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Reducing energy costs and finding new ways to generate both heat and electricity are among the top priorities for Maine.
Residents of Maine, the state purported to be one of the most oil-dependent in the country, were paying 59 percent more on average for electricity than the national average cost as of 2007, according to Carroll Lee, former president of Bangor Hydro in a January article in The Maine Campus.
Much of the state’s electricity is currently delivered from by Hydro Quebec and NB Power, both based in Canada. Natural gas is the source of much of the electricity in the state.
“Hydro Quebec and NB Power both have the ability to produce power at reasonable rates. They also are not philanthropic,” John Cashman, former chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, said. “They understand what profit is and sell their power at going rates.”
In an era marked by sustainability, or the necessity thereof, and at a time when markets across the world are reeling from the economic meltdown of 2008, it seems renewable energy or cheap energy is at the forefront.
On the other hand, there is some disagreement about which power source is capable of delivering energy that is sustainable, cost-effective and good for the environment.
As a result, nuclear power has once again entered the fray, especially in Maine. Ever since Gov. Paul LePage stepped onto the campaign trail, he has promoted the power source, stoking fears over the dangers surrounding nuclear power.
Last week, even amidst the repercussion of Japan’s recent disaster, where officials are working feverishly to gain control of four of six side-by-side reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power plant that were damaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, a LePage spokesman reminded the general public of the governor’s commitment to bringing the power source back to Maine.
Citing a need to reduce energy costs for Maine businesses and consumers, LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt said in a March 16 Bangor Daily News article that the governor’s position remains the same.
The state has a storied past when it comes to nuclear power. Between 1972 and 1996, the Maine Yankee Nuclear Power Plant in Wiscasset generated nearly 120 billion kilowatts of electricity.
After a landmark referendum vote in 1980 by Maine citizens following the infamous Three Mile Island meltdown in Pennsylvania, nuclear power was phased out for eventual outlawing.
The Wiscasset plant was shut down in 1997, as called for by the legislation that spurred the 1979 referendum. The plant is maintained today, as it holds a number of spent nuclear fuel rods.
However, officials at Maine Yankee and a number of other industry professionals agree the plant poses no significant threat, at least not on the scale of the disaster in Japan. According to officials, the construction of the plant is far different than the one in Japan.
A dose of bad news from abroad still has the same effect of dousing the ardor for nuclear power, much in the same way it did during the 1980s.
Advances have been made in the design of nuclear power plants since the closure of the Wiscasset plant, so the face of nuclear power that could be presented to Maine voters will not resemble the Maine Yankee plant.
“We … need to debate the details and make sure that we do not continue to build obsolete systems,” George Markowsky, chair of the University of Maine computer science department and a nuclear energy expert, wrote in an e-mail. “Just imagine if we still insisted on having computers like the first computers that were built — those were 80 feet long and could not do 1 percent of what a cell phone can do today.”
At an energy conference at UMaine in January, Markowsky said disasters must be put in perspective. He said America must better receive the power sources and new developments with miniature nuclear plants have the potential to power smaller communities with cheap, secure power. In turn, he said, it would also reduce foreign oil dependency.
“Nuclear power has come a long way and people need to examine the new possibilities with an open mind and not think that having nuclear power means continuing to build old and obsolete nuclear plants,” Markowsky wrote.
A number of lawmakers and industry officials are not taking issue with the power source so much as they are with the costs of generating electricity for the state.
“There isn’t a source for electricity that I know of that is going to be developed that is going to be tremendously lower than the going rate for electricity,” Cashman said. “If you are looking for a magic bullet of a new development for electricity that we can sign a contract with, I don’t know what it will be.”
Rep. Stacy Fitts, R-Pittsfield, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Energy, Utilities and Technology, agreed there is no source of electricity in the near term that will reduce power costs. She said development of new power generation facilities will take decades.
“There is no supply that you can immediately site that is going to turn this around,” she added.
Additionally, both the governor and lawmakers have said before any nuclear power project can be undertaken anytime soon, there will need to be a number of deregulation efforts to help developers materialize the power source once again.
“There is not just one way to do nuclear power,” Markowsky wrote. “Research in nuclear power has produced systems that are much safer and more useful than older systems.”
