Rikurzhen
Gold Member
- Jul 24, 2014
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Watching liberals confront reality is always good for a laugh. This is comedy on a slow motion scale (too bad it has negative consequences for normal people)
A sampling from the article, go to the source for the full glory of liberal shrewd thinking to be revealed:
A sampling from the article, go to the source for the full glory of liberal shrewd thinking to be revealed:
In a hell-bent campaign to rid itself of any form of dirty, messy non-renewable energy, New England has been closing down coal and oil plants for the last decade. In 2000, 18 percent of New Englands electricity came from coal and 22 percent from oil. Today its 3 percent coal and 1 percent oil. Meanwhile, natural gas the fuel that everybody loves until you have to drill for it has risen from 15 percent to a starkly vulnerable 52 percent, just behind California.
Theres only one problem. New England doesnt have the pipelines to bring in the gas. Nor is anyone going to allowed to build it, either. Connecticut and Massachusetts are only a short distance from eastern Pennsylvania, where fracking for natural gas has leapfrogged the Keystone State into third place for overall energy production. Yet a proposal by Sempra Energy of Houston to expand its existing pipeline from Stony Point, New York, has already met fierce resistance from people who want nothing more to do with fossil fuels and construction is highly unlikely.
Its not as if its not needed. Last winter, when record low temperatures hit, there just wasnt enough gas to go around. Utilities that service home heating have long-term contracts and get first dibs. You cant stockpile gas the way you stockpile coal, so power plant operators were left bidding against each other for what was left. Prices skyrocketed from $4 per mBTU to an unbelievable $79 per mBTU and electricity prices spiked to ten times their normal level. Just to put things in perspective, during the first four months of last winter, New England spent $5.1 billion on electricity. In the whole of 2012, it had spent only $5.2 billion.
And thats just the beginning. New England is now limping along with 33,000 megawatts of electrical capacity, which barely meets its needs. At one auction last winter, the New England Independent Systems Operator, which manages the grid, came up 145 megawatts short an almost unheard of occurrence. Yet in the next two years the region will be closing down 1/10th of its capacity in a bid to rid itself of anything that does not win favor with environmentalists. First to go will be the last of four coal plants at Salem Harbor, which can no longer meet the EPAs new regulatory requirements. Next Brayton Point, the largest remaining coal plant, will be retired for the same reason. Finally, a continual barrage of protests and legislative attacks has persuaded Mississippi-based Entergy to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Station and let the Yankees freeze in the dark, as they used to say in Texas and Louisiana. The reactor provided 75 percent of Vermonts electricity and 4 percent of the power for the region, carbon-free.
Its going to be very tricky for New England over the next three to four years, says Gordon van Welie, CEO of the Independent Systems Operator of New England, which run the grid. Van Welie begged the region not to close down Vermont Yankee and Brayton Point, but who listens to anyone who understands electricity anymore? Interestingly, New England only got through last winter by regularly importing 1,400 megawatts from Indian Point, the two nuclear plants on the Hudson in neighboring New York. Says New Hampshire energy consultant William P. Short III, Without Indian Point, New England would have been toast. As you might expect, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and most of the states Democratic politicians are trying to close down Indian Point as well.
Theres only one problem. New England doesnt have the pipelines to bring in the gas. Nor is anyone going to allowed to build it, either. Connecticut and Massachusetts are only a short distance from eastern Pennsylvania, where fracking for natural gas has leapfrogged the Keystone State into third place for overall energy production. Yet a proposal by Sempra Energy of Houston to expand its existing pipeline from Stony Point, New York, has already met fierce resistance from people who want nothing more to do with fossil fuels and construction is highly unlikely.
Its not as if its not needed. Last winter, when record low temperatures hit, there just wasnt enough gas to go around. Utilities that service home heating have long-term contracts and get first dibs. You cant stockpile gas the way you stockpile coal, so power plant operators were left bidding against each other for what was left. Prices skyrocketed from $4 per mBTU to an unbelievable $79 per mBTU and electricity prices spiked to ten times their normal level. Just to put things in perspective, during the first four months of last winter, New England spent $5.1 billion on electricity. In the whole of 2012, it had spent only $5.2 billion.
And thats just the beginning. New England is now limping along with 33,000 megawatts of electrical capacity, which barely meets its needs. At one auction last winter, the New England Independent Systems Operator, which manages the grid, came up 145 megawatts short an almost unheard of occurrence. Yet in the next two years the region will be closing down 1/10th of its capacity in a bid to rid itself of anything that does not win favor with environmentalists. First to go will be the last of four coal plants at Salem Harbor, which can no longer meet the EPAs new regulatory requirements. Next Brayton Point, the largest remaining coal plant, will be retired for the same reason. Finally, a continual barrage of protests and legislative attacks has persuaded Mississippi-based Entergy to close the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Station and let the Yankees freeze in the dark, as they used to say in Texas and Louisiana. The reactor provided 75 percent of Vermonts electricity and 4 percent of the power for the region, carbon-free.
Its going to be very tricky for New England over the next three to four years, says Gordon van Welie, CEO of the Independent Systems Operator of New England, which run the grid. Van Welie begged the region not to close down Vermont Yankee and Brayton Point, but who listens to anyone who understands electricity anymore? Interestingly, New England only got through last winter by regularly importing 1,400 megawatts from Indian Point, the two nuclear plants on the Hudson in neighboring New York. Says New Hampshire energy consultant William P. Short III, Without Indian Point, New England would have been toast. As you might expect, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and most of the states Democratic politicians are trying to close down Indian Point as well.
