“Another winter’s coming. Another season of tight natural gas supplies in New England, of above-average electricity and gas rates that cost residents and businesses billions of extra dollars every year.”

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The post Portland Press Herald: Analysis: The price of power appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“For better or for worse, homeowners continued to shift away from heating their homes with No. 2 oil as more install natural gas and propane systems.”

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The post Bangor Daily News: Census: Maine homes continue switch from heating oil appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“In an ideal world what we’ll do is we’ll have enough gas-pipeline capacity to fuel our existing gas-fired power plants. And then we’ll keep building renewables in the form of solar, and wind and demand response and efficiency, and we’ll build it and built it and build it over time. And we will eventually come to the point where we minimize the reliance on gas infrastructure.”

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The post New Hampshire Public Radio: PUC Staff Gives Nod to Plan for Electricity Customers to Fund Gas Pipelines appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“Energy giant Kinder Morgan just acquired a powerful ally in its efforts to build a controversial new natural gas pipeline through southern New Hampshire. The staff of the Public Utilities Commission has concluded that Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct project is New England’s best bet for lowering electricity prices and improving grid reliability.”

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The post Union Leader: Dave Solomon’s Power Plays: PUC staff backs Kinder Morgan’s gas pipeline appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“National Grid is asking state regulators for an electricity rate hike of more 20 percent for most Massachusetts residential customers that would drive up bills this winter, but keep them lower than last winter.”

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The post CBS Boston: National Grid Wants To Raise Electricity Rates appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“Governor Charlie Baker attended power grid overseer ISO New England’s meeting in Boston on Thursday to make the case for his administration’s efforts to bring more electricity and natural gas into the state.”

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The post Boston Globe: Charlie Baker seeks aggressive steps to address high power costs appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“Gov. Charlie Baker is pushing energy proposals to tamp down out-of-control prices that have brought sky-high power bills to customers’ mailboxes across Massachusetts.”

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The post Boston Herald: Charlie Baker pitches proposals to reduce energy prices appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“Some gas opponents appear confused about the synergistic relationship between natural gas and renewables, as well as the climate benefits New England will realize with adequate natural gas pipeline capacity.  Both adequate gas capacity and increased renewables are essential to dramatically reducing New England’s carbon footprint, a conclusion supported by scientific studies.”

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The post CommonWeatlh Magazine: Pipeline needed before it’s too late appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

“The proposed Kinder Morgan natural gas pipeline could have saved New England customers $3.7 billion two winters ago and could save the region more than $2 billion annually in future years, according to a study released by the company.”

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The post Boston Globe: Kinder Morgan study says gas pipeline would save New England $2 billion a year appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.

There are two pipeline projects being proposed that would allow New England to obtain affordable domestic natural gas close to our region. We need access to at least two billion cubic feet a day of new capacity to address this crisis, and we can’t depend on LNG to close this gap.

During the coldest days of winter, our region needs approximately 5.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day for generation and heating. Our pipeline capacity currently allows for a maximum of 3.4 billion cubic feet per day. During those 100 days in which we don’t have enough pipeline capacity, there isn’t enough supply to operate our natural gas power plants, forcing us to rely on outdated and high-emission oil and coal plants. When this happens, electric prices spike and Massachusetts alone overpays for electricity by more than $1.5 billion annually.

Should we choose to believe LNG is the cure all to our energy problems, then we will only be exposing ourselves to a completely unreliable delivery infrastructure, the international dynamics of dependence on foreign suppliers, and local safety and security concerns related to transport and storage.

The massive LNG ships entering Boston Harbor are coming directly to us from a wildly unpredictable global market. This winter when we’re relying on that LNG, we’ll be bidding for it against China, Japan, Korea and northern Europe as they deal with their own winter energy challenges. LNG costs have tripled in the last three years and we would become increasingly exposed to the volatility of these global markets, with no control over whether our overpayment crisis gets even worse.

Even when LNG does successfully find its way to us from across the ocean, this is only the beginning of a complicated process that includes cooling methane to -258 degrees Fahrenheit, storage, refrigeration, transportation and regasification. We’re told that this will take place in dozens of massive storage tanks supplying a network of hundreds of trucks with thousands of transfer points and local storage units. Every one of these junctures presents an opportunity for an expensive system failure or a catastrophic security or safety risk. Is this really the kind of energy infrastructure we want our communities to rely on?

The idea that we already have the infrastructure and supply we need to address our energy crisis with LNG is an attractive one, but it is baseless and dangerous. By attempting to distract New England from its desperate need for new infrastructure, LNG advocates are only prolonging the social and economic pain being caused by our region’s unnecessarily high energy costs. It is time to accept the inadequacies of an LNG approach and development of the domestic natural gas pipelines that provide the real solution to our region’s needs.

The post LNG Will Magnify New England’s Energy Crisis, Not Solve It appeared first on EnergyCostCrisis.