In May, MDN brought you a story of how New England was “this close” to rolling blackouts due to an extreme shortage of electricity during a cold snap (see When Neighbors Go Bad: NY Forcing New England into Blackouts). New York is blocking natural gas pipelines that are critically needed to flow gas to New England gas-fired electric plants. New England has a bunch of old 1960s oil-burning plants. It was reactivating those old plants and burning 2 million barrels of oil over a two-week period (belching out all sorts of pollution), that kept the lights on in New England this past winter. But what’s this? New York itself is now in a pickle. National Grid, a local electric utility operating in much of Upstate, is warning customers to “reduce unnecessary electricity usage for the remainder of the week.” Why? The company says that although, “Electricity supply to the area is adequate…heavy demand and high temperatures could potentially challenge regional networks.” Translation: Use less electricity or you may face a rolling blackout/brownout. They don’t use those words, but we do. It sure looks to us like NY (via Andrew Cuomo) is beginning to reap what it’s sown. Stop new pipelines, block new gas-fired electric plant projects, and this is what you get when the temps turn really hot, or really cold…
