CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Can anyone make a battery that’s durable and lasts longer than the status quo? A123 Systems thinks it can — and just in time. The Boston-area cleantech company has been struggling with layoffs and lost revenues, but says it has a new lithium-ion battery that is better and cheaper for electric vehicles. The technology could also be used to store energy for the electric grid. A123 plans to hire 400 new workers in Michigan, as it ramps up production in a tough climate for energy companies.
 
In other innovation news…
 
Waltham-based Constant Contact is expanding in Web marketing with its acquisition of New York startup SinglePlatform, which helps restaurants and businesses list their menus and products online. The acquisition could be worth up to $100 million including earn-outs.
 
Our deal of the week goes to Boston-based Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a developer of drugs for diabetes and obesity. The two-year-old company has raised $25 million in new venture funding.
 
And Ministry of Supply, a startup out of MIT, has launched a campaign on the Kickstarter website to support production of its high-tech, thermal-regulating dress shirts. It joins Blank Label as another local apparel company using crowd-sourced funding to roll out new products. 
 

The weekly roundup of business, technology and life science news from our partners at Xconomy.com airs every Friday on 89.7 Boston Public Radio.

 
BOSTON — Advocates rallied in Post Office Square outside a hearing of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the morning of June 7 to protest the relicensing of the Pilgrim Nuclear Plant. 
 
Janet Domenitz, executive director of liberal-leaning think-tank Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group, was among the protesters.
 
"Pilgrim is not safe. Nuclear power is expensive, it is unsafe to the public health and to the environment and we need to find alternatives," she said. "The idea that the NRC has just given this aging plant another 20 years of life shows that they are not paying attention. And we are. And we are calling for a reconsideration of that decision."
 
Meanwhile, Pilgrim is embroiled in a labor dispute that has resulted in a lockout. Unionized plant workers were also at the rally to protest Entergy management.
 
Kelly O’Brien, a locked-out engineer at Pilgrim, said the replacement workers weren't qualified to run the plant, potentially compromising public safety.
 
"The fact of the matter is, you look at the people here, the majority of us have anywhere from 20 to 40 years of experience in that plant," he said. "The workers that are coming in would not be familiar as well as we are with respect to the intricacies of what that plant is and how it's operated."
 
As for the safety question, he said, "The safety of the plant — well, when we're there we're keeping an eye on it."
 
About 20 protesters attended the rally.

 
RUTLAND, Mass. — When Randy Jordan was in high school, his family’s dairy farm was one of 640 in the state. Now, a generation later, there are only 200 still operating in Massachusetts.
 
“Farmers aren’t going out of business because they're dying or — geesh, there’s better opportunities. They’re going out of business because they can’t afford to stay in business,” said Jordan.
 
Jordan said one of his biggest budget busters was his electric bill: $2,400 a month to keep his 300 cows milked and his 1,000 acres of corn and hay growing. He had to cut costs. And his cows were the answer.
 
“The average cow poops about 18 gallons of manure and pee a day — a lot!” said Jordan. “And there’s nothing but methane in it.”
 
The cow as energy source
 
Methane gas has huge energy potential. So 2 years ago, Jordan partnered with Shannon Carroll of AGreen Energy to build the state’s first facility that converts food waste and manure into electricity.

The process starts in Jordan’s barn with the cows doing, well, their thing.
 
“We have a slotted barn so it automatically falls down into the manure pit under the barn and from there we pump it into the digester,” said Carroll.

 
Then comes the second ingredient: organic waste — things like fruit rinds and eggshells. Big tankers truck in thousands of gallons of waste a day.
 
“One of our customers is Cains. They make salad dressing and mayonnaise. We get all of their waste products. Hood is another customer, so we get liquid ice cream,” said Carroll.
 
But it’s inside a 500,000-gallon digestion tank that the real magic happens. Bacteria eat at the manure and food waste mixture. As it rots, methane gas is released. Then it’s converted into electricity.
 
“We get enough gas out of this system to run a 300-kilowatt engine, which is basically producing electricity for the farm as well as about 300 houses,” said Carroll.
 
Simpler than it sounds?
 
Europeans have been turning table scraps into fuel for years. Go over to Europe and you’d see more than 10,000 food-to-fuel facilities. But currently Jordan’s farm is the only licensed farm in the U.S. that can take food scraps and manure, mix it all together and spit out energy.
 
