Why Is Russian Gas in Boston Harbor? Environmentalists’ war on fossil fuels helps Vladimir Putin

By Drew Johnson of Taxpayers Protection Alliance.

"In 2016 officials in Massachusetts and New Hampshire blocked financing for the $3 billion Access Northeast Pipeline, which would have reliably provided fuel to three New England states. That same year a report from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s office claimed the state could “maintain electric reliability” without new infrastructure."

"Greenpeace claims it is time to leave fossil fuels “where they belong: in the ground.” The Sierra Club is pushing the U.S. to abandon all fossil fuels, claiming the country is ready for 100% renewable energy."

"Natural gas and coal are responsible for about 64% of America’s electrical power. Only 15% comes from renewables."

"Since 2006, when the fracking revolution began, natural-gas prices have dropped 27% for residential consumers."

"natural-gas pipelines help the environment. With more pipelines, power plants could switch from coal to natural gas, which emits up to 60% less CO2."

"carbon emissions from power plants have dropped by 25% since 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas that traps 30 times as much heat in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, have fallen 16% since 1990."

See also  New England Has a Power Problem: The region is struggling to meet electricity needs and ambitious green power goals by Erin Ailworth and Jon Kamp of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"The six-state region—where electricity costs are 56% above the national average—is heavily dependent on natural gas-fired power after years of losing older, uneconomic coal, oil and nuclear plants to retirement. Gas is also in high demand for heating area homes."

"Yet New England sometimes has difficulty importing enough natural gas to satisfy its needs due to a shortage of pipelines, including conduits to the cheap natural gas being produced less than 400 miles away from Boston, in Pennsylvania, where shale drilling has helped trigger a boom.

“The not-in-my-backyard concept is extraordinarily powerful in New England,” said Chris Lafakis, the head energy economist at Moody’s Analytics."

"ISO New England warned in a February report that without some new infrastructure, “keeping the lights on in New England will become an even more tenuous proposition.”"

"New England states have ambitious mandates to meet future electricity needs with clean energy—populous Massachusetts wants 40% of its power from clean energy sources by 2030."

"But the large-scale energy infrastructure to meet those goals and increase access to fuel supplies in the region has been a nonstarter in recent years.

The developers of Cape Wind, an offshore wind farm once planned off Cape Cod, formally gave up last year after more than a decade of intense local opposition and legal challenges.

Kinder Morgan Inc. in 2016 abandoned a more than $3 billion natural-gas pipeline, Northeast Energy Direct, saying it didn’t have enough buy-in from utilities and faced a tough regulatory environment. The pipeline drew stiff opposition from environmentalists and communities worried about property values, potential safety issues and damage to the landscape."