Plain & Simple Facts about Natural Gas for New England

by Dan McKay

11 hours ago

  • Nearly 40% of the total homes in Connecticut are heated with natural gas through pipelines. Over 50% in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. The percentage grows dramatically for those who have homes adjacent to natural gas pipelines.
 
  • Why? Because natural gas is a less expensive heating fuel than oil or electricity.
 
  • New England Regulations set up the use of natural gas to prioritize use for heating before allowing it to be used for electricity generation. Maybe, Maine policymakers might have considered this before subsidizing electric heat pumps.
 
  • Not one New England State taxes natural gas suppliers with a carbon dioxide penalty for home heating purposes.
 
  • Every New England State taxes natural gas-fired electricity generation plants with a carbon dioxide tax which wheels into monthly electricity bills. ISO-NE states the price of natural gas wasn't the reason for recent higher electricity prices, it was the dramatic increased cost of carbon dioxide taxes attached to natural gas and oil-fired electricity production.
 
  • Knowledgeable people have called for a New England expansion of natural gas pipeline capacity for decades and the end to RGGI( AKA Carbon Dioxide Tax).
 
  • Pipeline expansions have always been rejected by Majority Democrat State Governments in all New England States with New Hampshire being the exception.
 
  • As the moderately cold weather sets in (New England has historically had colder spells), natural gas is used up for home heating with the greatest majority occurring in Massachusetts,  Connecticut and Rhode Island.
 
  • Therefore, there is not enough to fuel electric plants in New England. 

  • Oil, a storable fuel, is being burned by the hundreds of thousands of gallons this morning. 
 
  • Oil prices are coming down and if ISO-NE stands by its duties to use the least expensive resource to generate electricity, oil use may become normal for New England.
 
  • Oil for electricity generation is carrying 40% of New England's' load this morning. BTW, oil is taxed even more than natural gas and ISO-NE pays generators extra millions to store it.
 
  • Seems to me, there is a lesson to be learned in this situation.

  • Maine Government has decided a 1200-megawatt wind plant in Aroostook County is more practical than creating an avenue where natural gas can replace oil, even though the wind plant project requires expensive transmission modifications covering the entire north to south length of Maine with construction payments applied to all New England States.

  • BTW, the wholesale price for 40% oil is 46 cents per kilowatt-hour, this morning.

  • The outrage for high electricity prices should be directed at Maine Government for being silent on this situation. Even worse, for valuing wind and solar above natural gas. Half the people of Massachusetts and, Obviously, it is well more than half who have access to pipelines, are speaking with their wallets and select natural gas to heat their homes and fire up their stoves.  

  • Willem Post

    We need higher CO2 ppm to increase flora and fauna growth per acre, and reduce desert areas, and increase crop yields per acre to better feed 8 billion people.

    At present, CO2 ppm is near the lowest level it has been for 600 million years.

    10 hours ago