“This is not that complicated,” said former energy secretary Ian Bowles. He says the food-to-fuel trend is quickly making its way here, and by 2014, it could become mandatory for large businesses like colleges and restaurants to compost their organic waste.
 
“You just have to build the infrastructure over time,” he said. “But it would essentially be a fourth bin: You’ve got your true waste, your recycling, your yard waste and then your food waste.” 
 
Bowles said composting would free up some much-needed space: Of the several hundred landfills opened a couple decades ago, only a dozen are left. “We export a lot of our waste at a great cost out to other states that sometimes don’t have as good of landfills as we do here,” said Bowles. “So our costs are rising. This is really a solution.”
 
Jordan said the digestion facility was his solution — and it's given him one more way to keep his farm up and running.
 
“That’s my ‘cash cow’ other than milk," he said. "It’s our retirement. I feel more comfortable when I go to bed at night.”

BARNSTABLE, Mass. — State energy regulators visited Barnstable the evening of May 23 to hear Cape Codders — and others — talk about NStar's proposal to buy and sell more than a quarter of the electricity anticipated from the Cape Wind project — the 130-turbine wind farm proposed for Nantucket Sound.
 
More than 125 people attended the public hearing about the merits of a 15-year contract that would have NStar buy nearly 28 percent of Cape Wind's power.
 
NStar would pay about 19 cents per kilowatt hour — more than double the current market price. The utility says the increase works out to about $1.08 more per month for the average residential customer.
 
The wind farm supporters

Advocates gather outside the Cape Wind hearing. (Sean Corcoran/WGBH)

Falmouth resident Bill Eddy said it's a price he's willing to pay for renewable energy.
 
"Every single one of my living costs has increased dramatically over the years," Eddy said. "I'm paying more for food, for gas, for just the insurance on my home. Paying $12 more a year for changing how America looks at its energy future seems to be a small price to pay."
 
Falmouth resident and Boston College student Annie Myer, 19, said she's been hearing about Cape Wind since she was 10 years old, and she's ready to see the turbines in the water.
 
"I will look at the turbines and smile," Myer said, "because though they are man-made, they harness renewable resources, and that's where our brighter future lies."
 
The opposing view
 
While supporters testified that Cape Wind would provide emissions-free electricity and reduce America's reliance on fossil fuels, opponents such as David Moriarty said it would jeopardize the Cape's two primary industries: fishing and tourism.
 
"This is no joke," he said. "This is our economic engine. This is the only thing we have to support our families. Do you understand that? This is our livelihood. This is everything. That is why we fight so hard for this."
 
Cape Wind received federal approval in April 2010, but it's had some setbacks. Last year a federal judge tossed out a permit from the Federal Aviation Administration, ordering regulators to take another look at the project's potential impact on air traffic. The project also failed to receive a federal loan guarantee, which could make it more difficult to attract investors.
 
Still, Cape Wind officials expect construction to begin by early next year, and they say having NStar and National Grid both on board to buy Cape Wind power is a significant step toward having turbines spinning in Nantucket Sound.
 

 
BOSTON — Attorney General Martha Coakley has filed an appeal challenging the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's decision to go ahead with hearings to grant a new 20-year license extension for the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant in Plymouth.
 
> > WGBH NEWS SPECIAL COVERAGE: Power Struggle: The Fight over Pilgrim Nuclear
 
Coakley said an independent expert has concluded that the risks of operating Pilgrim are greater than originally thought and that certain improvements should be made to the plant before a new license is granted. “There should be better and longer backup power systems, or there should be instrumentation to verify the cooling systems are functioning properly. Or to make sure there are improved valves and containment to reduce pressure on the reactor,” she said.
 
The goal, Coakley said, is to guarantee that the NRC considers the environmental and public safety implications of the 2011 Fukushima accident while allowing a meaningful opportunity for public comment.
 
State Sen. Dan Wolf (D-Harwich) agreed, saying that lessons learned from Fukushima should be explored in an open, public process and applied to the Pilgrim relicensing process, particularly in regards to on-site storage of spent nuclear fuel rods.
 
The appeal was filed on April 4 in the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

> > READ: More from Coakley's office on Pilgrim

 
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed a measure Thursday that would compensate ratepayers for prolonged power outages.
 
