(New York) One day, he was at Radisson, in Jamésie, to show a group of American environmentalists, academics and journalists a tour of the Robert-Bourassa hydroelectric power station.
Posted at 1:12 a.m.
Updated at 5:00 a.m.
A week later, he was in Astoria, a neighborhood in the borough of Queens, to accompany the representative of The Press on the construction site of the future conversion station for the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE) transmission line, which will draw part of its electricity from James Bay.
Among all New Yorkers, there is none more “connected” to Quebec than Peter “Pete” Rose, head of stakeholder relations for Hydro-Québec in the United States.
And of all the energy projects, there is none in New York whose importance currently eclipses this transmission line which will allow Quebec to export 10.4 terawatt hours to the American metropolis for 25 years, enough meet the equivalent of 20% of the city’s electricity needs.
“We are literally sending clean electrons to the largest city in the United States, which is almost 100% powered by fossil fuels. This has a huge impact on climate change,” says Pete Rose, whose enthusiasm pushes him to anticipate the entry into operation of the CHPE transmission line, scheduled for May 2026.
Last September, during the inauguration of the construction of the Astoria station, François Legault described this project as “one of [s]”his greatest achievements.” The Prime Minister of Quebec estimated the economic benefits of the underground and underwater transmission line which will extend 545 km from the Canadian border to Astoria at $30 billion.
Born in New York in 1979 and raised in Forest Hills, another neighborhood of Queens, Pete Rose sees the same project as the culmination of a professional journey that would not have been possible without a Francophilia dating back to adolescence.
” A common thread “
“It’s a very interesting thread in my life, which began with a stay in France,” says Pete Rose, member of a family of four children, the eldest of whom insisted to his parents that his youngest inherit of the same first name as the baseball legend.
This first stay in France led the New Yorker with the physique of a young first to study at the Sorbonne and Sciences Po, from where he returned with a perfect command of French. His first contact with Quebec dates from 2009. Chosen by his professors at New York University, he participated in a trip organized by the Quebec government as part of a group of 10 students from various American universities.
“I was then studying energy and the environment. I’ve been in this business for a long time,” says Pete Rose, smirking.
During part of Barack Obama’s presidency, he worked at the Quebec delegation in Washington, where he closely followed the stages of the CHPE transmission line authorization procedure. Authorization which was renewed by the Trump and Biden administrations.
“It was not a partisan project,” notes Pete Rose.
He also contributed to the advancement of the file at the general delegation of Quebec in New York before being hired by Hydro-Québec Energy Services, a subsidiary of Hydro-Québec in the United States, four years ago.
Around the same time, New York City and State adopted ambitious clean energy policies. According to a law enacted in 2019, 70% of the state’s electricity must come from renewable sources by 2030 and 100% by 2040.
Two years after this law came into force, Hydro-Québec signed an agreement with its New York partner to finally carry out the CPHE project. The turning point after years of pitfalls? New York State’s decision to consider hydroelectric power as a form of clean energy.
“This gave a value [à l’énergie hydroélectrique] which unlocked the commercial possibilities of the project,” says Pete Rose.
Countdown
It remains to complete the project within the allotted time frame. On the Astoria construction site, a light screen hung on the wall of a trailer shows the days, hours, minutes and seconds leading up to the moment when the station’s big switch will be activated.
In the middle of the trailer, Gregory Pitts, general manager of the site, exudes enthusiasm and confidence.
“Come back that day and you will see,” he says after a visit to the site, alluding to the date of May 2026 when electricity from Quebec must begin to supply New York City thanks to this line. of high voltage current, the majority of which will be buried under the bed of the Hudson.
Gregory Pitts bases a large part of his confidence on the quality of the teams deployed by his employer, Transmission Developers, along each section of the line.
“There are much brighter people than me handling the rest of this project,” he says.
This former reactor operator who served in the Navy aboard a nuclear submarine is not, however, the latest arrival. Aged 62, he is supervising the construction of his 16e Power plant. One of the first challenges he faced at the Astoria site was the dismantling of six old oil tanks with a total capacity of 40 million liters. One of them contained a meter of hardened oil. It took six months to clean everything up.
Another challenge will be to construct and install a 4-mile (6.4 km) underground high-voltage alternating current transmission line from the Astoria site to the Consolidated Edison Company of New York’s Rainey substation on Long Island. City, another neighborhood in the borough of Queens. Nearly two million New Yorkers will have to deal with the construction of this line.
Air quality
But the lasting benefits of the project will far outweigh its temporary disadvantages, assures Pete Rose, one of whose responsibilities is to manage relations with affected communities.
“If there is a power outage due to a weather event in New York, and there will be weather events, this line can restart the entire system in an instant,” he says.
The line is also expected to transform the quality of air that disadvantaged communities in Queens and the Bronx will breathe, where many peekersthese particularly polluting power plants, and where the prevalence of asthma is the highest in New York.
“When people realize we are going to replace the equivalent of 15 peekers out of 16 in New York, they automatically say: “Wow! Our air quality will improve!” »
According to Pete Rose, members of disadvantaged communities are also happy to learn that the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke are co-owners of the Hertel-New York line, which will connect the Hertel substation in La Prairie to the CHPE transmission line. These same Mohawks who shaped the skyline of New York as ironworkers will thus help to electrify the city’s skyscrapers.
“It’s like a complete circle,” comments Pete Rose.
The New Yorker himself came full circle when he learned that another baseball legend, Jackie Robinson, the first player of color in major league baseball, had played in Montreal, just like Pete Rose.
“It’s one of the things I discovered while visiting Quebec,” says Pete Rose.
Of course, during his years with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jackie Robinson and his wife Rachel lived in Queens, the most “hip” borough of New York in Quebec, where Pete Rose lives with his wife from Morocco and their two children.
