New England: No Gas Pipes Mean Sky-High Energy Costs on the Way
We hate to say “I told you so,” but we’ll say it anyway. If you live in New England, prepare yourself. You’re about to experience more price shocks for natural gas and electricity (4x more than the rest of the country, or higher). Why? Because you’re blocking new pipeline projects that would bring cheap, abundant, clean-burning natural gas to the region. The Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale sits a few hundred miles away–yet very little Marcellus gas is flowing to New England at this point. New England, more than any other region in the country, relies on natgas to power electric generating plants. Without extra supplies, especially in the winter months when natgas gets used for heating, electric generators are forced to pay obscenely high rates to stay in operation. Those obscenely high rates get passed along to ratepayers–businesses AND residences. Yet anti-fossil fuel wackos continue to try and stop new pipelines, sometimes criminally (see Part of AIM Pipeline Begins to Flow; Protesters Hide in Pipe). A new report just issued (full copy below) by the New England Coalition for Affordable Energy says New England is at a much greater risk for higher energy costs in the short-term because of lack of new pipelines…
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Kinder Morgan’s UTOPIA (Utica To Ontario Pipeline Access) pipeline is a 12-inch ethane pipeline that will run ~240 miles and will only be built in Ohio–therefore the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won’t be involved in permitting the project. In September we noted that Kinder Morgan is still facing opposition from some Ohio landowners (see 
The Obama Administration has once again made a naked power grab–violating the Constitution in the process. On Monday the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued an Interim Final Rule (“IFR”) to implement the agency’s “expanded authority to address unsafe pipeline conditions or practices that pose an imminent hazard to life, property, or the environment.” That is, if PHMSA bureaucrats decide something is important enough, or may imminently “harm the public”–they can just dispense with all other laws and regulations which require hearings and public notices, wave the regulatory wand and make a decision. No input. No consultation. No following the law. PHMSA is doing this as a result of a new law signed by President Obama in June, called the PIPES Act, which grants the DOT Secretary godlike powers to issue emergency orders when he/she thinks there’s a danger to the public…
In June Dominion began building Virginia’s largest natural gas-fired electric plant in Greensville County (see 
In October of last year, MDN shared the news that Duke Energy, the largest electric power holding company in the United States and a utility with 7.3 million customers in the southeast and Midwest, announced they are buying Piedmont Natural Gas (see 
MDN spotted an announcement that says PennAg and Sunoco Logistics (building the Mariner East 2 pipeline project) have collaborated to produce a “biosecurity education module.” What the heck is that?! It’s fancy language for “here’s how you keep farm animals safe when building a pipeline.” Building a pipeline is no easy thing. It starts with surveyors entering a property to map out a route–traipsing around the land, sticking markers in the ground. Eventually bulldozers, backhoes and truckloads of pipe show up. Then welders show up to stitch it together. Then it gets covered up, and later landscapers come along to replant, reseed, and re-whatever to restore the land to its former glory. With all of those people and equipment entering and exiting a property–particularly a farm–there’s an increased chance they will track something, or perhaps do something, that ends up being harmful to the livestock living on that land. So-called “biosecurity” is the name given to keeping the living things safe and free from harm from the people building (in this case) a pipeline. Sunoco has teamed up with PennAg Industries, a PA non-profit that promotes agriculture in the Keystone State, to make sure nothing bad happens when their workers show up at the farm. They’re creating an online course and making it available to anyone and everyone…
Last week MDN brought you the news that DTE Energy, a BIG utility and midstream company based in Detroit, MI, is buying 100% of M3 Midstream’s Appalachia Gathering System (AGS), located in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and 40% of M3’s Stonewall Gas Gathering (SGG), located in West Virginia (see 
