The State of New Hampshire
published “Study Pursuant to New Hampshire
Chaptered Law 156:228 (2017), subtitled “Study on the economic viability of
renewable portfolio standard Class III biomass electric generation resources in
New Hampshire”. Good lawyerly title to obfusticate
understanding. Dated 21/1/2018.
The executive
summary contains a couple of just plain weird statements. “these resources are less flexible than
intermittent renewables.” This is
foolishness. The biomass plants can come
on line when needed, say after dark, or on calm windless days. That’s flexible in my book. Solar goes away at sundown, which is when
most of us need our electricity, to run the lights, cook dinner, run the
TV. Wind goes away when the wind stops
blowing, something that happens pretty regularly up here.
“While biomass is a
major market for low grade wood, it is not the only end use.” Oh really?
And what might be another volume use for wood chips now that the paper
mills are gone?
Interesting figures
provided. Each of the 6 bio mass plants
used nearly a quarter million tons of wood chips a year, 1.36 million tons
altogether. That’s a lot of wood. At 50 tons per truck load, that’s like 5000
truckloads per plant over the year. Pretty
heavy truck traffic for most places.
Discussion of hit
to the NH economy from killing off the biomass plants. They only count the plant workers, say 500
men, as losing their jobs. No mention of
all the loggers who cut the wood chips.
I would expect at least as many loggers as electric plant workers to
loose their jobs too. Jumps the 500 job
losses to at least 1000.
The report shows
the New Hampshire wholesale price
of electricity at $35 a Megawatt Hour.
Or $35 per 1000 kilowatt hours, or 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour. I have to pay 20 cents a kilowatt hour at my
home. Somebody is making a killing. I’m getting robbed. It also drives industry out of New
Hampshire.
Companies always check electric rates before moving to anywhere.
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