The measure would require utility companies like NStar, National Grid and Western Massachusetts Electric to issue credits to ratepayers if their power isn’t restored within a certain time frame.
 
The bill comes after criticism of how the utilities responded to power outages in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene and the late-October snowstorm. The storms left hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses in the dark across Massachusetts, some for well over a week.
 
State Sen. Gale Candaras (D-Wilbraham) said utility companies need to be held accountable: "The Commonwealth does not have service standards that ratepayers can count upon or upon which utility companies can be expected to meet. Instead we have a convoluted system in which the DPU may issue fines."
 
She added that the state Department of Public Utilities (DPU) has only issued one fine, even after countless, repeated outages.
 
Under the measure, if there were severe weather conditions or a declared state of emergency, utilities would have 5 days to restore power. In other conditions, utilities would have 16 hours to restore power. After that, ratepayers would be entitled to a credit of minimum of $25 total. The DPU would have to sign off on the violation and could raise the amount of the credit if it saw fit.
 
The measure is included in a larger bill aimed at bringing down the cost of electricity for consumers by allowing competitive bidding on renewable energy contracts.
 
The bill now heads to the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
 

 
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Senate plans to take up an omnibus bill later this week aimed at controlling electricity costs.
 
It targets the rising cost of electricity in a number of ways. First, it gives the Department of Public Utilities the authority to conduct more frequent reviews of proposed electricity rate hikes. 
 
Attorney General Martha Coakley said this measure would help prevent rate spiking: “This bill will allow for better review, better transparency, better accountability both from what our office will do and what the Department of Public Utilities will do, and it will start to address bills and language that are pretty much a mystery to most people who get them.”

Another provision in the bill would require utility companies to purchase renewable energy through a competitive bidding process. Current law does not require utilities to solicit bids. The state's two largest utilities, National Grid and NStar, recently purchased power from Cape Wind without going through a competitive bidding process and ended up with contracts critics have said are overpriced.
 
Coakley said the proposed measure would eliminate sweetheart deals, like the pacts with Cape Wind. "What this change in the legislation does is essentially make this much more competitive," she said.
 
The Senate plans to debate the bill on Mar. 29. If it passes, it will move on to the House.
 

BOSTON — This week in Massachusetts politics, judges and lawyers make the case for more state funding for the trial courts, utilities officials weigh the proposed NStar-Northeast merger and the final members of Massachusetts Gambling Commission are expected to be announced.
 
Later on Monday, Judge Roderick Ireland of the Supreme Judicial Court will be on Beacon Hill to ask lawmakers for more money for the Trial Court. Judges and court administrators have been warning since last fall that budget cuts have dealt a crippling blow to the effectiveness of the court system in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Bar Association has taken the unusual step of conducting a statewide billboard and media campaign to bring public attention to the issue.

On Wednesday, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities hears oral arguments on NStar and Northeast Utilities' proposed $4.7 billion merger. The hearing comes a week after Connecticut’s attorney general signed off on the deal, removing another major hurdle. The companies hope to finalize the merger by mid-April.
 
Wednesday is also the deadline for Gov. Deval Patrick, Treasurer Steve Grossman and Attorney General Martha Coakley to name the final two members of the Massachusetts gambling commission. The commission will decide who gets to open casinos in Massachusetts and will have broad authority to regulate the industry. 
 
And on Thursday, the state office of Labor and Workfore Development releases February’s job numbers. Last week, the Patrick administration announced that the state added only 12,000 jobs last year — 30,000 fewer jobs than initially reported. Senate Republicans are calling on the state auditor to audit the methodology for counting the state’s employment figures.
 

 
BOSTON — A bill aimed at lowering Massachusetts electricity prices spurred a debate on jobs Thursday at a hearing of the Legislature's Joint Committee on Utilities and Energy. 
 
Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity costs in the nation. In fact, State Rep. Randy Hunt of East Sandwich said electricity is so expensive that manufacturers are leaving the state, taking with them hundreds of jobs.
 
He’s backing a bill that he says would lower the cost of energy. It would require utility companies to purchase their renewable energy through a competitive bidding process — and go with the lowest of three bids.
 
