NY PSC Consultant Says National Grid Doesn’t Need Brooklyn LNG
National Grid is desperately trying not to run out of natural gas for its customers in Brooklyn and Queens (on Long Island). For several years the company has fought a battle to run a tiny pipeline to its Greenpoint, Brooklyn facility to provide extra natural gas. That project is being investigated by the Biden administration on charges of racism (see Woke Nation: 2nd Fed Agency Investigating Brooklyn Pipe as Racist). National Grid has a backup plan–add two extra LNG vaporizers to the Greenpoint facility to turn trucked LNG back into gas that can flow through the system. A so-called independent consultant reviewed the plan and filed a report with the state Public Utility Commission saying National Grid’s vaporizers aren’t needed. Let the folks on Long Island run out of gas–that’s the preferred strategy, apparently.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration says natural gas consumption in all sectors in the United States was effectively flat between 2020 and 2021, down by only 0.5 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). The pandemic was to blame. Natgas usage hit a record high in 2019, just prior to the pandemic, but has decreased since that time. In 2021, natural gas used in the electric power sector (which is the largest U.S. natural gas-consuming sector) decreased by 3%. However, and this is the good news, the EIA predicts natural gas-fired generation will increase by 5% this year.
We began to see the latest fake news attacks against natural gas nearly two weeks ago. The extreme, leftwing activist group Physicians, Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSEHE) produced a junk science report that claims the natural gas in your cooking stove is leaking gas that contains chemicals that cause cancer. Mainstream outlets, like NBC News, dutifully (without verifying it) reported this nonsense like it was legitimate science news. It is not. It’s quackery. But then NBC (and others like it) have VERY low standards. NBC is more into propaganda and advocacy than it is reporting objective, unbiased news. No worries. We will debunk it for you below.
In 2021, the use of coal in the U.S. to fire power plants actually rose by 16% after it had declined steadily, year after year, from 2014 to 2020. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects coal used to fire power plants in the U.S. to decline again this year, even though the price of natural gas has doubled and tripled. Coal and natgas are typically interchangeable, and power generators use whichever costs less. But not, it seems, anymore.
Norwegian company DNV operates as a quality assurance and risk management company. It offers supply chain, data management, technical assurance, software, and advisory services. DNV recently published its annual Energy Transition Outlook 2022. DNV’s predictions are somewhat shocking. The company is a global warming Kool-Aid drinker, believing we’ll all toast if we don’t “transition” away from burning fossil energy by 2050. Yet DNV’s report shows it thinks by 2050, the U.S. and Canada will still be 66% powered by fossil energy, primarily natural gas.
Sometimes natural gas pipelines leak. Hey, it happens. Not often, but it happens often enough that pipeline companies must prepare risk assessments of the potential hazards posed by a pipeline leak. They now have a new tool to make those assessments. According to a new study published by researchers at Southern Methodist University, soil moisture content is the main factor that controls how far and at what concentration natural gas spreads from a leaked pipeline underground.
U.S. natural gas production is projected to increase a big 4% this winter, but lower-than-average storage along with an estimated 2% increase in demand will combine to place upward pressure on natural gas prices compared to last winter. So says the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) in its 22nd annual Winter Outlook forecast of the wholesale winter natural gas market (an executive summary of the NGSA report is embedded below).
Researchers at the West Virginia University (WVU) Energy Institute presented an update on their latest work to reporters yesterday on the Evansdale campus in Morgantown. According to Sam Taylor, assistant director for the WVU Energy Institute, the university is leading the way in research of technologies that can help move the state to a cleaner environment while still using the natural gas produced in the state. WVU professed its love for natgas, but it loves loves loves hydrogen.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently published its Winter Fuels Outlook for 2022-2023. Major media outlets are picking up on this statistic: The U.S. average household that heats with natural gas will pay $931 this winter, up 28% (or $206) from what that same household paid last winter. Although production (supplies) of natural gas is increasing, demand is going up even more. Yes, LNG exports play a role in that, but so too does an increase in demand from domestic power generators, industrial users, etc. But here’s what we want to point out about this news, some context that’s missing in the stories we see: Other Western democracies, like Germany, are paying far more for natural gas than we are. FAR more.
Each year Michael Cembalest, the Chief Investment Officer at J.P. Morgan asset management, publishes a report on the state of the global energy space. It is a comprehensive assessment of the state of play in the world of energy, chock full of charts and data related to every industry segment. This year’s 2022 Annual Energy Paper, subtitled, “The Elephants in the Room” (full copy below), begins with a summary of the energy landscape, including the energy crisis in Europe, the recovery in the oil and gas sector, and a warning label on industrial electrification and carbon sequestration forecasts.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) published an article yesterday to say that according to their data, the U.S. hit a new record high for natural gas production in 2021. As part of the article, EIA points out that the Marcellus/Utica region now accounts for nearly one-third of all U.S. dry natural gas production! The chart included with the article (below) shows gas production by source, including both the #1 source (Texas) and #2 source (Pennsylvania).
The American Petroleum Institute (API) yesterday released new analyses (see the 160-page report below) on the benefits of low-carbon hydrogen produced from natural gas. The study, commissioned by API and conducted by ICF, found that hydrogen produced from natural gas with carbon capture and produced from electricity and other energy sources (so-called “blue” hydrogen) could eliminate an additional 180 million metric tons of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on average per year through 2050 and save over $450 billion cumulatively through 2050 when hydrogen incentives are uniformly provided based on a per ton of GHG emissions reduced. API wants the world to know, hydrogen made from natural gas (as 95% of all hydrogen is), is the way to go.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently published an article observing the number of DUCs (