“Catastrophe” Awaits Maine: Angus King

The Ellsworth American ^ | Thursday, June 19, 2008

[Bulwinkle]

That’s the word not from Chicken Little, but from former Maine Governor Angus King, who says he doesn’t use the term “catastrophe” lightly.

“This is a human catastrophe coming at us in the state of Maine in terms of energy supply and costs,” King said last week at a daylong seminar on harnessing tidal energy and offshore wind to confront runaway energy costs, costs he sees as a direct threat to Maine being habitable.

“This winter, the cost of fuel oil is going to more than double,” he said. “What’s being quoted now is $4.96 — $5 a gallon. That’s $1,000 to fill up your tank in the basement one time, and most people are going to have to fill up their tank six times.

“How is somebody who is making $350 or $400 a week going to pay to fill up the tank to keep warm? How are they going to pay to fill up the truck to get to work? This is, I think, the most serious crisis to ever face the state of Maine.” ...

... “This is a catastrophe,” he said. “This isn’t business as usual. This isn’t some minor little problem. This isn’t do not pass school buses or what’s the speed limit on the Interstate. This is a disaster in the state of Maine that’s coming at us.” ...

...“Eighty percent of homes in Maine are heated with oil,” he said. “The national average is 9 percent. If you do the math, 87 percent of the total energy bill of the average Maine person is dependent on oil or natural gas, and that is a particularly serious problem.”

[maine-iac7]

“In 1998, energy — all energy: cars, home heating and electricity — was 4 percent of the average Maine family’s budget. Today it’s 20 percent. It went from 4 percent to 20 percent in 10 years. That’s pain.” Should oil hit $300 a barrel, King said, that percentage would increase from 20 percent to as much as 50 percent of the average family budget.

Former Maine Governor Angus King“We go from pain to lethal,” he said. “We simply can’t survive that. This state and this country are not viable at that level of energy costs. If this happens, it’s all over. We won’t have an election for governor in 2020; we’ll have an election for chief park ranger, because that’s all this state will be, a large park of some kind that is largely uninhabitable.

I bought my house 17 years ago - it cost $500 to heat - now it would be over $2,000. I ain't got it. I put in a wood stove years ago, but it's getting increasingly hard for me to handle - I'm a handicapped great gramma.

Not to mention: wood in much more expensive now also, especially since I can't saw logs and split stumps.

But Obama would be proud of me - I haven't had my thermostat at 72 for years - indeed, I run at 68 max, have the heat turned off and keep door closed in the bedroom, turned off in office, useing only residual heat from dining/kitchen, and wear "extreme weather" wool socks and heavy wool sweaters, use lap robes and wool throws on my shoulders - and have got the cat used to napping on the top of my easy chair and pillows - helps keep my head warm.

But seriously, (well, all the above is true) I do not know how I can keep survivably warm this winter. If I could handle running only the wood stove, that would help a great deal...but I can't. - 20% of a soc. sec. check is a big bite...I do make a bit extra by continuing my column of 20 years - but the IRS imposes almost 16% for self-employment soc. sec., tax...

[MrLee]

We have a wood stove. But the cost of a cord of cut & split wood has gone from $75 a cord to $200 or more...... Our electricity, ah hell, EVERYTHING’S high in Maine...........
Decades of liberal control of the legislature has ruined this state... If I were younger I’d be gone!

[maine-iac7]

If I were in that position and had oil heat (I don’t have it now) I would start to look at electric baseboard and better insulation.

I guess I'm not understanding you?

where do you live? Certainly not in Maine.

Electric baseboard heat is WAY more expensive even than oil - and what makes you think we Mainers are too dumb to have "better" insulation?

Might I suggest you try living in Maine or in the same climate zone for a few winters before you 'opine'?

[bert]

Cold in Maine?

Perhaps they have too much Snowe?

[bicyclerepair]

I hope it’s REALLY extra cold this winter! I’d welcome freezing temps.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Another word about wood heat. Wood heat is nice. It heats up quickly and is nice to look at. However wood here runs about $70/face cord delivered. We use about 8 cords/year. My neighbor has 14 cords piled up beside his house for next winter.

On the downside, a wood stove won’t heat your house. I heats an area very well. The upstairs are rather chilly. One needs wood heat as a backup when everything else terns adverse. Even if you own the trees, there are costs associated with getting it out and cutting it up to go into the stove. Wood heats you three times. Once when you cut the tree down, once when you cut the wood up so it can go into the stove, and once when you burn it. Then there are the ashes to take care of.

[reformedliberal]

Serious.

The rest of the story:

We have an influx of wealthy young progressives who, by supporting an alternative Waldorf School, an organic food co-op and a block of mostly failing boutiques have also drawn in economically average people with Progressive POVs and a lot of what we call *floaters* (because they seem to *float* a few inches off the ground) from Madison, mostly UW drop outs. Because of them, this town of 4k is now considered a *happening* (sic) place.

The native townspeople are up in arms about the hippies maintaining messy wood piles in their front yards, gardening on the road medians, planting messy sweet corn rows in their front yards and keeping chickens in the back yard, while never seeming to weed anything or dispose of any garden/animal waste, except to let it accumulate in the yard.The newcomers also get hysterical when a neighbor or the town cuts down any tree, uses any additive on the grass or mows with a gas mower.

The town council has punted the issue and after a citizen uprising last summer, all they did was talk about issuing chicken permits and lecturing the offenders on keeping their property neat/habitable.

