New England Nukes, Photo Credit EIA
More urgently, virtually every attempt to expand the region’s natural gas pipeline infrastructure has been delayed, blocked, or abandoned. Here’s a sobering report from InsideSources from mid-2019 that describes the situation:
“As activists become more adept at enlisting government in their war on oil and gas pipelines, even small projects are becoming difficult to build.
Last month, voters in Longmeadow, Mass., approved a non-binding ballot measure encouraging the town to buy land to block a local natural gas metering and transfer station.
This past Earth Day, the mayor of Holyoke, Mass., announced his opposition to a proposed 2.1-mile, 12-inch natural gas pipeline that would increase capacity to meet rising demand. He asked federal regulators to reject the pipeline.
In March, the Bristol, Vt., Selectboard voted to cancel a license agreement with Vermont Gas that would have allowed Bristol residents to connect to a gas line that runs from Colchester to Middlebury, vtdigger.com reported.
From large, interstate pipelines to small lines connecting towns and neighborhoods, anti-fossil fuel activists have proven highly successful at blocking, through regulations or lawsuits, new natural gas infrastructure in the Northeastern United States.”
Just last month, voters in Maine killed an electricity transmission line project that would have brought renewable hydropower from Quebec to Massachusetts. Here’s a report from the Boston Globe:
“In what appears to be a stunning setback to Massachusetts’ climate goals, Maine voters on Tuesday rejected a referendum on a transmission line that would bring hydroelectric energy from Canada to the Bay State.
As of just before midnight, with 421 of the state’s 571 precincts reporting, a “yes” vote to stop the $1 billion project that is already under construction had garnered 60 percent support, according to unofficial results.
**** In other words, the voters decided that it doesn't matter how much it hurt them in terms of security of supply or climate goals, they were not going to allow Canada to take any potential business away from New England. It shouldn't surprise anyone that Gretchen Whitmer is determined to terminate Line 5 which safely and economically serves millions of Americans (as well as supply Suncor's refineries in Sarnia and Montreal). America goes out of its way to f*ck Canada every chance that it can*****
Energy from the line is a key part of how Massachusetts plans to achieve its goal of halving emissions by the end of the decade. The Maine vote does not spell the immediate end of the project, as the line’s supporters are already saying they will contest the referendum in court, but even that will likely result in a set-back to the project’s planned timeline—and there is no time to waste.”
The great irony of the situation is New England sits only a few hundred miles from the most prolific natural gas producing region on Earth – the Appalachian Basin. According to the US EIA, if the region were a standalone country it would have been the third-largest natural gas producer in the world in the first half of 2021, behind only Russia and the rest of the US. And yet, by refusing to build the necessary pipeline infrastructure, New England has opted out of sharing in this critical domestic bounty. If any thought leaders from the region are reading this piece, the Doomberg team put together this handy guide to solving your regional energy problems:
If New England’s refusal to use natural gas from right next door is ironic, how it sources liquefied natural gas (LNG) is downright perverse, albeit for reasons mostly beyond its control. We’ve written before about how the US has become a substantial player in the LNG market, and how the energy crisis in Europe spread to Asia, causing a bidding war for LNG supply. As luck would have it, New England is a now victim of that bidding war and is facing the prospect of dramatically less LNG supply this winter. How did this happen?
One of the most controversial laws in the US is the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, more commonly known as the Jones Act. The law is meant to help ensure a healthy US merchant marine fleet and to support domestic shipbuilding. These are considered critical to national security, especially during times of war. A key stipulation of the law is that foreign-owned ships cannot transport goods between two US ports – only ships built, owned, and crewed by Americans are permitted to do so.
While the US has become the largest producer of natural gas and an ever-larger exporter of LNG, the country does not produce LNG carriers. Since there are no US LNG carriers, New England cannot benefit from the build-out of LNG export facilities along the Gulf of Mexico, despite having significant LNG import facilities like the one in Everett, Massachusetts. That means New England is in the same bidding pool as Europe and Asia. Amazingly, most LNG imports to the Everett terminal have come from Trinidad and Tobago! Instead of simply building pipelines to its land neighbors, New England pays for boats to sail more than 2,000 miles – burning fossil fuels and polluting the oceans as they do so – and pays a substantially higher price for the privilege. Bonkers!
As we head into the depths of winter, New England is substantially behind in procuring LNG from the international market. Here’s how S&P Global described the situation last week:
“So far this winter season, New England has received just a single cargo at the region's Everett LNG import terminal, which delivered the regasified equivalent of about 2.9 Bcf on Nov. 3. From November to March last season, Everett received seven cargoes carrying 20.5 Bcf. During the 2019-2020 season, the terminal took nine cargoes carrying nearly 23.5 Bcf, Platts Analytics data shows.”
We leave you with a tweet we posted a week ago today that went viral. At the time of this writing, it has been seen by nearly 250,000 people and has over 1,900 likes. With less nuclear, insufficient natural gas pipelines, and no LNG available to save the day, New England is one cold snap away from a substantial disaster. If you live there, prepare your thermal comfort zone accordingly.