KENNEBEC JOURNAL • April 16, 2022
Our state and national goals are to transition to electric transportation and heating, which could double electricity demand. If you double demand and phase out natural gas we will need four times as much clean energy as is currently available in New England. And if nuclear power goes away we’ll need much more. Many seem to think we can just handle that with popular sources such as solar and out-of-sight wind. We need much more of both, but we also need 24-hour, 365-day sources such as Canadian hydropower. The NECEC transmission line could deliver 1,200 megawatts of clean energy into the grid, but it wasn’t popular. Climate change is a very serious threat. Our unwillingness to approve anything essential but unpopular can lead to bad outcomes, particularly for our children and grandchildren. ~ Tony Marple, Whitefield