Wet Is Wonderful, But Can Hydropower Replace Natural Gas To Meet Energy Needs?
As many of us learned this winter, electricity prices in New England are going up. The region’s become increasingly reliant on natural gas, but we can’t get enough of it into the region on high-demand winter days. Canada has a lot of clean energy to spare in the form of hydropower, and Gov. Charlie Baker and other New England governors are taking the first steps to bring more of that electricity south.
So could hydro be the clean, renewable energy alternative to building a new natural gas pipeline?
Hydropower is pretty simple.
Most of the time it involves a dam. Like the Great Stone Dam in Lawrence.
“It’s a 900-foot-long, 25-foot high waterfall,” said Randald Bartlett standing above it.
This dam once turned the wheels of mills along the Merrimack River, propelling Massachusetts into the Industrial Revolution and making it the textile capital of the country.
