Meriden highway construction progresses into second phase. Here's what's next
Christian Metzger
MERIDEN — Officials announced a recent update where the
project stands for Meriden's
congested interchange, where state Route 15 and Interstates 91 and 691
meet.
"We're continuing to make progress on this important
safety improvement project in Meriden," said Eva Zymaris, spokesperson for
the state Department of Transportation.
The on-ramps for northbound Route 15 and Interstate-9 and
eastbound I-691 from East Main Street will be closed as part of the ongoing
construction in phase two, which began last year with some components starting
in 2024.
Paddock Avenue will have one-way alternating traffic
controlled by a temporary signal, and be closed entirely during nighttime hours
between Barr and Overlook Roads, though those hours were not posted.
Roadwork will take place 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday
through Friday, with lane and shoulder closures on all three roadways during
these times.
Most of the ongoing work is placing a crushed aggregate base
— formed primarily of crushed stone and sand — that will then have paved
asphalt on top. This will take place along Route 15 from south of Paddock
Avenue to south of East Main Street.
A temporary earth retaining system is also being installed
along Route 15 northbound's Exit 65 A's off-ramp.
The foundations of new signage are being poured, along with
multiple large retaining walls and their respective drainage systems, according
to DOT information.
All these improvements are part of the second phase of the
improvement project along the three routes.
The overall project started in 2023. The final phase is
being designed and the whole interchange is anticipated to carry end in 2030.
The $500 million project is designed, when completed, to
reduce congestion along one of the state's busiest corridors, seeing around
260,000 vehicles pass through the interchange daily.
The second phase includes a new two-lane
northbound exit ramp from Route 15 to I-9 to reduce traffic congestion on
the Exit 68 ramp.
The northbound Exit 17 ramp from I-91 Route 15 will also be
permanently closed and re-routed to Exit 16, with a new two-lane exit ramp and
right-side merge onto Route 15.
Zymaris reiterated that all drivers should remain alert for
construction workers while the project remains ongoing.
"As this work continues, we're reminding the public
that we all have an important role to play in keeping our work zones and roads
safe," Zymaris said. "Please slow down, move over, stay vigilant,
ditch those distractions, and always drive sober."
Spinnaker pivots from office space to hotel in Norwalk waterfront mixed-use project
Michael
Juliano
A prominent developer is seeking to revise plans for an
approved waterfront mixed-use project in Norwalk, proposing to replace one of
two planned office buildings with a 130-room hotel.
Norwalk-based Spinnaker
Real Estate Partners received city approval in early September for a
development on a 2.72-acre property that includes a 59-unit,
five-story apartment building, two 4.5-story office buildings totaling 83,000
square feet, boat slips, a boardwalk and a ground-floor restaurant.
In an updated application filed Thursday, Spinnaker is
asking for permission to build a four-story, 130-room hotel with a ground-floor
restaurant in place of the planned roughly 54,000-square-foot office building
on the south side of the site. A smaller, 28,800-square-foot office building on
the north side would remain.
Spinnaker said it changed course because it is unlikely it
can lease 83,000 square feet of office space “in a commercially reasonable
period,” and lenders are hesitant to provide financing due to vacancy risks.
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The company said it believes demand exists for additional
hotel rooms in the area and noted it has learned a proposed nearby hotel may
“no longer be viable.”
Spinnaker said the proposed change would not result in “any
substantive changes” to the exterior of the previously approved buildings.
“All that is proposed is to allow the southern office
building on the site’s use to be approved as a hotel use,” the application
said.
An email to Spinnaker was not immediately returned.
CT plans $90 million project to improve a busy highway ramp. What to know.
Hartford Courant Staff
The Connecticut Department of Transportation plans a big
change in a highway ramp and the project is intended to improve safety,
according to the agency.
The planned changes are for improvements at Exit 46 on Route
15, according to the agency. The
exit is close to the Hero’s
Tunnel that takes traffic under West Rock between New Haven and
Hamden.
The estimated construction cost for the project is $90
million, according to the agency. The project is anticipated to be done with
80% federal funds and 20% state funds.
“The installation of acceleration and deceleration lanes on
Exit 46 will improve safety, mobility, and connectivity on Route 15, and the
immediate connections with Route 69 and Route 63,” Connecticut Department of
Transportation Project Manager Jeffrey Pfaffinger said, in a statement.
“The project also proposes to relocate the existing Route 15
northbound on-ramp to a new loop ramp,” he said. “We encourage the public to
attend this (Feb. 3) meeting to share their feedback with the CTDOT
project team to incorporate into the design.”
