NECN: Eversource CEO Warns New England May Not Have Enough Natural Gas to Last the Winter

[China]

Eversource CEO Warns New England May Not Have Enough Natural Gas to Last the Winter

 

Eversource CEO Joe Nolan wrote a letter to President Joe Biden last week warning of the possibility of power outages this winter if steps aren't taken to expand the country's natural gas supply.

 

In his letter, dated Oct. 27, Nolan said New England might not have enough natural gas to meet the region's electricity supply if this winter is colder than anticipated.

 

"ISO-New England, the region’s electricity grid operator, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have acknowledged for many months that New England will not have sufficient natural gas to meet power supply needs for the region in the event of a severe cold spell this winter," he said. "This represents a serious public health and safety threat."

 

Nolan spoke to NBC10 Boston about his concerns Monday.

 

"I am worried about a peak day, when we hit a polar vortex," he said. "I do not want be in a situation that they were in Texas or they were in California."

 

“As both an energy company CEO and a lifelong New Englander, I am deeply concerned about the potentially severe impact a winter energy shortfall would have on the people and businesses of the region,” Nolan said.

 

Nolan says Eversource is in the process of relying on more clean-energy options, but that it will take several years.

 

Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Massachusetts, now the managing director of the Citizens Energy Corporation, says providers should already be focusing on renewable energy options.

 

"This should have been done a long time ago," he said. "But for far too long, some of the planners there kept kicking the can."

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Just go back to using whale oil jerks. 🤪

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

More price gouging coming up!!

[Fergasun]

As a Californian, can I ask what happened in California?  Keep my state's name out of your g'darn mouth. 

[skinsmarydu]

Thankfully, I don't have to heat my whole house.

[CousinsCowgirl84]

Just now, Fergasun said:

As a Californian, can I ask what happened in California?  Keep my state's name out of your g'darn mouth. 

Rolling blackouts? Camp fire?

 

 

at least it is looking warm..

 

[Fergasun]

They said "we may have to do rolling blackouts, please conserve energy."  The state never did rolling blackouts. 

[Riggo-toni]

30% of America's population lives in the megalopolis from Boston down to DC, where there simply isn't enough sunshine or wind to meet energy demands, and that deficit will only grow if EVs become mainstream. Neither political party has come up with a realistic transition policy over to cleaner/renewable energy. GOP insists on denying climate change while green new dealers insist on mandating changes which are not yet technically possible.  We should start with replacing all coal power with natural gas, and fund research into possible storage technologies like iron air or sodium ion batteries.

[skinsmarydu]

6 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

30% of America's population lives in the megalopolis from Boston down to DC, where there simply isn't enough sunshine or wind to meet energy demands, and that deficit will only grow if EVs become mainstream. Neither political party has come up with a realistic transition policy over to cleaner/renewable energy. GOP insists on denying climate change while green new dealers insist on mandating changes which are not yet technically possible.  We should start with replacing all coal power with natural gas, and fund research into possible storage technologies like iron air or sodium ion batteries.

My natural gas is more expensive than electric.  Who do you use? I'm with GNG, but switching is definitely an option.  (And like I mentioned earlier, I don't heat the whole house because I really only use part of it.)

[Riggo-toni]

I use Scana for gas, Cobb EMC for electric. I think I am paying around 80¢/therm.

[skinsmarydu]

25 minutes ago, Riggo-toni said:

I use Scana for gas, Cobb EMC for electric. I think I am paying around 80¢/therm.

Damn, I remember when every co was working in the 50 cent realm. 

I love what Jimmy Carter taught me to do.  More clothes now, less later. 

[CobraCommander]

I'm envisioning a future where i have to use my fireplaces to keep warm.

[skinsmarydu]

4 minutes ago, CobraCommander said:

I'm envisioning a future where i have to use my fireplaces to keep warm.

When we were living in Savannah, hubby would get up and start the fire.  (It was a thing, the only source of heat in the shack on the marsh.)

[CousinsCowgirl84]

3 hours ago, Fergasun said:

They said "we may have to do rolling blackouts, please conserve energy."  The state never did rolling blackouts. 

Ah… I guess the last time it actually happened was in 2001… ancient history.

2 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

30% of America's population lives in the megalopolis from Boston down to DC, where there simply isn't enough sunshine or wind to meet energy demands, and that deficit will only grow if EVs become mainstream. Neither political party has come up with a realistic transition policy over to cleaner/renewable energy. GOP insists on denying climate change while green new dealers insist on mandating changes which are not yet technically possible.  We should start with replacing all coal power with natural gas, and fund research into possible storage technologies like iron air or sodium ion batteries.

12 square kilometers just for NYC. Seems like nuclear power is the only realistic solution. The thing is that solar and wind are so much cheaper than nuclear. And research into more efficient/safer nuclear power is slow.

[Fergasun]

If we had a functional democracy we would build the energy and water equivalents of the Eisenhower Interstate system.  Trade water from the east for solar power from the west. 

 

Alas... "the narrative" would rather divide us. 

[SkinsFTW]

Get pedaling New Englanders!!!

 

[PleaseBlitz]

I feel like this is the opportunity we’ve been looking for to cull Patriots fans and, hopefully, Bill Belicheck specifically. 