"For almost everything that we spend money on publicly in this Commonwealth, whether it's at the town level, state level or community level, we’re required to get competitive bidding so that we make sure we have good costs, lowest costs — and sometimes not necessarily the lowest cost but best overall package," he said. However, "right now the Green Communities Act actually exempts these types of long-term renewable contracts from the competitive bidding law" to the detriment of consumers and businesses.
 
But critics, like Louis Antonellis of the IBEW, which represents over 10,000 Bay State electricians, said the bill would send green jobs out the state. In his view, Hunt's bill would essentially require Massachusetts utilities to sign contracts with large out-of-state projects, killing the local wind and solar industry. 
 
“We should stay on the path of helping workers in Massachusetts with clean energy projects and not encouraging utilities and electrical consumers to take their money and projects elsewhere,” Antonellis said.
 
The bill is also seen as a reaction to the recent purchasing agreement between NStar and Cape Wind. In that case, the contract didn’t go through a competitive bidding process even though Cape Wind Power would be more expensive than other renewable sources.  

 
BOSTON — Massachusetts gasoline prices are up for the 11th consecutive week. According to AAA of Southern New England, the average price of $3.73 per gallon in the Bay State is 29 cents higher than a year ago. But if you think that’s high, a new study says higher gasoline taxes might be just what’s needed to get Americans to reduce their consumption.
 
Study co-author Erich Muehlegger, associate professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, says that incremental increases in prices at the pump are not enough to dramatically reduce gasoline consumption — largely because drivers think that over time the prices could come down. However, increases in taxes are seen as permanent and drivers alter their behavior more dramatically, especially when it comes to what kind of car they will buy.
 

> > Read the study.
 

BOSTON — Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick has agreed to sign off on a merger between NSTAR and Northeast Utilities, removing a major roadblock from the $17.5 billion deal. The state had been holding off while the utilities negotiated a side deal to buy renewable power from the controversial Cape Wind project.

Patrick, who's a big supporter of Cape Wind, applauded the deal at the State House on Wednesday.

"What we have today is a landmark agreement for customers. It will protect ratepayers from rate increases now into the future and it passes on the savings from the merger directly back to the customer," he said.
 
Until now, NSTAR had refused to buy Cape Wind power, saying it was too expensive. And it was widely speculated in op-eds and newspapers that the Patrick administration was holding up the merger in order to compel NSTAR to buy Cape Wind Energy.

But state energy secretary Richard Sullivan downplayed Cape Wind's significance:

"When you stack out what the time was spent on over the past year, a very small percent was spent on Cape Wind," he said. "I think this agreement shows that while Cape Wind has been a priority, it has not been Cape Wind at any cost.”

Under the new agreement, the new utility would freeze its rates for the next four years, and would provide customers with a one-time rebate of about $12 to $15 for the average ratepayer. And it would sign a long-term contract for 27.5 percent of Cape Wind's electricity. Another utility, National Grid, last year, signed a deal for half the project's output at above-market prices. Long-term contracts are seen as essential for Cape Wind's viability.

The merger must still be approved by Massachusetts and Connecticut utility regulators.

What it will take to generate the energy and fuel for a planet that just hit 7 billion and isn’t done growing?

The old gas-and-coal-powered grid is changing. Germany now generates 20% renewable energy, but America has lagged — and our next guest says that’s got to change.

Guest:

• Richard Lester, head, MIT's Dept. of Nuclear Science and Engineering; co-chair, Industrial Performance Center at MIT; author, Unlocking Energy Innovation: How America Can Build A Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System

Jan. 23, 2012

 
AMESBURY, Mass. — Like many New England homeowners, former Amesbury mayor David Hildt and his wife Kate Broughton live in an old house that was built, and added on to, before energy efficiency was the rage.
 
Broughton said their house, built in 1874, is charming but a little schizophrenic.
 
“It’s kind of like a choo-choo train,” she said. “You have room-room-room-room that just gets added on and added on.”
 
This old, drafty house
 
Over the last 138 years, owners have remodeled. The garage was once a barn. The kitchen may have been modernized in the 1960s. The house, now covering 2400 square feet, is not easy to heat. In fact, it’s downright drafty.
 
“When you’re in one room you can be very comfortable, but then you go into another room and you notice a big temperature drop,” said Broughton.

How insulated is the Hildt-Broughton's house? Nathaniel Dick uses an infrared meter to find out. (Natalie Hildt)

Broughton and Hildt use oil, electricity, propane and even a wood stove. Altogether, heating the house costs more than $6,000 a year.
 
