That means Massachusetts.  According to the NHWD Massachusetts is the only state that meets the criterion.  Does anyone want to guess what the odds are of Massachusetts leaving RGGI?

The “compromise” to get the votes needed relates to who supplies power to the New England Grid.  New Jersey’s departure while representing more than 10% of the RGGI load, is said not to apply because they do not supply electricity to our grid but this not entirely accurate.

Con Edison of NY/NJ supplies energy to the New England Grid through Con Edison solutions, buying up more expensive wind power from outside the region and pushing it into New England states.  From May of 2009 to July of 2010 ConEd Solutions provided 25% of the electricity to public buildings from outside New England, typically to stupid left-wing governors who bought into the kind of nonsense that resulted in RGGI in the first place.  I’m not clear on whether that contract was “renewed” but tying us to New Jersey like this for the sake of making its departure relevant is no less far fetched than the suggestion that Massachusetts will ever leave RGGI as a condition of our departure.

And what I find particularity perverse is that “Republican” Senators in New Hampshire could be tying themselves to the Massachusetts compromise as the tipping point at which staying in RGGI would then no longer make sense.

It doesn’t make sense now.

Do you know what else does not make sense?  As a net exporter of electricity to the New England grid (at least as of 2009) we should ask why NH as a producer of electricity well in excess of our actual consumption as a state, would not want to improve costs to other New England states using that excess production by leaving RGGI?

 

Additional ref.

My July 2009 post on the Lynch buying wind from NJ

 

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