• Despite ambitious renewable energy and emission-reduction targets, New England states heavily rely on fuel oil for home heating.
• Limited natural gas infrastructure, restrictions on new nuclear power facilities, and slow offshore wind development hinder New England's energy transition.
• New England leads the U.S. in fuel oil usage for home heating, with 30.5% of households relying on it.

• New England continues to rely on one of the dirtiest fossil fuels, fuel oil, for space heating in the harsh winters despite the climate and clean energy pledges of many of the states in the region.

  Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine have ambitious renewable energy and emission-reduction targets. Some of these states have taken on Big Oil in lawsuits and state legislation to hold the large international oil and gas companies accountable for climate change.   

  Yet, all of them continue to rely on fuel oil – or heating oil – for space heating, even as this type of fuel is about 30% more polluting than natural gas when burnt.

  This climate goal contradiction is unlikely to go away soon, according to Ariel Cohen, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Founding Principal of Washington, D.C.-based global risk advisory International Market Analysis.

• “More good old New England common sense, energy realism, and less virtue signaling would go a long way to resolve the region’s energy bottlenecks,” Cohen wrote in Forbes this week.

• New England is lacking, and also unwilling to build, enough natural gas infrastructure to have gas delivered from the Marcellus shale and the Appalachia region.

  The northeast region is also one of the several U.S. states that currently have restrictions on the construction of new nuclear power facilities. Nuclear power could help the states with their low-carbon electricity goals, but New England isn’t taking this road, at least not now.

• Without new nuclear generation and new natural gas pipelines, the northeast faces challenges in greening its energy mix.

  In electricity, ISO New England sources half of its total power generation from natural gas, 20% from nuclear, and just 3% each from solar and wind.

• The New England coast is a prime resource for offshore wind, but there are few operating projects, and not many more are close to the finish line amid soaring costs and oil supermajors abandoning plans.

  Winter poses challenges to solar generation in the region, while “winter storms that limit solar power can also significantly limit the output of wind generation if high wind speeds force plant operators to shut down in order to protect equipment,” the electricity system provider says.

  During cold snaps, fuel oil is an essential backup generation source for New England’s mix when natural gas is constrained.

  Fuel oil also plays an important role in home heating.

  Currently, New England is the U.S. region with the highest share of households using fuel oil for home heating.

About 82% of U.S. households that heat on fuel oil are in the Northeast.

In Massachusetts, the second-largest heating source for homes is fuel oil, with a 22% share, preceded only by natural gas, with a 50.5% share, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

In New England, utility gas has a 39% share in household heating, followed by fuel oil with 30.5%.

“In New England as a whole, a smaller share of households heat their home using natural gas,” the Commonwealth of Massachusetts says.

“Heating oil remains the second most prominent heating fuel, closely behind natural gas. Lack of natural gas infrastructure in Maine, Vermont, and parts of New Hampshire means less access to gas supplies.”

Ironically, while New England continues to rely on fuel oil, it has very ambitious climate targets.

Vermont, for example, has set out a pathway to obtain 90% of its energy from renewable sources by 2050.

“This ambitious goal calls on all citizens to take actions that will collectively transform the way we use and produce energy in our electric, transportation, and heating sectors,” the state says.

Massachusetts, for its part, has a target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Yet, the widespread use of fuel oil for home heating and the fuel acting as backup to natural gas in the ISO New England generation during the coldest winter days aren’t helping the clean energy goals of the Northeast U.S. states.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com