The agency said right-of-way impacts associated with the
proposal include “one full and two minor acquisitions,” but it did not name
them.
Traffic jams have become a regular part of using Route 15 in
parts of Connecticut as the DOT makes improvements.
Route 69, also known as Litchfield Turnpike, is a
significant thoroughfare from New Haven through Woodbridge, and then into
Bethany and north to Prospect. Route 63 also runs north through Woodbridge and
further. Route 63 is the second longest state route entirely within
Connecticut (Route 15, at 83.53 miles, takes the top spot).,” according to Kurumi.com.
The exit also is used by drivers accessing New Haven, as
Amity Road southbound becomes Whalley Avenue in Westville.
The DOT plans a hybrid Public Information Meeting on the
Exit 46 Improvements on Tuesday, February 3, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. Inclement
weather date is Tuesday, February 10, 2026, at 6:30 p.m.
According to the agency the meeting is being held to provide
the public and local community the opportunity to offer comments or ask
questions on the proposed project. The meeting will take place
in-person and on Zoom, and registration is required. For instructions on
accessing the meeting and ways to provide comments or ask questions,
visit portal.ct.gov/DOTNEWHAVEN0092-0689.
A question and answer session will immediately follow the
presentation, and it will be recorded according to the DOT.
The agency also noted construction is anticipated to begin
in the spring 2028 based on the availability of funding, acquisition of rights
of way, and approval of permits.
Individuals with limited internet access can listen to the
meeting by calling (877) 853-5257 and enter Meeting ID: 845 8665 9721.
Language assistance can be requested by contacting the CTDOT
Language Assistance Call Line (860) 594-2109. Requests should be made at least
five (5) business days prior to the meeting. Language assistance is provided at
no cost to the public and efforts will be made to respond to timely requests
for assistance, according to DOT.
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Members of the public can submit comments and questions
during the two-week public comment period following the meeting to Jeffrey
Pfaffinger, at (860) 594-2767 or Jeffrey.Pfaffinger@ct.gov. Reference
Project No. 0092-0689 in email or voicemail.
The Trump administration favors natural gas. What does that mean for CT?
Jan
Ellen Spiegel
Doug Burgum, the U.S. Department of Interior secretary, said
the quiet part out loud.
It was a few days before Christmas, an hour or two
after he had announced that five offshore wind projects
under construction — including Connecticut’s Revolution Wind — was being halted
“due to national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently
completed classified reports.”
Burgum told Fox News another story: “We have a
solution in New England right there, which is natural gas from Pennsylvania,
which would generate power five to 10 times more than all these … five projects
put together.”
Natural gas.
In some circles it’s viewed as the holy grail of power
supply. In others it is one of the worst climate change nightmares imaginable.
And then there’s pretty much everything in between.
The U.S. produces more natural gas than any other nation. It
also exports more. The Trump administration has clearly said it wants to do
more of both. That was a pillar of President Donald Trump’s day one executive order, Unleashing American Energy, which
put renewables like wind and solar on notice while creating a glide path for
extracting and marketing more fossil fuels.
The general public has many mistaken notions about natural
gas. That it is clean. That it will lower energy prices. Even that it occurs as
a liquid like oil. And for sure that it is a panacea.
The misconceptions about natural gas extend to its economics
and its politics. But they start with what it actually is, beginning with its
name.
What’s in a name
Natural gas was given that name more than a century ago to
differentiate it from the prevalent form of gas at the time, which was
manufactured from coal. That gas was known as coal gas, town gas, coke gas,
manufactured gas — among other names.
Natural gas, most often found alongside oil, came out of the
ground as gas — so it was called “natural.” It came into wide use after World
War II.
More STORIES IN Energy/ENvironment
These days, some environmental advocates want to change the
name to highlight its main component — methane.
“Typically I don’t call it natural gas,” said Deborah Gordon
a senior principal at the energy think tank RMI, where she leads the oil and
gas solutions initiative within the Climate Intelligence Program. She is an
engineer with a deep background in energy and has written specifically on the myths and realities of natural gas.
Underground, Gordon said, natural gas is anywhere from 60%
to 90% methane. After it’s processed, the natural gas delivered via pipeline to
New England is closer to 90% or more methane, she said.
Gordon is among many who point out that methane is a potent
greenhouse gas. And the problems start well before it is burned as a fuel. The
biggest of the problems is methane leaks into the atmosphere, Gordon and others
say.
