Town Meeting Day: McNeil Resolution
Resolution on the Review of McNeil Generating Station
Shall the following resolution be adopted?
Whereas the McNeil Generating Station has operated for more than 40 years without a comprehensive review of its financial performance, greenhouse gas emissions, and its impact on Vermont’s goodwill and reputation;
Therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the 2025 Town Meeting that a thorough investigation of McNeil’s finances—spanning its entire operational history—be conducted by the Vermont Public Utility Commission (PUC). This review should include
A history of cashflows,
An evaluation of biomass and other fuel flows,
An assessment of air emissions and their environmental impact, and
An analysis of the risks associated with the plant’s future operation, applying prudent anticipation of future environmental regulation.
Be it further resolved, that the Selectboard is advised to formally request such an investigation through filings before the Vermont Public Utility Commission and by any other means deemed appropriate.
Discussion
I rise to speak about a cost to the Town, which is also an unnecessary burden for its residents individually.
Of course, I am speaking of two biomass powerplants, McNeil and Rygate, that continue to receive millions of dollars in ratepayer subsidy every year while being the worst greenhouse gas emitters in the state and damaging the region’s forests with whole tree harvesting. These powerplants could be retired today, lowering electricity costs while cleaning the state’s power supply.. Retiring McNeil and Rygate now would mean following the good example set at nearby biomass plants, retired plants such as ReEnergy Black River at Fort Drum in New York and zombie Burgess Biopower in Berlin, New Hampshire.
How many people in this room have burned wood to heat their homes?
Many, I’m sure, and I think we all know how important it is to use dry wood; we would never cut down a tree and immediately stuff it in the wood stove because wet wood doesn’t burn. Yet, wet wood is precisely what fuels McNeil and Ryegate. Their fuel is harvested by big skidders that grind their way into the forest, grab a whole tree and drag it out. The tree is stuffed into a chipper, which sprays the chips into a big tractor trailer, which hauls the chips down the road and across the Winooski Bridge, dumping them in a big pile. The pile immediately starts to ferment and could eventually spontaneously combust – as has happened at McNeil in the past – if those soaking wet green wood chips weren’t so quickly fed into the biomass boiler.
We say ‘biomass’, but it would be just as accurate to say that McNeil and Ryegate are experimental attempts to burn water; the wood chips are half water by weight. It takes so many trees to run McNeil, even though it operates at a bit more than half capacity, that trucks would overwhelm local streets; so most of the wood arrives by train from a depot in Swanton, where wood arrives by truck from New York State. The situation is similar for Ryegate, where nearly half of the soaking wet wood chips come from New Hampshire. Because of this moisture and the low energy density of wood, these plants have worse greenhouse gas emissions than coal plants.
Focusing now on McNeil, because most Vermonters are Green Mountain Power customers…
McNeil was an uneconomic proposition from the beginning, and the operation of McNeil is subsidized by ratepayers. In 2019, McNeil required $4 million in operating subsidies from Vermont ratepayers: half paid by Burlington electric customers and the other half paid by Green Mountain Power customers and several municipal utility customers. That is on top of the $7 million in operating subsidies paid through Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) marketed to Connecticut utilities. We know this because of a unique report by INRS on McNeil that also summarized the sources of fuel for the plant. But the subsidizing of McNeil‘s operation has been going on for decades. Even though many public bodies and officials have had an ongoing duty to step in and halt this squandering of ratepayer funds, these officials have failed to retire this plant. It’s a governmental disgrace that burdens the Town and its residents with unnecessary expenses. Worse, there are schemes afoot that would attempt to paper over this financial mess by committing Vermonters to decades of more wasteful subsidy and GHG emissions.
The Town is NOT responsible for this mess, but has a monetary interest and has some influence in the state government process. So I present a resolution toward initiating a state review process.
[Read the entire resolution into the record of the meeting. Distribute copies of this document to members of the meeting, and hand a copy to the moderator and selectboard members.]
A draft of this document is open for comments here.
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* Burlington Electric Department used unrealistic escalation parameters to make fossil fuels appear to be more expensive than the actually were. VT PSB 4450 Order September 14, 1981 Finding 40. They also made unrealistic claims about the availability of wood fuel in Vermont. Ibid, Finding 41; VT PSB 4450 Order June 22, 1983 Finding 3.
** Economic Impact of McNeil Generating Station, Innovative Natural Resource Solutions, LLC, May 7, 2020 – a report attached to Burlington Electric Department’s 2020 Integrated Resource Plan. This report needs to be expanded to cover all years of operation of McNeil, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the plant’s impact.