Infrastructure
As Pilgrim Powers Down, Some Worry It Will Leave Behind Too Much Radiation
Like all nuclear power plants, Pilgrim releases small amounts of radioactive gases and liquids as part of its normal operations. These emissions are controlled by the plant, and monitored by federal and state regulators to protect public health.
Read MoreHistoric Plymouth Looks To A Future Without Pilgrim
Beneath a towering granite pavilion, in the smallest state park in Massachusetts, is an unassuming gray boulder with outsized historic and economic importance: Plymouth Rock. The Rock draws a million visitors a year. Tourism is a powerful economic engine for Plymouth, employing 4,000 workers and generating $30 million annually in local taxes.
Read MoreThis Vermont Town Took A Big Hit When Its Nuclear Plant Closed
At the end of May, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth will permanently shut down. Forty-six years ago it began generating electricity, high-paying jobs and intense controversy over safety and environmental impact. Pilgrim went into service just one day after its sister plant: Vermont Yankee. Both reactors were the same make and model: a GE Mark I reactor. And since 2002, they have been operated by the same company: Entergy.
Read MoreIn A Win For CMP, Maine Utility Regulators Approve 145-Mile Transmission Line
Maine’s top energy regulators handed a win to Central Maine Power Thursday in its bid to build a controversial power line through western Maine.
Read More‘It Has Not Been Fun’ — CMP Transmission Project Divides Western Maine Communities
To get to the backwoods homestead where Duane Hanson started his family four decades ago — deep timber territory, 16 miles from the Canadian border — you have to snowmobile sometimes more than 8 miles in from Spencer Road in Jackman. Eagles and other raptors patrol the air above.
Read MoreIn Connecticut, The Costs And Benefits Of Shared Solar Are Tough To Calculate
Renewable energy projects have been growing across New England in recent years. And while offshore wind and grid-scale solar have gotten lots of the attention — a smaller, more community-oriented way of getting power has been steadily taking hold: “shared clean energy.”
Read MoreBringing Hydro Power From Canada To Massachusetts: Comparing Northern Pass And New England Clean Energy Connect
We’re going to take you on a journey. It starts in frigid Québec, where a gigantic, decades-old project that dammed rivers and forced native people off their land and has become a source of provincial pride, and a lot of power. Power-hungry Massachusetts saw Hydro-Québec’s big dams as a zero-carbon answer to their prayers.
Read MoreHistoric Willimantic, Connecticut To Demolish Rough Reputation
Two grand hotels on historic Main Street of Willimantic, Connecticut, hosted movers and shakers from New York and Boston during the golden age of train travel. The hotels fell into disrepair when travelers took to the highways. Cheap rooms, cheap heroin and social services drew addicts, sex workers and the unemployed. A plan to demolish the buildings may force the town to reconcile its grand history and troubled past.
Read MoreCities Don’t Always Tell You When There’s Sewage In The River. A New Bill Would Change That
Gabby Queenan stands on a small lookout point by the Charles River. Behind her, a few joggers brave the cold and cars whiz by on Memorial Drive. She points out the Harvard University athletic fields across the water and the University Boathouse a few hundred yards downriver.
Read MoreThe Future Of Nuclear Energy In New England
As Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant stopped production in Vernon, Vermont, and as Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts moves to close later this year, what is the future of nuclear power in our region? Soon New England will only have Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant operating in New Hampshire and Millstone Nuclear Power Plant operating in Connecticut, so what does this mean for our energy mix and for ratepayers in our region?
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