Update On Energy Issues In The Northeast

I'm out and about tonight and tomorrow, so I won't be posting as many stories as I otherwise would.

That's too bad.

There are some incredible stories coming out of the northeast with regard to energy costs and strains on the grid due to bad policy decisions that have been made over the past five years.

A reader sent me this story from The New York Times:

The short-term price of natural gas in the Northeast eased on Wednesday after surging during the cold snap this week, but many consumers face the prospect of higher bills as utilities seek to pass along the added costs.

Already, several utilities, including Connecticut Light and Power as well as National Grid and NStar, which serve Massachusetts, have recently announced increases in their retail electricity rate as they struggle to meet peak periods of demand.

On Tuesday, for example, spot prices for a few large energy customers in the region spiked nearly 10 times higher than national prices as demand for electricity and heat soared and overwhelmed pipelines taking gas supplies to the region from the south and west.

Many power providers compensated by importing more gas from Canada through pipelines that have been mostly underused in recent years and through imports of liquefied gas supplies.

Utilities also bought more coal- and oil-fired power, which is normally priced higher than gas but has recently been lower because of constraints in gas pipelines.

There are so many story lines in this story, I simply don't have time to get to them. Maybe I'll catch up later. Meanwhile, "they" keep shutting down coal plants, and dithering and arguing over CBR vs pipelines. Meanwhile, Mother Nature continues to do her thing.