Donald Jessome and his partners are on track to break ground next summer to bury a 350-mile stretch of cable – much of it on the murky bottoms of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River – to bring a mix of hydro and wind power from Quebec to New York City’s congested electricity grid.

The US $2 billion underwater transmission system, which avoids the problem of unsightly and controversial overhead power lines, would dramatically boost the region’s use of clean energy. Except there’s one hitch: New York State doesn’t consider large-scale hydroelectric power a renewable source of electricity. Keep reading →