The air-pollution alarmists evidently moved here to avoid the air in larger urban areas. Some are just natural-born neurotics. The town is on a ridge, but the area is quite hilly and so, many mornings, we have dense fog in the valleys and this means an *air quality alert* is issued by the weather service. They get especially hysterical when there is pollen or mold spores in abundance (Spring/Fall). This affects the susceptible, who then jump on anything that might be *polluting*.

The same newcomers are up in arms about pig farms and the landfilled disposal of scrubbed (limed) fly ash from the coal-fired generating plant about 20 miles from here that _might_ *endanger* organic farms. We just had the second round of severe flooding in ten months that devestated many organic acres and we have many watershed control dams that need repair/replacement, but the concern of the newcomers is a recreational lake behind a dam that leaked and had to be drained. This will take millions, little help from the State or Feds and drain resources away from flood control.

While we have been here for 34 years and have good friends in town, we value our individual privacy, peace and quiet and the independence of our own woodlot, well, river, springs and no building permits or ordinances against *unsightly* building projects on our property. It would take catastrophic illness or advanced age (80s) to make us move into town and then, it would only be for proximity to the hospital.

[Maringa]

Don’t worry, Hugo Chavez will come to the rescue and provide free oil just before the elections....

[WakeUpAndVote]

No, I have never even visited there but, I would like to. The coldest I have ever had was highs just below zero for a few days.

Never said Mainers are dumb for not having insulation or not. I would just make sure my attic had an extra layer of fyberglass, window caulked and doors sealed.

What extra things do you have? I am always up for a new idea.

[maine-iac7]

Maine is currently considered habitable?

Well, at least in our non-winter season. We DO have two seasons you know: Winter and 4th of July (only the 4th of July is looking iffy this year.)

That aside - your passport to ever visit Maine is now revoked.

[dbwz]

I've been spoiled living in the tri-state (NY-NJ-CT) area I guess. We've always had the gas hookup available wherever we've lived, and that's what we've always used.

Friend of mine moved to a more rural area of NY state this past January, so he's getting a taste of what life is like having to top off propane and oil tanks. I'm not sure what the propane was going for, but the oil was almost $4/gal, and being a new customer he had to shell out for deposit and for the fill-up. Ouch.

Where I am in NJ, the electric rates have just about doubled since last year. I'm actually starting to look into a small wind generator for the house, but something tells me we're going to be running into a wall of NIMBYs and zoning regs. So here we go, electric costs too much and uses too many valuable resources, but we won't let you mediate your costs because the solution looks ugly. Explain to me why a damn Prius is allowed on the road, then. ;-)

[hoagy62]

And to think they shut down Maine Yankee years ago...

Betcha they’re regretting that now!

What? The enviros still don’t like nuclear power?

If I lived in Maine (and I have relatives who do), I can just imagine myself talking with some enviro-nut....

Me: “I need energy to heat my home! Let me burn wood.”

Enviro-nut (in whiney voice): “You can’t have it! It’ll endanger the environment!”

Me: “So ...you’d rather have me and my family die, just to save a bunch of trees?”

Enviro-nut: “Yes! We’re over populated! Man is a scourge on the Earth! We need to get rid of Neanderthals like you so the Earth can be tended by the proper-thinking people like me and make it the paradise it was meant to be...”

At that point in the conversation, Free Republic rules prevent me from saying what I would do to said enviro-whacko. Suffice it to say it involves the phrase “You first.”

[Arkansas Toothpick]

I’m not familiar with heating oil (I’ve lived in the South all my life). Why does it cost more than gasoline?

[Walmartian]

It appears to me that the people in Maine have several months to prepare for a possible oncoming “catastrophe” rather than the mere minutes a Midwesterner has to duck before a tornado forms and blows his house into the next county. But what do I know.

[WakeUpAndVote]

I think it is all in the taxes.

IIRC it is cheaper to make than gas and the only difference between diesel and No. 2 heating oil is the color.

Anyone else can shead some light on this?

[maine-iac7]

People have built homes that do not require furnaces or air conditioning to maintain a comfortable temperature (55 to 57 Fahrenheit) for thousands of years.

Try living in a house with that temp before you opine. One size does not fit all. Yes, those temps are survivable - for most. But little kids, who live in the first 2-3 feet off the floor, will be in the coldest part and the elderly, who are vulnerable to hypothermia, will suffer to the point of expiring.

That said: I grew up with my grandparents on a farm built in 1848 by my great grandfather. We still had no electricity. We heated with our own wood and lighted with kerosene lamps. Our water came from our hand dug well through a pump at the end of the soapstone sink. We had a good life. And our little house was a hellava lot warmer than a cave.

People who did live - for thousands of years - in these temps, died like flies from pneumonia, flu, etc...

Of course, you could advise us all how to live comfortably under these temps - obviously, you are practicing what you preach for others - unlike the Marxists who just have all the answers and rules for everyone else to live by while they don't have to confront those same conditions themselves.

Seriously, MrEdd, what you write: People have built homes that do not require furnaces or air conditioning to maintain a comfortable temperature (55 to 57 Fahrenheit) for thousands of years.

- yep. That's the solution. Go back to living like the primitives. That'll solve it.

.

[hellbender]

Don’t worry. Global Warming will soon turn Maine into a steam bath, or the Sahara Desert...something like that. The facts are in, the case is closed. /s

[WayneS]

Darn it!

I just had it renewed, too.

;^)

[Grut]

Not getting this. There is so damn much wood in Maine, they could rely on the technology they have used for hundreds of years: The Stove. Wow. Breakthrough.

Unfortunately, the only house insurance we can get here in Maine (regulation has driven most companies away) has a rider specifying no woodstoves. When you're the only source of insurance you can go pretty far at insisting your customers protect you from all risk.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

They could burn feces. ;)