Dude that’s one of the biggest party spots on the lake! Of course you can swim!

Thanks for letting me know, I appreciate that. Unfortunately my Sunday's are already busy.

The land that was suitable for agriculture was cleared and developed as such. That’s where potatoes are grown in northern Maine.

When Maine sold off vast tracts of state held forestland, they assumed the timber barons would clear it and then sell it off to homesteaders. Turns out it was shitty farmland so that didn’t happen.

As you go even farther north into Quebec you eventually arrive at the St Lawrence valley, which has good farmland.

Don't they also own a huge swath of New Brunswick, too?

The evidence for cost of delivery in Maine, and across the nation, directly correlates to the number of trees, the distance of overhead wires, and the number of customers. I don't have the PowerPoint with me but I'm sure you can find similar data from across the country that shows this information. Maine's consumer owned utilities are in more densely packed regions of the state, or in areas (I think Van Buren has one?) Where the number of trees are fewer due to agriculture uses.

The evidence for ability to respond to down times is basic logic which applies to anyone with experience working for very large companies and very small companies, and a point that line workers have made throughout this debate. It's a lot easier to react to emergencies when you have a bigger pool of people who's job it is to react to those emergencies.

CMP sucks at a lot of things, which means that people assume they suck at everything, including things that either aren't under their control or that they're actually pretty decent at. It bugs me but I understand it.

Maine is at like 70% of the power it generates is green, but we're a relatively small part of the New England grid in both use and generation.

Ya you have to get them cleaned yearly for them to operate properly and efficiently

I'm sure it's a maintenance issue, but we can't find anyone to come check it out so I just gave it the finger and turned it off for the season.

Interesting mine is cheaper than running the ac in the summer! Still run furnace under 15°

We had to stop using our heat pump because it suddenly started doubling our electric bill.

FWIW, when you cross the border up there, the Northwoods opens up to farmland. Privately held land is sometimes part of the conservation equation. The fact that Irving makes its money in forestry is mainly why the Northwoods stays as woods.

Standard offer went from .06 to .11

Yes. It’s a family business for lack of a better term that has business in everything from forestry to railroads to oil and even shipbuilding.

Is there any evidence of that based on the experiences of the many consumer owned utilities in Maine and elsewhere?

Did they lock in a bad price from 2022? because natural gas just plummeted 9%, and experts expect it to fall even more due to lower than average usage in the USA. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-03/fear-of-global-natural-gas-crisis-eased-by-warm-start-to-winter

Pine Tree Power would have oversight from the Maine Public Utilities Commission. You can't cancel your electric service any differently now than you could under public power, so that's not an argument for private ownership. You sound privileged to have an HR team that will fight for you.

Remember the wind storm of '17? My family was out for a week and a half. Shits rough but you'll get by.

Where in Maine are you?

We are at the very southern part, practically Portsmouth NH. We have a generator 🙏🏼 but have heard that only about 300 people have power in the area right now.

We still don’t have cable though but I’m ok with that

Its your roof and its a free country

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It is definitely not mostly hydroelectric. You can see our current grid mix any time at https://www.iso-ne.com/.

80% is also wrong, but NG is the marginal fuel, so any fluctuations in the gas market end up setting rates in New England. Also the issue isn't just the price of gas itself, but the 'basis' price which is the cost of purchasing space on pipelines to move the gas to New England. We don't have enough space on pipelines to heat the region and run electric generators, so prices spike during the winter.

Corporate greed.

small portion its 50% i get 100 in electricity and pay 100 to get it here.

What's your source on 80% being natty gas? I understood it was mostly hydroelectric.