July 23, 2010 - no Senate energy bill for now; wind gets boosts

A bit of New Meadows eye candy:


Sure enough, the Senate climate bill is dead. Instead, we'll get a weak energy bill addressing the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, promoting building energy efficiency through the HomeStar program, and promoting the use of natural gas as a fuel for large trucks.

In Maine, the Fort Halifax dam removal saga continues. Prior to removal of this dam on the Sebasticook River, the town of Winslow, Maine and residents had voiced concerns about erosion, and had appealed (without success) the Department of Environmental Protection's orders approving dam removal. After the dam was removed, portions of the former impoundment's banks suffered severe erosion. The town had to spend over $725,000 to demolish six homes on Dallaire Street that were threatened by the newly eroded banks. The affected areas also included the river bank below the historic (mid-1700s) Fort Hill Cemetery, eroding the bank back much closer to the cemetery fence and grave sites. Former dam owner FPL Energy Maine Hydro commissioned a study of why this erosion happened. FPLE's study concluded that the dam removal and drawdown "did not play a significant role"; instead, the study pointed to unstable soils, steep slopes, heavy rain, and an earthquake. Both the town and the state expressed doubts about this conclusion. Now the town has officially asked the DEP to perform its own study, and to enforce the conditions in its dam removal order that require FPLE to monitor and remediate erosion.

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee has approved Susan Collins's request for $10 million in funding for the University of Maine's development, deployment and testing of deepwater and offshore wind turbines. The funding must now be approved by the full Senate, but the parallel House bill still lacks such an appropriation.

Wind is big in California too. It looks like Terra-Gen's Alta Wind Energy Center near Tehachapi is going forward, as it has placed an order with Vestas Wind Systems for 190 3 MW turbines. The Alta Wind project represents the largest financing of a North American wind-energy development to date. Part of the financial picture includes a 1,550 MW power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison for part of the project output. The project will have domestic economic benefits as well: Vestas will manufacture the blades in Windsor, Colorado, and most of the towers in Pueblo, CO.

A growing storm in the Gulf of Mexico has put BP's efforts at the oil well site on hold.

June 29, 2010 - Arrowsic tide mills; federal climate bill

First, a photo I took last night looking upstream of the dam into Winnegance:



Continuing my exploration of historic tidal power resources in my neck of the woods: today, the Crosby tide mill in Arrowsic, Maine.

The Crosby mill, which operated in the early 1900s, was a tidal water-powered sawmill. The mill was located on Mill Island (off the Old Stage Road) between the millpond and the Back River. The Town of Arrowsic's newsletter has an interesting account of life at the mill, including felling trees, scooting them to the river by oxen, rafting the logs up, and towing them to the mill. The mill's gates were built into an earthen dam. The gates opened on a rising tide, and automatically closed when the mill pond was full.

When the millpond was higher than the river, the sawyer could opened a small gate into the box of the waterwheel. As the water poured from the mill pond through the box into the Back River, it turned the 6'-8' wheel and shaft, powering the machinery. Because the saw took so much power to run, it could only be used effectively when Mill Pond was at least 4' higher than the Back River. On an average 8' tide, the Crosby mill could run for 4-5 hours. Recall too that the time of high tide changes every day. As the Arrowsic newsletter recounts, "It was convenient when an overnight high tide was timed so that the pond was full when the men arrived for work in the morning. They started the day at full power when this happened."

So what happened to the Crosby mill? It closed in the late 1930s, a time of great change for the area. At about the same time, the Spinney Mill on the west side of the island closed too. At least one of the Crosby workers ended up working at the Winnegance Mill in Phippsburg, which remained in operation after converting to electricity for power.

Speaking of Winnegance: here's a picture I took last evening of the remains of some cribworks at the mouth of Winnegance Creek.  Those piles of rock exposed on the mud flats once supported the tide mills themselves.  You can see the location of this now-vanished dam on the 1894 map of Bath.




In energy policy news: the Senate is drafting a climate bill that will only place restrictions on emissions from electricity generators, but would not cap greenhouse gas emissions from other sectors like manufacturing and transportation.