Bibliographic record
Abstract
Synopsis: The decision to treat large hydropower as by the State of Vermont is likely to a matter that will discussed and debated by other states as they consider the content of portfolio standards (RPS). The lessons learned and decision-making in Vermont will helpful as other states consider changes to existing or proposed RPS standards or establishing new clean state policy goals. This article explores the legislative, political, and legal history in Vermont that led to the enactment of the 2010 law. It also sets forth the strategic reasons for treating large hydropower as during the negotiations for a new long-term power contact with Hydro-Quebec. This was a successful negotiation that ultimately resulted in a twenty-six-year extension of Vermont trade with Quebec. I. VERMONT'S LEGISLATIVE RECOGNITION OF LARGE HYDROPOWER AS A RENEWABLE RESOURCE A. Vermont Act 159 of 2010 On June 4, 2010, Vermont became the first state in the nation to treat electricity generated by large hydro facilities as a resource when Governor Jim Douglas signed H. 781 into law as Act 159.1 It was an historic step. As he was leaving office in January 2011, Governor Douglas said about the law, [t]his new power agreement is a tremendous step forward and it was enhanced when the Legislature agreed to define large-scale hydropower as renewable, making Vermont the first state in the nation to do so.2 Vermont law defines renewable as energy produced using a technology that relies on a resource that is being consumed at a harvest rate at or below its natural regeneration rate.3 While Vermont law currently limits designating hydropower as to hydropower produced by a facility with a generating capacity of 200 megawatts or less,4 Act 159 removes this capacity limitation effective July 1, 2012. As a result, electricity produced by a hydroelectric facility of any size will qualify under Vermont law as energy.5 B. History of Renewable Energy in Vermont Vermont first adopted a definition of renewable in 2003 in connection with enacting legislation authorizing utilities to offer their customers the option of purchasing at special rates.6 The legislative enactment authorized the creation of pricing programs whereby a utility can offer its customers in exchange for the customer paying, on a voluntary basis, a premium over the otherwise applicable rate.7 The premium must based on the difference between acquiring the and the the utility would otherwise supply, and the costs of the program must be borne solely by those customers who elect to participate in [it].8 Pursuant to this authorization both Central Vermont Public Service Corporation and Green Mountain Power developed programs which allowed their customers to purchase power generated by methane produced from cow manure on Vermont dairy farms.9 Following the template established by the regulations the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) promulgated to implement the federal Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA),10 Vermont initially defined hydropower as only if it were produced by a facility with a generating capacity of 80 megawatts or less.11 This changed in 2005 when Vermont made a strategic political decision to amend the definition of renewable with respect to hydropower. This decision was made in the context of the enactment of legislation creating both a portfolio standard (RPS)12 and a program allowing utilities to avoid the imposition of an RPS if they meet specified targets for the utilization of energy.13 Specifically, the legislature increased the size of hydroelectric facilities that would qualify as generating facilities from 80 to 200 megawatts. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".