Every reason Gov. Mills offers for supporting the Central Maine Power corridor is better met with a bill in the Legislature – L.D. 1436 – which aims to openly recruit the interest of Portland Pipe Line in repurposing the unused crude oil pipeline as an underground conduit for high-voltage direct current. This option (presented at my request by Rep. Chris Kessler) avoids aerial lines, which are the nexus of conflict. The timing here is almost providential.

A 2018 federal court case revealed that the pipeline is a stranded asset – one that is a yearly liability for the owners and will be a liability for the public in cleaning up its industrial footprint.

Meanwhile, one of the pipeline’s owners, Shell, has been expanding its renewable-energy portfolio in ways uncannily coincident with the “sweeteners” negotiated in the CMP corridor project. Shell is deploying ultrafast electric-vehicle charging stations and home battery storage throughout Europe, is partner-developer of a massive 2,500-megawatt wind farm off the New Jersey coast and is even a utility offering electricity and broadband to U.K. customers. Shell’s talent and capital can push these efforts further faster than CMP could ever do.

There are specialty engineering firms capable of doing this sort of retrofit. They need to be contacted not for a feasibility study, but for an estimate. The CMP corridor can be delayed for this without loss and with huge potential gains.

This win-win converts this war-era fossil fuel infrastructure, saves the carbon-cleansing forest and immediately writes off 220 tons of permitted volatile organic compound emissions per year.

Without L.D. 1436, in a year’s time trees will be felled and pylons emplaced, standing as lasting monuments that will fuel resentment each election cycle and enable links to be made between green energy and loss of nature. A backlash of alienated voters may generate another eight years of regressive energy policy.

Please, Gov. Mills, support L.D. 1436.

Eben Rose

South Portland


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