Passionate about efficiency
 
Hildt’s daughter Natalie Hildt lives about an hour south in Somerville — where she owns a new, energy-efficient home.
 
“It really makes such a difference in comfort and the amount of money you’re spending every month on your energy bill,” she said.
 
Natalie Hildt works for the nonprofit Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP). She’s been trying to get her dad to save on energy costs. She even blogged, “If I can’t help my own family save energy, what CAN I do?”
 
After many drafty debates, she finally convinced them to have a home energy audit.
 
“I heard somebody recently refer to [getting an energy assessment] as the colonoscopy of energy efficiency,” Natalie Hildt said. “Because you say ‘Oh jeez, I know I should do it but what am I going to find?' You almost don’t want to look.”
 
Bringing in the experts
 
Nathaniel Dick works for Conservation Services Group, a subcontractor of National Grid. Dick’s job is to perform the... ahem... procedure on Broughton and Hildt’s home.He will survey every room, the attic and the basement, using an array of tools to inspect, measure and analyze combustion appliances, water heating and air conditioning systems, lighting, air sealant and insulation.

The service Dick is providing is offered by National Grid, one of the utility companies statewide that provides homeowners with free audits, incentives and rebates to install energy efficient measures.
 
While most audits last two to three hours, this one takes five. The complication: a dirt crawl space under the house.

See Natalie Hildt's slideshow of the audit:

To fix everything that leaks heat will cost $4,400. After $2,000 in incentives and rebates, the couple's out-of-pocket cost would be $2,400. However, before they can move forward and utilize the incentives, they must have a vapor barrier installed in the crawl space. This will be another out-of-pocket expense, likely an expensive one.

Read the complete home energy assessment (pdf)

Another complication, and another

To magnify the cost even more, shortly after the audit David Hildt got the news he was being laid off from his nonprofit job.
 
“They don’t call them nonprofits for nothing, so I don’t have a real cushion,” he said. “I have a small investment portfolio, which became drastically smaller over the years from 2008. So, you know, it’s a time for us to be very cautious with our expenses.”

Which means the plans to upgrade the Amesbury house are on hold. Despite all the incentives, the recommended energy-saving improvements are out of reach, at least for now.
 
But not for always, “We’re definitely going to move forward with this,” David Hildt said. “This is a top priority. So once we can see our way to it, we’ll do it.”

Visit MassSave to learn about energy efficiency incentives in your area.

BOSTON — A panel of experts appointed by the Massachusetts departments of public health and environmental protection has issued a report saying that wind turbines do not pose serious health risks for nearby residents. But opponents claim the report is biased.
 
Some residents living near wind farms have complained of symptoms such as headaches, vertigo, insomnia and nausea. There's also been a lot written on what's called "wind turbine syndrome." However, the scientific community has not come down firmly on either side.
 
Now, a seven-member panel of experts appointed by the administration of Governor Deval Patrick has reviewed the existing scientific literature and concluded there is no link between wind turbines and adverse health impacts. It found no scientific evidence that low-frequency sound from wind turbines affects the inner ear system and balance. The panel also said there is no direct causal link between the turbines and health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure or migraine headaches.

Read the state-commissioned report.

The Patrick administration has a stated goal of dramatically expanding wind energy generation in the state, leading to some skepticism about the report. Falmouth resident Neil Andersen said in a WGBH special report that a nearby turbine had catastrophic effects on his health. He believed the new report was biased:
 
"This is kind of what we anticipated. It's just so — it's just so unfortunate, that again it's just politically motivated," he said.
 
But Ken Kimmel, the state commissioner of environmental protection, said the review was conducted by respected scientists and doctors with no political agenda, from places like Harvard, Boston University and UMass Amherst.

WCAI's Climatide blog examines the report and reactions.

"This was a truly independent panel. We selected people, and before we selected them we ensured that they didn't have any preconceived view about wind turbines in general and we also made sure they were not connected either to the wind industry or opponents of wind energy," he said. 
 
Oregon's public health division released a similar draft report last week. That report found some evidence that noise from wind turbine blades may cause health problems in nearby residents. The Massachusetts panel did say it's possible, though not proven, that wind turbines could cause sleep disruption. It called for further study on this point.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. — An evaluation of the Cape Wind project by ISO New England, which oversees the region's wholesale electricity market, has determined that the project will not be ready to generate electricity within the next 3.5 years.

