New England Facing Blackouts This Winter, As Mad Green Policies Bite
By Paul Homewood
It’s not only Europe!
Residents in New England cities are facing rolling blackouts this winter if temperatures drop for a prolonged cold snap because of lower fuel supplies.
The region relies on natural-gas imports to bridge the gaps during the winter but is now having to compete with European countries for shipments of liquefied gas.
Russia’s halt of most pipeline gas to the continent has ramped up the price and demand for natural gas across the globe.
Both Europe and the US are now scrambling to import more LNG, which could send gas prices skyrocketing next winter – despite America being one of the top importers in the world.
New England does not import American LNG because the Jones Act, which limits how cargo is transported by sea, bans foreign flagged ships transporting goods between US ports.
A shortage of American owned vessels means the region is forced to buy LNG from outside the US.
The act was designed in 1920 and is designed to help promote US ships which have to be run, owned and created by American crews – of which there are a shortage.
However, this means that although the US is one of the world’s biggest LNG producers it can’t ship the gas around the country.
Several cold spells in the Northeast could reduce the amount of gas available to generate electricity, as more of it is burned to heat homes in the plummeting temperatures.
ISO New England Inc, the region’s power-grid operator, have wanted that an extremely cold winter could result in the need for rolling blackouts to keep electricity supply and demand in balance.
Vamsi Chadalavada, the grid operator’s chief operating officer told the WSJ: ‘The most challenging aspect of this winter is what’s happening around the world and the extreme volatility in the markets.
‘If you are in the commercial sector, at what point do you buy fuel?’
Power producers could be forced to foot the bill for imported gas, paying several times more than last year, if the severe weather creates an urgent need for immediate purchases.
Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island have struggled to replace the retired power plants with large-scale renewable projects or pipelines to serve existing gas facilities.
According to the Energy Information Administration imports of LNG can make up more than a third of the region’s natural-gas supply during periods of peak demand.
Older coal, oil and nuclear-fueled generators in the region have shut in recent years, leaving the gas-fired ones to plug the gap and face the brunt of the increasing demand.
According to ISO, at least eight plants have closed or are retiring in the region, with six new natural gas projects meant to be set up between 2018 and 2020.
Experts fear that the older plants closing faster than they can be replaced have left New England more reliant on imports of gas and oil to the remaining plants.
The Mail misses the most important factor of all – the lack of pipeline capacity, deliberately engineered for political reasons as ADI Analytics explain:
While the energy crisis in Europe is well known, with much of the continent facing gas shortages due to the war in Ukraine and subsequent Russian sanctions and policies, less talked about is an energy crisis brewing in the U.S. Problems with natural gas infrastructure in New England have been mounting for years, and the region faces a potential energy crisis of its own.
Every winter there are concerns about natural gas supply in New England and how the region’s infrastructure cannot handle a prolonged cold snap. On the region’s coldest days, there is not sufficient pipeline capacity to provide natural gas for home heating and power generation despite the prolific Marcellus and Utica Shales being close by. In fact, New England is the only region in the continental U.S. that imports natural gas, with imports contributing up to 35% of the region’s supplies on peak days. Now, with LNG prices at record levels due to demand in Europe, New England consumers will be paying higher prices for their energy. Exhibit 1 shows some of the announced rate increases announced by utility providers in New England so far.
In August, the CEO of Independent System Operator New England (ISO-NE) wrote a letter to the Secretary of Energy about these infrastructure issues. This statement has spurred concerns from customers and consumers seeking to improve energy reliability in the region. Several reasons have been cited for the causes of this brewing crisis, including regional and state policies that do not support the further development of natural gas infrastructure. In fact, regulatory hurdles and lawsuits have stymied pipeline development and access to natural gas in the region, with 7.1 BCFPD of capacity cancelled or delayed since 2018 and only 2.3 BCFPD added. Some of these projects include the Penn East Pipeline (1.1 BCFPD), Diamond East Pipeline (1.0 BCFPD), and Atlantic Coast Pipeline (2.0 BCFPD). Not only do these hurdles affect New England consumers and limit their access to the U.S.’s abundant natural gas resources, but they have also left the Marcellus and Utica shales largely isolated and challenged to supply LNG exports to a world hungry for LNG.
Summary
The simplest fix to these issues is expanded capacity in the region. With abundant, domestic supply, the only real challenge is transportation and access to that supply. Unfortunately, this simple fix is not so simple in today’s polarized world. Additional renewable and green energy projects could provide some relief, but it is apparent that the region needs natural gas, and peak days will require consistent baseload power supply that renewable energy does not provide.
https://adi-analytics.com/2022/10/17/natural-gas-crisis-building-in-new-england/
What a truly ludicrous state of affairs!
