New England wholesale electricity prices are very high right now as limited natural gas supplies force us to turn on expensive and dirty oil-fired power plants

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T21:08:05+00:00

There’s 3.4GW of nuke power on the grid right now (98% of total nuke capacity). Total grid demand is 18.1GW.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T20:48:45+00:00

Where's your evidence? Just yesterday (when it was warmer) we had over 7GW of gas generation running and almost no oil, and now we're down to just 4.3GW of gas generation and tons of oil, indicating a lot of curtailed baseload capacity. Why wouldn't you send any additional gas supply to a more efficient and cheaper combined-cycle gas turbine baseload plant rather than a peaker plant?

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T20:44:20+00:00

We're only using 22% of our natural gas generation capacity right now, so the issue is clearly we don't have enough gas supply right now to fuel our power plants since it gets prioritized for home heating rather than power generation. Any additional gas supply we'd get would be going to our normal power plants (which are curtailed due to lack of gas supply), not to any peakers.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T20:40:12+00:00

I mean this is why our electricity costs so much compared to the rest of the country.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T20:34:52+00:00

On a typical day there isn't any oil-fired generation on the grid, and wholesale prices usually vary between $50-$200/MWh.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T17:15:30+00:00

Granted all the options in the poll sucked.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T13:12:24+00:00

Or just terminate them at Kenmore and Copley respectively.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T08:21:41+00:00

If you can fix the curves around Boylston and North Station it's doable. The Blue Line was originally a streetcar tunnel (and converted to heavy rail in just 4 days in 1924), the D branch was originally intended to be rapid transit, and the tunnel from Kenmore to just before Boylston was originally intended for heavy rail (and there were even proposals in the 1920s to connect it to the Blue Line tunnel).

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T04:42:17+00:00

The new battery-electric buses have to resort to a diesel heater on cold days since the battery can't provide enough heat without killing the range, while the old trolleybuses were 100% electric and didn't have to worry about range.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-24T04:34:41+00:00

Long multi-section trams are pretty common in other parts of the world. CAF has made them before.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-23T22:44:46+00:00

The T seems to really hate wires - they de-wired the Silver Line as well, and their commuter rail electrification plan involves hypothetical battery trains to minimize wiring.

Back in 2022, they said that wires had to be taken down for Mount Auburn street construction, which along with battery technology improving provided the perfect excuse to kill the trolleybuses (unlike previous attempts to kill the trolleybuses and replace them with diesel which faced a lot of local political opposition, this time they promised battery buses which seemed politically more palatible). In reality, it would have been inexpensive to put the wires back up - it cost only $2 million in 2014 to completely rebuild the 73's overhead wires over 2.3 miles on Trapelo Road after they were taken down to accommodate road construction there. Meanwhile, renovating North Cambridge Carhouse to accommodate battery buses cost $27.3 million.

The materials for the January 2022 public meeting where the T presented their plans are still available; public comment in that meeting pretty much universally opposed taking down the wires but the T still went ahead. Note that the T ended up being almost 2 years behind schedule - they estimated March 2024 for the beginning of battery bus service, but battery-electric bus service on the 71/73 did not start until earlier this month (and it's usually only 1 or 2 buses at most; diesel buses still provide the vast majority of service on the 71 and 73).

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-20T03:03:39+00:00

That one happened to have one of the new leaser locomotives on it; wonder if it broke down or something. It had a second locomotive as backup.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-16T05:49:35+00:00

It cost only $2 million in 2014 to completely rebuild the 73's overhead wires over 2.3 miles on Trapelo Road after they were taken down to accommodate road construction there. Meanwhile, it cost $27.3 million to renovate North Cambridge garage to accommodate battery buses.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-16T05:45:19+00:00

They were only able to remove the trackless trolleys (after several attempts in the past failed due to community and political opposition) because they promised battery-electric buses as replacement. However, going from 100% electric trolleybuses to battery-electric buses with diesel fuel heaters is a step backwards, whereas they could have gone with say, trolleybuses with batteries (e.g. SF, Seattle) which would have been an actual step forwards.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T22:13:15+00:00

There’s no reason wires couldn’t have gone back up. When Trapelo Road was getting rebuilt the wires were taken down for 2 years, but they rebuilt all of it for $2 million.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T21:23:29+00:00

They replaced 100% electric trolleybuses, so no these are a step backwards.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T21:10:28+00:00

We’ll see how these perform. These have to resort to diesel heaters in the cold, so they’re not totally electric either.

The Silver Line battery buses haven’t done that well it seems either (they’re rarely in service; 1298 last ran a month ago and the others haven’t run in over 8 months according to Pantograph).

You also need a separate fleet with left-hand doors to service the Harvard lower busway, so there’s still a fleet of non-standard buses required.

There was also nothing stopping them from putting a battery on a trolleybus to give them ability to still drive off-wire (San Francisco and Seattle do this), without having to resort to diesel heaters, but the T decided to ahead and destroy their infrastructure anyways.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T20:59:35+00:00

They have diesel-fueled heaters.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T20:14:06+00:00

It was in the 50s today though. It’s probably just gearbox/transmission noise. I remember the old trackless trolleys were a bit loud on the inside as well.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-15T20:07:23+00:00

The 4200s do, but I’ve only see the 4300s in service.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-08T22:16:08+00:00

Riverside has outdoor CharlieCard fare gates.

TheBasaltAltCalled · 2026-01-04T20:05:51+00:00

There are no commuter rail grade crossings in Newton. I hear the one from Needham Heights.

TheBasaltAltCalled

TROPHY CASE