Right now natural gas in Japan is costing around $18 per thousand cubic feet. All gas in Japan is imported. In New England? Gas futures trading for January 2015–the price utilities and others will pay based on contracts for January–is $19 per thousand cubic feet. New England is located just a few hundred miles from the most abundant source of natural gas on earth–the Marcellus Shale–where sometimes the price of gas goes below $2 per thousand cubic feet. What in the world is going on? Lack of pipelines to bring the gas from the Marcellus to New England. With many people on fixed incomes facing a jump of $40 per month or more in higher electricity prices (electricity in New England is largely created by natural gas-powered plants), it seems a bit silly to oppose projects like Kinder Morgan’s Northeast Energy Direct expansion of the Tennessee Gas Pipeline, no?…