In the first 20 years after it is released, methane has more
than 80 times the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide, CO2, which is the
most abundant greenhouse gas. After that, methane turns into carbon dioxide, at
which point it adds to the long-term heat trapping and greenhouse gas buildup
CO2 creates — some of which can last thousands of years.
The 2025
Global Methane Tracker report released in May by the International Energy
Agency, IEA, stated: “Methane is responsible for around 30% of the rise in
global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution, and rapid and sustained
reductions in methane emissions are key to limiting near-term global warming
and improving air quality.”
“The way we often talk about it is, CO2 building up in the
atmosphere tells you how much warming the planet is ultimately going to
experience over generations,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of
energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund, EDF.
He previously worked for the electric and gas utility PSEG,
which at one time owned the Bridgeport Harbor power plant.
“Methane in the atmosphere tells you something important
about how fast the rate of increase is going to be,” he said. “Reducing methane
from the oil and gas industry is the most immediate, impactful and
cost-effective thing that we can do to slow the rate of climate change.”
Methane leaks when the gas is extracted, when it moves
through pipelines and at many other points as it’s distributed to heat homes,
pumped into power plants to generate electricity or super-cooled to convert it
to liquefied natural gas for transport overseas by tanker.
Peter Raymond, a professor at the Yale School of the
Environment who studies and measures global methane, said the biggest source of
leaks is from waste — landfills and wastewater treatment facilities. Close
behind are the natural gas leaks. Much farther behind is agricultural methane —
mainly produced by ruminants, mostly cows.
“The biggest leak is in exploration,” Raymond said of
natural gas leakage. “There’s considerable leaks in the distribution system
that you can map and find. There’s efficiency to gain along the whole supply
chain,” he said.
“Basically you don’t want it in the atmosphere at all
because it has this very high potency over its short lifetime. Stopping it from
leaking immediately stops that warming immediately,” said RMI’s Gordon. “CO2
builds up very slowly over time, and so stopping CO2 today, which we want to
do, won’t remove all that has been built up over the last 100 years in the
planet.”
Natural gas also contains standard pollutants — and those
can leak, too. Gordon said they’re a mixture of everything the gas touched
while it was underground, plus the volatile organic compounds methane, ethane,
propane and butane. All of it can also contribute to smog.
“The whole thing is a combination of air pollution and
greenhouse gas,” she said. “If the air pollution was your only issue, [gas] in
fact would be a better choice than coal or oil, and it is less carbon intensive
than coal or oil. So over the long term, it does have some marginal benefits
relative to either one of those fuels. But when there are leaks, it does have
this profound impact in the near term.”
The extent of methane leaks from natural gas and its other
sources also reflects local regulatory controls, including containment systems
to minimize leaks and protocols to find and fix them. Brownstein at EDF said
extraction around the Marcellus Shale — the area in the Appalachian Basin that
extends through Pennsylvania into New York — has better controls than the
Permian Basin, which is largely in west Texas.
He said a recent EDF report showed that emissions on the New
Mexico side of the Permian Basin are half of what they are in Texas. “And why
is that?” he said. “Because New Mexico has a regulatory framework in place that
requires companies to manage their methane emissions, whereas in Texas, they
don’t.
“The first question that I would have for anybody
championing natural gas coming into Connecticut is, what has the state of
Connecticut done to make sure that the methane emissions are managed well
within the border?” he said. “And two, what is it that suppliers bringing gas
into Connecticut should be doing to manage the methane footprint of the gas
that they’re selling into the region?”
A spokesperson for the American Gas Association, which says
it represents more than 200 local energy delivery companies, reiterated
statements on its website that “emissions from natural gas distribution systems
have declined 70% since 1990,” though did not specify which emissions.
She said the group was “committed to reducing greenhouse gas
emissions through smart innovation, new and modernized infrastructure, and
advanced technologies.” The site also lists among its commitments to “further reduce methane
emissions from natural gas utility systems,” and it notes that AGA has put in
place a reporting system for companies to document methane reduction actions.
It also states that natural gas is “clean.”
AGA did not respond to questions about whether it supported
the Trump administration delay of stricter methane emission standards, but
noted the the local distribution companies were already exempt from the tighter
standards.
Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental
Protection, DEEP, has a pipeline safety group that monitors and manages leaks.
The Public Utilities Regulatory Authority regulates the gas distribution system
within the state.
But all Connecticut’s gas comes from outside its borders,
and that interstate movement is overseen by federal entities.