That news was contained on page 18 of this January 3 filing (pdf) with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In it, ISO New England said its consultants have determined it is "unlikely" Cape Wind's 130 turbines will achieve commercial operation by June 2015. 

ISO New England spokesperson Marcia Blomberg said the ISO is required to be certain that the energy resources are in place to meet demand. In this case, an evaluation of resources was done for a one-year period between June 1, 2015 and May 31, 2016 in advance of an electricity auction. 

Read Sean Corcoran's Cape Wind blog.

"The ISO and its consultants," the document reads, "evaluated the information contained in the critical path schedule submitted by [Cape Wind] and have determined it is unlikely that the project will achieve commercial operation by the start of the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period."

The ISO looked at a variety of criteria to determine if a generator could auction off power in the 2015–2016 period, Blomberg said, including whether it had all its necessary permits, whether it could be properly connected to the grid and whether financing was in place, among other factors. The Cape Wind project was one of 37 potential electricity generators that were not accepted for the auction.

While Cape Wind will not be allowed to auction off its electricity in this 2015-2016 period, Blomberg said there are other auctions available should things fall into place and Cape Wind is up and running sooner than ISO's evaluation determined.

Cape Wind project spokesman Mark Rodgers said, "That's their opinion, and we respectfully disagree."

Cape Wind officials expect to begin construction at the end of 2012 or the beginning of 2013 and Rodgers said the project is expected to be in commercial operation in part or in full by the June 2015 date. But he also understood why the ISO would exclude Cape Wind from the auction, since the ISO must be completely certain that the necessary energy resources are in place to meet demand. "Their standard is very, very high," he said. 

Rodgers added that the decision would not have a long-term negative effects.

"This really does not have much of an impact on us commercially," he said. "There is an auction every year, so at most you'll be talking about one year that you wouldn't be able to enter in the auction."

Audra Parker, president of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, said ISO's determination confirmed what the Alliance already knew.

"Our position is that it is never going to be built," she said. "It is a clear acknowledgement they are facing some clear and insurmountable difficulties.… I think it's significant that ISO New England is acknowledging the fact Cape Wind is nowhere near a reality."

Although the Department of the Interior approved the Cape Wind project in April 2010, it still faces judicial challenges. Last year a key permit from the Federal Aviation Administration was rejected by a federal court. The project also needs to find a buyer for the remaining 50 percent of its anticipated electricity output.

BOSTON — You may have seen the new ad from Citizens Energy to promote its heating oil program for the poor. While Citizens Energy — headed up by former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy — has run ads and public service announcements for years, there’s something different about this one. 
 
In years past, Citizens Energy focused on the elderly poor.

Today, the ad focuses on the Booth family, part of the shrinking middle class.

The change is a sign of our times and its elevated anger over economic inequality. 

"In past campaigns we have featured people in need but I think there's a national recognition that the recent downturn in the economy has really rattled many people in the middle class who are falling directly out of positions of relative security," said Brian Wright O’Connor, head of public affairs for Citizens Energy. "I don't think the Booth family ever believed they would be in a position to need to go to a food bank or to apply for fuel assistance."
 
The new ad began airing the week Congress and the White House cut 25 percent of funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. The lawmakers then left town for the holidays. It’s estimated that a substantial number of the nearly 9 million households that received fuel assistance in 2011 will have far less to rely on in 2012. In the spot, Kennedy takes a not-so-veiled swipe at the nation's large energy companies, saying, "We asked the big oil companies and oil-producing nations to help. Only Citgo and the people of Venezuela answered the call."

O'Connor said the company reached out to "all of the major oil companies." The heating assistance from Citgo and Venezuela to Citizens Energy's 200,000 recipients is indispensable, he thought: "The bottom line is that we're happy to work with oil-producing countries and big oil companies that want to offset the burden of cold winter nights on the poor."
 
And what about the timing… did Citizens Energy roll out the ad just when Joe Kennedy's son took a step to run for Congress? 

The company said the spot was shot early this fall, many weeks before Barney Frank announced that he would not run for re-election. Citizens Energy also told WGBH News that a variation of this ad runs every year.