The US has oil and gas to last a hundred years and more. Yet thanks to green dogma, New Englanders face the prospect of paying through the nose for imported energy and the risk of blackouts.
Yet things will quickly get progressively worse, as Joe Biden’s war on fossil fuels continues.
Good luck, if New England thinks it can survive winters in future with only wind and solar power to heat people’s homes, power the economy and keep public services going!
Still, there’s always Qatar!
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Having lived through a New England winter two things spring to mind, It’s stunningly beautiful and thank the lord for our furnace!
Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat, as the Romans used to say!
It’s a bit reassuring to see that our technically incompetent leadership is not the only one in the world. However, the USA will earn billions from gas sales while we pay out billions, how cannot our leaders grasp that fracking is a must for the UK economy?
“…fracking is a must…”
Back in 2001, a lady friend mused on when the Americans would capture
Osama Bin Laden. After stifling a laugh at her naivety, I explained that he was their creation and they were determined not to ‘find’ him until his usefulness was at an end.
Similarly, the last thing ‘our leaders’ want is to allow us to find viable cheap gas under our feet before the plan to rip-out our domestic gas-boilers is succesful.
And to lock in all the retrograde green agenda madness before it becomes too obvious that the world is cooling; hence the manic panic green hysteria of the moment.
That’s not how trade works. If it were, we could just print £s to exchange and get the gas for free. The US is sending its resources and labour to foreigners for them to consume rather than its own citizens. That makes itself poorer, not richer. To balance that loss (money does not and it must balance somewhere ) it must import the equivalent for the consumption of its ctizens. Its what we consume that makes us rich, not what we produce for others to consume or money unless that is used to buy consumption.
Left-wing wrecking the US while UK has been left of centre for 25 years now, since Blair. And here we all are.
How the UK can continue to import gas from everywhere but refuse point-blank to extract our own from onshore sources beggars belief.
We probably need an extremely cold winter to force their hand.
I think there is a good case to say that it started with that idiot John Major, especially when the Tories beat Labour under Kinnock. I wonder where we might have gone if Kinnock had won and given the UK a round of Labour bankruptcy. Might the Tories have found a conservative to lead them? What a surprise to find out the Truss IS more conservative than any recent leader but has been hounded out by her leftwing MPs.
The demise of Truss is the demise of the Tories. It is apparent that the “elected” MPs are only voting to save their own fat salaries. They voted her in only to stab her in the back. They are not to be trusted. Labour are even worse. It is time for a “Guy Fawkes” moment to drain the swamp and elect MPs who will represent the actual needs of the country.
Who wants to freeze in the dark in winter so as to keep temperatures down in summer (according to some woolly theories)? Don’t all shout at once.
Well, at least Schadenfreude fans with plenty of coal and seasoned wood will have a grand winter.
I thought the when AGW theory was based on an average temperature increase caused by slightly warmer winters, particularly at night. The fuss over ovcasionally hot summer days is just fluff.
If AGW theory is correct, New England should be fine.
IF
The lunatic NetZero nonsense is destroying our economy and giving Chaina lots of belly laughs. FGS do something about it you stupid politicians.
I’ve just spent a morning prepping the Genny and making sure that it will be ready to go when it’s needed. We don’t have any solid fuel heating, gas has served us very well over the last thirty years. The house does have one boarded up fireplace which could be opened up and fitted with a wood burner.
If you have a ready source of firewood I’d be getting a nice wood burner in pronto. Best investment you can make. If feasible fit one you can cook on. Our whole dinner last night was cooked on the woodburning stove (a Thornhill – UK made). My morning tea from water boiled on it (always have water simmering, so have about 4litres of hot water always available. No wetback as that would have required too much house rebuilding, however I’d fit that in any new build (which I expect to have to do for my children – What do you now do in retirement? Build houses for your children!).
Growing and burning your own fuel is the best hope of getting through the new Dark Ages we are entering.
You will have a bit of wait as all the companies are working flat out. My new wood burner should be in place on 5 December. Some stoves are out of stock in the UK until late Spring.
To go on top of my w.b. stove a local forge made me a “hotplate” that extends the cooking area on either side. It works a treat and wasn’t expensive.
It’s amusing to see the Jones Act appear again, one of the most absurd pieces of legislation the US has ever enacted and which has caused nothing but harm for 100 years. The economic damage it has caused is quite extraordinary.