“We don’t have jurisdiction to regulate those activities,”
DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said. Producers, she said, have been better about
stemming leaks at the wellheads and production facilities. Lost gas is also
lost money for them.
DEEP tracks methane emissions in its annual Greenhouse
Gas Emissions Inventory, which monitors the state’s progress towards its
emissions goal. “While Connecticut has reduced fugitive emissions from older
gas infrastructure by replacing older cast iron gas lines with newer PVC distribution
lines, fugitive emissions have risen imperceptibly since the previous
year,” its most recent report, released in September, stated.
Connecticut does not include the emissions that occur in the
production of gas that eventually comes into the state. “This inventory does
not capture the full effect of methane leaks into the atmosphere from the
natural gas distribution system because natural gas consumed in Connecticut is
produced and stored out of state,” the report also stated. New York, California
and Washington do include that in their inventories.
“I think what keeps us up the most [at night] is that
policymakers seem to be still reaching for gas as a solution for affordability,
despite how much has changed to the contrary about the affordability of gas in
the last 10 years,” said Jamie Dickerson, senior director of clean energy and
climate programs at Acadia Center, a regional advocacy group for clean energy
and climate change solutions.
He said even though the climate concern is still there, “we
still are very concerned that natural gas would actually have an upward impact on energy
prices and exacerbate the current affordability dynamics in the
region.”
The counter-intuitive economics of natural gas
In certain policy circles, there has been no shortage of
discussion, news stories and market analysis about the economics of Trump’s
push for more U.S.-produced natural gas. And they all get at a similar idea —
as gas production increases, so will the price for U.S. consumers. That may
sound counterintuitive.
There are good reasons for it, though.
One is that even if all the gas was destined to be used in
the U.S., producers would still need to drill, produce and transport it. Who
would pay for that, including new pipelines and all the other construction
components? U.S. consumers.
But a lot of the gas is not destined for use here. Much of
the Trump administration’s motive for boosting production is to sell it to
other countries — especially European countries trying to stop using Russian
gas. They’ve been willing to pay relatively high prices, which gas producers
certainly like.
If U.S. buyers want some of that gas, in order to be
competitive they would to have to match those European prices. Even if you
strip out the costs of liquefying it and transporting it to Europe, U.S. buyers
would still face higher prices for natural gas, which seems to leave them stuck
between a rock and a hard place.
The most recent data from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration, EIA, shows how stark that price increase was in 2025 alone,
despite an increase in gas production. Last year, the average wholesale spot
price for the benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana increased by 56% compared to
2024, when prices hit the lowest on record when adjusted for inflation. (Prices
tend to be higher in winter than summer when gas is used for both electricity
and heat.)
The average prices for the two hubs used by the Northeast —
one in Boston and one in New York — doubled over that same period.
According to an analysis of EIA data done by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, there
were record exports of natural gas — mainly as LNG — over the course of the
first nine months of the Trump administration. They went up 22%. Costs for
natural gas consumers also went up 22%.
January data from EIA predicts the benchmark natural
gas price will decline in the beginning of this year, before rising sharply
into 2027.
Michael Oristaglio, senior research scientist and lecturer
in earth and planetary sciences at Yale University, and former director of the
university’s energy studies program, said that could leave the oil industry in
a bind. Since oil and gas often are a two-for-one drilling proposition — with
oil prices too low for companies to want to invest and oil demand declining as
well — drilling for more gas could go down with the oil ship.
“That is the issue in the Permian Basin,” he said. “The
Marcellus is a little different. It’s one of the only shale formations that
just produces natural gas.”
Compromising the ability to build new gas infrastructure is
a shortage of natural gas turbines that is predicted to
last until 2030. And even if the infrastructure could get built, tariffs might
raise the cost — again, something that consumers would likely have to bear.
Even so, Connecticut is not ruling out a tilt back to
natural gas use, despite years-long efforts to pivot away.
Dykes said DEEP is researching the many factors around
fossil fuel use, including the critical cost-benefit analysis, as it develops
its next Integrated Resource Plan, IRP, which assesses future electric needs.
While she noted that the cost of electricity is highly sensitive to the
delivered price of natural gas in New England, she also referenced the marching
orders from her boss.
“Gov. Lamont has been speaking for more than a year now
about the importance of considering all energy options as a part of an
all-of-the-above approach. And he’s been very interested in understanding what
the potential benefits might be of expanding gas access, particularly to help
make energy costs more affordable and make the grid more reliable,” she said.
