New 1-Mile Pipe Near Ithaca, NY Not Enough to Lift Gas Moratorium
In Lansing, NY, just outside of Planet Ithaca in Tompkins County, the local utility company, NYSEG, wanted to build a short pipeline in 2017 to supply new customers with natural gas, but was blocked by crazies who irrationally hate fossil fuels (see Lansing NY Officials Fight Back Against Tinfoil Hat Fossil Fuel Haters). The pipeline was never built and since that time businesses and homeowners who wanted to build in the town have gone elsewhere. There’s the unmistakable stench of economic death in the air around Lansing (see Natgas Customer Moratorium Killing Ithaca Suburb of Lansing, NY). Town officials just can’t figure out why NYSEG won’t lift the moratorium on new natural gas customers.
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It’s not unusual for companies in the business of delivering methane molecules to customers (the local gas utility company) to invest in the long-haul gas pipelines that deliver gas into their system. Consolidated Edison (ConEd), which serves much of New York City and its suburbs with natural gas, is one such company.
New York City is home to some 15 “peaker plants”–small electric generating plants that fire up to provide electricity during times of high demand when the regular electric grid can’t handle the load. The plants are fueled mostly by oil, some are fueled by natural gas. NRG Energy wants to convert its old oil-fired peakers with natural gas, which is far cleaner and more efficient. However, a group of hardened Socialist Democrats (actually Communists) who have won primaries over the summer, unseating more moderate Democrats, are demanding all of the peakers be shut down. How’s that for stupid?
Pipeline builder Otis Eastern, headquartered in Wellsville, NY (western part of Upstate) has built a lot of pipelines throughout the northeast since its founding in 1936. In recent years the company has worked on a number of Marcellus/Utica projects, including Energy Transfer’s Mariner East 2 project and National Fuel Gas Company’s Marcellus Gas to Market project. Otis is selling itself for an undisclosed amount to a much larger company, Artera Services, LLC, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
In February MDN told you about an effort by the radicalized Sierra Club to block a New York landfill from accepting drill cuttings from the Pennsylvania Marcellus (see
Each day New York State becomes more like a third world, tinhorn dictatorship. High and Supreme Lord Andrew Cuomo (governor and dictator of NY) has issued edicts to *permanently* ban all fracking in the state. The suckup legislature dutifully obliged (see 
The mafia, in the person of Andrew Cuomo, has taken over in New York State. The state is now officially, completely, dark and corrupt. We offer into evidence two recent actions to support our view. One is that two major Upstate utility companies, both owned by the Spanish-based Iberdrola, have agreed to stop advertising their natural gas service and won’t build any new gas delivery pipelines in a bid to discourage new gas customers from signing up. The companies have voluntarily agreed to cap their own businesses and revenues–to harm their investors–at the demand of Lord Cuomo. The second action is the state Siting Board has ruled they will NOT consider the negative impact on property values when approving huge wind and solar farms.
A landowner in Allegany County, NY who tried to block National Fuel Gas Company (NFG) from crossing her property with its Northern Access Pipeline to flow PA fracked gas into the Empire State, has failed. Last week New York’s highest court, called the State Court of Appeals, overturned a lower court ruling. The high court decision clears the way for NFG to use eminent domain to cross the woman’s property when (not if) the pipeline gets built.
National Grid, a huge utility company that supplies natural gas to all of Long Island, including two New York City boroughs (Queens and Brooklyn) has both a short-term and long-term gas supply problem. Corrupt Gov. Andrew Cuomo single-handedly decided to deny National Grid new natural gas supplies via a new pipeline (see
In March 2019 natural gas utility Consolidated Edison, which supplies Manhattan, the Bronx and most of Westchester County, slapped a moratorium on new natural gas customers from hooking up to the grid in Westchester due to lack of gas supplies (see
Talen Energy Corp. subsidiary NorthEast Gas Generation owns two natural gas-fired electric generation plants–one in Athens (Greene County), NY, and one in Charlton (Worcester County), MA. Yesterday Talen/NorthEast filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the third time NorthEast has filed since 2014. The current plan is to hand over ownership to the company’s debtholders.
Fossil fuel haters in New York successfully pressured New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline in May (see
In April 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to review Section 401 of the Clean Water Act–the section that grants states (and tribes) the right to have a say in pipeline projects (see
New York City and Long Island are starved for new sources of natural gas. Utility giant National Grid supplies all of Long Island with gas, including NYC’s Brooklyn and Queens. National Grid’s best option to supply growing customer demand was a new pipeline. That option is now closed, thanks to Andrew Cuomo (see 