[The Evil Genius]

8 hours ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

Ah… I guess the last time it actually happened was in 2001… ancient history.

 

Fwiw, I recall that was mostly Enron creating an artificial shortage.

[Renegade7]

16 hours ago, Riggo-toni said:

30% of America's population lives in the megalopolis from Boston down to DC, where there simply isn't enough sunshine or wind to meet energy demands, and that deficit will only grow if EVs become mainstream. Neither political party has come up with a realistic transition policy over to cleaner/renewable energy. GOP insists on denying climate change while green new dealers insist on mandating changes which are not yet technically possible.  We should start with replacing all coal power with natural gas, and fund research into possible storage technologies like iron air or sodium ion batteries.

 

Fusion getting closer, but not close enough.

 

That's a good point about some regions needing to focus on other green technologies as some aren't going to be able to keep up with demand in their area. 

 

I want to see more love for fission until fusion can replace it, and subsidies to put solar on every house (it will add up regardless of the region).

[Riggo-toni]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

I want to see more love for fission until fusion can replace it, and subsidies to put solar on every house (it will add up regardless of the region).

The Japanese are developing small "modular" nuclear plants which are much less dangerous and which they are trying to engineer to produce hydrogen fuel as a clean byproduct.

 

Edited November 6, 2022 by Riggo-toni

[Corcaigh]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

 

Fusion getting closer, but not close enough.

 

Nowhere near close enough. Fusion should not be included as part of energy solution for at least 50, and more likely 100 years.

 

The focus of fusion reactor research for the past 70 years (yes, reactor machines were constructed in the early 1950s) has been to create a plasma which puts out significantly more energy than it requires to create it. With ITER starting those experiments in 2035 that milestone may be reached, but for a viable reactor you also have to overcome three big engineering challenges that very little work has been done on to date:

1. how to efficiently get the energy out of the reactor without losing most of it. 
2. how to source enough Tritium to fuel the Deuterium-Tritium reaction which relatively speaking is the easiest reaction. There is nowhere near enough Tritium in the world and Tritium breeding is unknown at scale and the best ideas are marginal.
3. how to keep a fusion reactor operating with enough uptime given the severity of the conditions (enormously high electrical and magnetic fields, ultra low temperatures, 150Million degree plasma, high levels of radiation). The plasma releases energy mostly in the form of high energy neutrons which will irradiate the reactor and require very complex maintenance as the whole reactor will be highly radioactive.

There are two types of fusion researcher. Current researchers need to hold beliefs that one day it will be viable so that they can run out the clock on their careers before funding is withdrawn. We are now three generations into this. Former researchers (with the same inside knowledge) believe it is not going to deliver a viable solution and leave the field.   

[LadySkinsFan]

There's no shortage, the CEO's are artificially increasing the price for more profit. 

[Renegade7]

@Corcaigh I am the game so gonna have to come back to this later, but I've seen a couple different articles lately about the private sector putting more money into this then ever before, and they typically dont do that unless return in investment is closer they are describing.

[Corcaigh]

1 hour ago, Renegade7 said:

@Corcaigh I am the game so gonna have to come back to this later, but I've seen a couple different articles lately about the private sector putting more money into this then ever before, and they typically dont do that unless return in investment is closer they are describing.

The private money is mostly going into alternatives to the big tokamak approach because they rightly believe that that approach is a bust. But they need to demonstrate that rejecting the conventional approach doesn’t automatically make yours better.  That said, the different tech has some interesting ideas. But I think the leading alternatives are still not promising anything for more than a decade.
 

Still, VCs in herd mentality in a no-carbon bubble don’t stress about a few billion in hyped technology. We’ve seen this several times before and often with the same investors. The best funded one (TAE) is going to try to do something that requires a plasma at one billion degrees. Yes, billiion. 
 

I hope these kinds of aneutronic approaches work of course and would avoid some of the challenges listed in my earlier post with neutron radiation. If I wanted to move completely away from carbon I would pick modern fission reactors as the backbone and have proper oversight so that safety and disclosure is an engineering decision and not a business one.

[PeterMP]

On 11/5/2022 at 7:13 PM, Fergasun said:

If we had a functional democracy we would build the energy and water equivalents of the Eisenhower Interstate system.  Trade water from the east for solar power from the west. 

 

Alas... "the narrative" would rather divide us. 

 

That would be outrageously expensive.  Water and electricity are two things that are not easy to transport long distances.

 

And it isn't like once you build it you are done.  You are talking about large long term maintence costs and realistically security costs because those systems instantaneously become security risks vulnerable to physical and cyber threats.

 

It is far better/easier to force people to live within their territorial resources.

 

Much of the west should have banned watering yards 20 years ago and they still haven't done it.  There should be no golf courses in AZ unless there are also massive zoning restrictions to limit the population.

 

The north east populace might need to find better ways to collectively support energy conservation during the winter, to find space and money to build a nuclear power plant or two to make generating heat with electricity more feasible, find ways to collectively support geothermal heating, etc.

 

We have a population that doesn't like to hear that practically certain things don't make sense and politicians have learned not to tell people that certain things aren't practical.

Edited November 7, 2022 by PeterMP