At the opposite end, Dykes has to factor in how to meet the
state’s decarbonization goals and mandates. She pointed to additional gas as a
potential counter-balance to renewable power that may not be available 100% of
the time. But she admitted that trying to weigh the many sudden moves by the
Trump administration — such as the second shutdown and now court-ordered
restart of construction on Revolution Wind — can make that process
daunting.
“I think the only thing that anyone really can say with
certainty is that the list of uncertainties continues to grow,” Dykes said.
“Unfortunately, that doesn’t relieve us of the necessity of making some
decisions and making some investments, with the best information we can, to
help ensure that we have a reliable and affordable grid that can meet the long
term policy goals that the legislature has set here in Connecticut.”
Brad Campbell, president of the New England-based
Conservation Law Foundation, CLF, and a former Environmental Protection Agency
regional administrator, said that the conventional wisdom for many years was
that if you wanted to lower electricity prices in New England, all you had to
do was build more infrastructure to get more gas in. But he said that’s a
misconception.
“Building more pipes isn’t going to reduce prices for New
Englanders when the price of the commodity going into the pipe is going higher
and higher,” he said. “Running another pipe — the gas industry expects that to
be borne on the backs of ratepayers.”
Brownstein of EDF also pointed out that gas, unlike
renewables such as wind and solar, comes with the ongoing cost of having to pay
for every unit that’s consumed.
“When you say that a new gas pipeline will be run into New
England, or you say that New England will build a whole bunch of new gas
plants, ultimately you will pay for that every time you turn on your lights,
and every time you turn on your stove,” he said. “It’s very nice for the Trump
administration to say that you need all this and you should want it. It’s
another thing to say to a homeowner in Connecticut, ‘Guess what you’re going to
have to pay for.”’
Brownstein said in recent travels to Europe, he heard
worries about the continent becoming too dependent on U.S. gas — namely, if
energy prices begin to rise in the U.S., would the Trump administration
restrict exports in order to keep energy prices in the U.S. low?
“They see that simply replacing their dependence on Russian
gas for dependence on American gas may not be a smart bet either, particularly
as the United States has become a less predictable ally,” Brownstein said.
Add to that the current dispute the U.S has with new E.U.
regulations for monitoring and tightening methane emissions on oil and gas
coming into the E.U. beginning next year. The U.S. has asked for an exemption. It’s unclear how
that could play out — but it could push prices higher.
And there are also questions about how to move forward with
existing gas infrastructure. Spend the money to repair it when needed? Replace
it if necessary? Even expand it?
“We’re not doing the right cost-benefit analysis to
determine where the public should be putting its money,” said Noah Berman,
senior policy advocate and utility innovation program manager at Acadia Center.
That’s where politics comes in.
The politics of natural gas in the age of Trump
Connecticut has had its own love-hate political relationship
with gas over the last 15 or so years. In 2013, in the
state’s first Comprehensive Energy Strategy — developed by the
then-new Department of Energy and Environmental Protection — converting to
natural gas was a go-to strategy.
Its key goal was to take advantage of cheap prices from the
fracking boom to convert more than 300,000 homes and businesses from oil to
natural gas heat. Gas was touted as cleaner and a bridge fuel from oil to
renewables.
Climate advocates were incensed, predicting it would
entrench gas for a generation or more. There were also concerns about the lack
of pipeline capacity and the cost of building out infrastructure to distribute
gas to homes.
While the policy stayed in place for years, the goals were
never reached and it quietly vanished as the focus turned to electrification
through heat pumps, rooftop solar and storage.
But much of the region did not look kindly on more gas lines
or plants. A study done in Massachusetts 10 years ago found that more gas lines
weren’t needed until at least 2030. While some gas generation was built, and
oil-burning plants converted to gas, local opposition contributed to stopping
others — including
a plant planned in Killingly.
New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Maine are, to
varying degrees, exploring what are referred to as “future of gas” policies —
ways to wean states off using natural gas, from very gentle pushes towards heat
pumps to strict rules barring new gas hookups for homes and businesses.
But with Trump’s pro-fossil fuel and anti-renewables
policies in place, New York has delayed implementation of its gas bans that
would have started on Jan. 1. The state’s governor, Kathy Hochul, is now
considering allowing a gas pipeline to be built after years of opposing it. The
concession is said to have been the price for restarting Empire Wind
construction after the first time Trump ordered it stopped earlier in 2025,
though Hochul claims that is not the case. (The project was one of those
recently stopped again.)
Massachusetts has recently made moves towards backing off
some its climate goals — though a longstanding ruling, which keeps utilities
from charging customers for new gas lines, remains in place.