Dear Paul,
you say ‘Russia’s halt of most pipeline gas to the continent has ramped up the price and demand for natural gas across the globe…’
I have to point out that Russia did not ‘halt’ pipeline gas to Europe, but the EU and NATO pressurised countries of Europe to stop buying Russian gas (or to be more exact, stop paying for Russian gas) then NATO (almost without any doubt, and as threatened and then celebrated by Biden, Poland, Nuland, etc.) blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines that had the potential to immediately alleviate Europe’s gas supply crisis and lower prices by 80% overnight. That meant no resumption of Russian gas supplies was possible, Germany then couldn’t ‘wobble’ over the Ukraine war, and US LPG suppliers keep raking in bonanza profits on the back of European ‘allies’.
Perhaps you could make your future comments about Russian gas, and the shortage of, a little more truthful.
What incontrovertible evidence can you demonstrate for your ‘truth’ that NATO “blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines”?
If you read what I actually said, it reads “almost without any doubt” that it was NATO who blew up Nord Stream 1 &2, not that I personally have any doubt at all.
That sounds like some backpedalling going on. But of course I could be wrong.
‘backpedalling’ – in what possible way is this backpedalling? Maybe you just didn’t read what I actually said the first time.
I read that you said that Paul could be “a little more truthful” but without any evidence to support your opinion.
Perhaps ‘accurate’ may have been a better choice of words than ‘truth’ – I greatly admire Paul and am most grateful for the truth (IMHO) he highlights on s0-called ‘man-made global warming’ and the CO2 scam. However, my point is both valid and incontestable: Russia did not ‘halt’ the supply of gas to Europe as asserted in this article (and in many of Paul’s other recent articles, it must be said), or shut off the taps, it was the complete opposite – European countries chose (under pressure from the EU and NATO) to stop paying for Russian gas (and then Nordstream 1 & 2 were blown up to ensure they didn’t change their minds!). That is what ‘halted’ supplies, not Russia. Regardless of one’s opinion on the crisis in eastern Ukraine, the gas crisis in Europe was caused by Europe itself (with encouragement from NATO, the UK and the USA), not Russia. Our people need to know who is to blame when their gas boilers cease working this winter and our elderly freeze to death – and it’s not the media-manufactured ‘bogeyman’ V V Putin.
I wouldn’t say NATO did it. The USA? Yes, most likely if you look at who gains by doing it. No doubt we will find out once honest people reclaim the USA from the current fascists.
I live in northern West Virginia, just about 8 miles below the PA line. We have a lot of both coal and gas.
I trust many of you saw the iconic photo taken in early September of 5 coal miners in Tucker County pushing the little dead car up to their station where they plugged it to their outlet to recharge. I know that area well as it has the most beautiful of our state parks, Blackwater Falls State Park and nearby Dolly Sods. Corridor H includes much of Rte. 93 which crosses from the Ridge & Valley Province over the Eastern Divide. Battery draining for certain. That area is being strip-mined and recontoured.
The one responsible for the photo is a miner at that facility, West Virginia State Senator Randy Smith. Fortunately, WV now has Republican control of both houses of the state legislature and the public works offices (SOS, AG, Ag. Commissioner, Auditor and Treasurer).
Our Treasurer, Riley Moore, is leading a coalition of some 12 fossil fuel producing states to not put any state funds with institutions who are against fossil fuels. If they won’t listen to reason….maybe they will understand the bottom line.
The cure for the New England states (and NY which won’t let pipelines cross it) is to be found on November 8.
Biggest laugh of the day….Stop Oil offshoot in Germany glued themselves to showroom floor at VW in Germany. The staff left at end of shift switched off lights and heating and left them to it. Protesters then claimed they hadn’t any means of privately peeing or pooing. Police later went in and just arrested the lot. Hooe this catches on.
Just search ‘vw stop oil glue Germany ‘ . Hilarious!!
I bet VW were really scared when they were denounced by a ‘researcher in social psychology’!
The Green Leap Backward was imposed on many western countries by liberal elites who hijacked almost every establishment organisation.
And set about banning things and dictating peoples lives.
eg the right to extract fossil fuels, to buy petrol cars
Plus imposing a vast range of green taxes that make everything more expensive.
Ultimately people die and lives are shorter
cos green costs means hospitals have less resources
cos Putin feels emboldened to invade Ukraine
cos protesters block roads and follow on consequences are accidents and delays that would not have happened otherwise
Nice to see that those who vote in Demotwats get what they desire. Apparently the Germans call it Hoist By Your Own Petard.