Amid opposition, Canadian hydropower companies aching to sell energy to desperate Northeast

There's plenty of raw electricity sloshing around in Quebec's rivers and reservoirs, offering promise for U.S. northeasterners who pay the nation's highest power costs.

But getting those electrons to smartphones and air conditioners in Boston, Hartford and New York City is another matter entirely.

Critics of proposals to import relatively clean hydropower from Quebec worry that transmission lines will despoil the natural beauty of places like New Hampshire's White Mountains. Others fear overreliance on it will stymie efforts to develop new and renewable energy sources.

The Energy Information Administration says New Englanders will pay a tops-in-the-nation 20.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in the third quarter of this year, almost 7 cents higher than the national average. Consumers in New York and New Jersey are expected to pay 16.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.