New York Develops Plan To Ease Natural Gas Shortage -- March 20, 2019

My understanding is that New York has put US Representative Occasional-Cortex in charge of coming up with a plan to solve New York's natural gas shortage.

Disclaimer: in a long note like this, there will be typographical and factual errors. In addition, with regard to some subjects I have a hidden agenda and am seriously biased making some items absolutely untrue.

The state has set some guidelines:

• no new pipelines
• no transporting of flammable gas by rail
• no fracking
• no new processing plants

Occasional-Cortex, herself, has asked that:

• she be allowed to appoint five additional members to the NY state EPA;
• the state commissions a statewide environmental study to be authored by her campaign manager; and,
• removal of all transmission lines that can be seen from the highway and/or run through forested land

Link here at ArgusMedia.  Wow, I wasn't too far off. Look at the "fix":

The state of New York will invest $250 million in renewable energy and efficiency measures in response to a natural gas service moratorium in Westchester County that stems from a lack of sufficient pipeline capacity.

Utility Con Edison in January said that after 15 March it would no longer accept applications for new natural gas connections in the majority of its service area in Westchester County, New York, because of pipeline constraints. The New York Department of Public Service (DPS) in February said it would review natural gas supply and demand in the county to develop recommendations.

The DPS, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the New York Power Authority late last week announced a plan to address the shortage, including:

• $165 million in grants to Con Edison for heat pumps and increasing gas efficiency for its residential, commercial and industrial customers; 

• $32 million in financing services for customers to retrofit heating systems with alternatives to natural gas; 

• $28 million for grants to new customers to use alternatives to natural gas for heating and cooling; and, 

• $25 million to improve energy efficiency to lower overall demand.

Wow, the pain continues. Perhaps even more so. Not one item will solve the problem within the next ten years. Wow, if you have a house and a natural gas hook-up in Westchester County, New York, yor house has just doubled in value.