Connecticut has been on the sidelines for much of this —
especially cutting back on gas use. Legislation that has promoted future of gas
evaluations has failed more than once in recent years, and EIA data shows that gas consumption in the state is rising.
“Connecticut is an outlier on gas consumption rates among
the rest of the region,” said Acadia’s Dickerson. “If you isolate just
Connecticut, the rest of New England is actually flat or declining gas
consumption over the past five to 10 years.”
Acadia supports consideration of non-pipeline solutions —
like promoting heat pumps, solar or geothermal energy — to avoid recommitting
to natural gas when existing infrastructure has reached the end of its useful
life or has safety issues.
The Trump administration has been steadily endeavoring to
peel away safeguards against greenhouse gases as well as standard emissions of
all sorts. It’s keeping coal plants open past their planned shutdowns. And the
administration is close to rolling back more restrictive Biden administration
standards for mercury and carbon emissions.
For methane specifically, it has delayed until 2034 stricter
emission standards also put in place by the Biden administration. A number of groups, including EDF, are challenging that in
court.
“There’s no question that the Trump administration is
working to put a thumb on the scale of oil and gas,” said Brownstein of EDF.
“Doubling down on natural gas exacerbates a methane problem that they’re taking
no action to solve, and, in fact, undoing work that the previous administration
did that actually would have made a material difference.”
An open question is whether the Trump administration —
through its energy emergency executive order, or any other energy actions
including quid pro quos to restart offshore wind and other projects — will be
able to force natural gas into or through a state that doesn’t want it.
On Jan. 13, the EPA announced a proposed rule to limit states’ ability
under the Clean Water Act to deny federal permits for infrastructure like gas
pipelines if the state feels they pose a hazard to water bodies. It
follows a proposed rule issued in November that would remove
federal pollution protections from many inland waters and most wetlands.
“They are absolutely trying to override state authority. And
their theory is that anything states do that burdens the oil and gas industry —
anything that burdens big oil and big gas — should be overridden because it
interferes with the President’s authority in declaring the energy emergency,”
Campbell at CLF said.
“I think at the end of the day, the political pressure on
governors to deliver on an affordability agenda is going to drive the same
changes in policy, the same changes in the utility model and utility practice
that we need to decarbonize the grid,” Campbell said. “But the one thing that
seems certain is that deepening our addiction to natural gas for heat and
electricity is going to only going to take us in a less affordable direction.”
Study: Nuclear, natural gas would save New England hundreds of billions over renewable mandates
Andrew Larson
A coalition of free-market think tanks, including Connecticut’s Yankee Institute, released a study Tuesday arguing that New England would save between $400 billion and $700 billion by 2050 if states replaced planned wind and solar projects with nuclear power plants and natural gas facilities.
The study, “Alternatives to New England’s Affordability Crisis,” estimated meeting the region’s 2050 energy needs with nuclear power would cost $415.3 billion and achieve 92% carbon-free power, while natural gas would cost $106.9 billion with a 24.5% emissions reduction.
A combination of nuclear and natural gas plants — called the “Happy Medium” scenario — would cost $195.8 billion and cut emissions by 50%, according to the analysis conducted by Always On Energy Research.
The coalition compared these projections to findings from their 2024 study, which estimated meeting regional energy demand under current renewable energy mandates would cost $815 billion by 2050. The renewable scenario would cause New England families’ electricity bills to increase from $175 per month in 2024 to $384 per month by 2050, the study found.
Five of the six New England states have enacted renewable energy mandates. New Hampshire is the only state without such requirements.
Jack DeOliveira, director of policy at the Yankee Institute, said the analysis “gives policymakers a foundation to weigh trade-offs between affordability, emissions reductions, and system reliability as New England’s energy demand continues to grow.”
Connecticut is among the more aggressive New England states on climate policy, with a statutory mandate for 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2040 and an economy-wide net-zero goal by 2050.
Nuclear, along with wind and solar, qualify as zero‑carbon resources.
“New England policies aimed at decarbonizing the heating and transportation sectors will drive a massive increase in additional electricity demand during the coldest winter months,” said Isaac Orr, vice president of research for Always On Energy Research. “Keeping the heat on will require a massive buildout of power plant capacity that will be used for only five or six months per year, which drives up prices year-round.”
The study argues nuclear and natural gas plants provide continuous power unlike wind and solar, reducing blackout risks. The study concluded that “the idea that New England can run its electric grid on wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries is a dangerous and unserious proposition.”
Click here to view the study.