Plan To Meet New England's Energy Needs: 1) Expensive 2) Inadequate -- Need Twice What The Plan Calls For

Regular readers know what RBN Energy has to say about the New England energy debacle -- it will take up to six years to get the infrastructure in place to meet the energy needs of New England. This article confirms what we already know: 

New England is facing an energy crisis brought on by high natural gas prices, and the call by governors in the six states for a new, publicly funded natural gas pipeline does not go far enough to solve the problem, according to a detailed analysis of the region's energy options.

The 30-page analysis, released on Feb. 11, was conducted by a consulting group, Competitive Energy Services of Portland, Maine, on behalf of the Industrial Energy Consumer Group, which represents large-scale users of electricity in New England.

"The governors' recommended addition of one billion cubic feet of natural gas pipeline capacity will help lower energy prices," according to the analysis, "but will still leave New England paying $600 million more for energy annually than if adequate pipeline capacity existed."

The consultants used 12 months of 2013 data to estimate future trends, and concluded that New England needs two billion cubic feet of new natural gas pipeline capacity — twice what the governors are calling for.

"Since 2012, a fundamental shift toward higher costs due to inadequate gas pipeline capacity has occurred in New England," they wrote.

That first statement -- New England is facing an energy crisis brought on by high natural gas prices -- in bold is a bit of a stretch. New England is NOT facing an energy crisis brought on by high natural gas prices.

I believe it was brought on by high heating oil prices and "everyone" in New England switching from high-priced heating oil to natural gas (coal-produced electricity was not an option; the president had pretty much killed the coal industry). Natural gas is not all that high priced -- less than half what it has been in the past, and a third to a fourth of what Europe and Asia are paying. No, it is not the "high cost of natural gas" that is causing the problem, it is the lack of infrastructure to bring adequate amounts of natural gas to New England in the first place.

Local folks should ask their elected officials how this came about. Obviously the solution is going to be very, very expensive. A lot of industry is going to move elsewhere. It costs a lot to move, but most industry can re-capture their costs over six years, if that's how long it's going to be before New England has adequate supply to meet demand.

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending the link to the article. RBN Energy has been saying the same thing for quite some time.