Date: 2/16/19
The state is dependent on imports even though it sits atop the abundant Marcellus Shale.
The combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling—sometimes known as the “shale revolution”—has enabled Texas, Pennsylvania and other states to produce record quantities of natural gas, some of which is being frozen, loaded onto giant ships, and transported to customers in places like Chile, China and India. Thanks to the environmental policies of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York has missed out on this windfall.
Now, in a preview of what life might be like under the Democrats’ proposed Green New Deal, some New Yorkers are about to face a natural-gas shortage. Consolidated Edison , an energy utility that provides gas and power to the New York City area, announced last month that beginning in mid-March it would “no longer be accepting applications for natural gas connections from new customers in most of our Westchester County service area.” The reason for the shortage is obvious: The Cuomo administration has repeatedly blocked or delayed new pipeline projects. As a Con Ed spokesman put it, there is a “lot of natural gas around the country, but getting it to New York has been the strain.”
New York policy makers have also killed the state’s natural-gas-drilling business. In 2008 New York drillers produced about 150 million cubic feet of natural gas a day—not enough to meet all the state’s needs, but still a substantial amount. That same year legislators in Albany passed a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, the process used to wring oil and gas out of underground rock formations. In 2015 the Cuomo administration made the moratorium permanent. By 2018 New York’s gas production had declined so much that the Energy Information Administration quit publishing numbers on it.
New York now imports nearly all of its gas even though part of the Marcellus Shale, one of the biggest and most prolific sources of natural gas in the country, extends into the state’s Southern Tier region. To get an idea of how much gas the state might have been able to produce from the Marcellus, New Yorkers can look across the state line to Pennsylvania, which now supplies about two-thirds of the gas consumed in New York. At the end of 2018, Pennsylvania drillers were producing about 18 billion cubic feet of gas a day. That’s more gas than Canada now produces.
By keeping its natural gas in the ground, New York has lost out on jobs and tax revenue. By 2015, some 106,000 people were directly employed by Pennsylvania’s oil and gas industry, making it a bigger employer than the state’s famous steel sector. This year Pennsylvania’s state government is expected to take in some $247 million in gas-related fees.
New York’s government-imposed gas shortage will likely get worse. In April 2020, Entergy, the utility that owns Westchester’s Indian Point Energy Center, will permanently shutter one of the two reactors at the 2,069-megawatt nuclear facility. It will shut down the other reactor in April 2021. The closures are the result of low electricity prices and years of costly legal battles with environmental groups and state regulators. Indian Point supplies about 25% of the electricity consumed in New York City.
Freeze in the dark. Or start a Climate Change migration to somewhere warm.
You get what you deserve. If you vote for idiot politicians, you expect to get idiotic policies.
A cold end to February for Canada and the US.
Nullschool polar vortex now:
10hPa – https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-81.36,74.14,412
70hPa – https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-81.36,74.14,412
Nullschool polar vortex in 5-days:
10hPa – https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/02/22/0000Z/wind/isobaric/10hPa/orthographic=-81.36,74.14,412
70hPa – https://earth.nullschool.net/#2019/02/22/0000Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-81.36,74.14,412
Governor Cuomo was complaining the other day about how Rep. Ocasio had run Amazon out of New York and caused the loss of 25,000 high-paying jobs.
I’ll bet Cuomo’s ban on fracking and pipelines has cost New York a lot more than 25,000 jobs.
Both Ocasio and Cuomo think they are doing the right thing. How scary is that.
The Western world has a big problem: A large number of the politicians running Western countries are completely out of touch with reality.
Fortunately, for the United States, *and* the Western world in general, we have a leader who is anchored in reality and sees the world situation clearly. Trump is showing us the way.
Trump has a few counterparts in the rest of the Western world, and those counterparts seem to be gaining traction with their publics because people are starting to see the failure that socialism really is, even in the European countries.
It’s a race: Will enough people wake up and vote right, or will they leave the socialists in power to continue their destruction of our societies.
The majority of the under-40 residents will leave the local and state socialists in power simply because they are “living the good life” and have yet to feel the “pain” of their socialist beliefs and actions.
And like the citizens of Venezuela, ….. by the time they start feeling the “pain” ….. it will be too late to do anything about.
Like most “know-it-all” children, ….. if they don’t listen, then they have to feel.
The upcoming lack of energy in NYC was probably one of the major reasons Amazon pulled out. Of course, Amazon couldn’t say that as it would cost them a good portion of their customer base. So the fickle finger of blame was leveled on the airhead politicos who were responsible for the mess.
It’s not looking good. In Poland recently, VP Pence got crickets for touting Trump’s policies. But they cheered that fool Biden like a rock star.
Apparently New York has a plan.
https://energyplan.ny.gov
I am not saying it is a good plan but they have a plan.
They looked at reliability too.
It is 3 years into a 5 year plan. We’ll find out how much they lied in 2 years and 2 months or less.
5 year plan? Why does that sound so familiar. Let me think…right, the Soviets ruled their place with a never ending series of 5 year plans. That explains the results perfectly.
Absolute madness
We have a saying down here in the South about how stupid Northerners are about fossil fuels, about how they regulate against the use of fossil fuels, pipelines, constantly demonizing what otherwise many people of the world would be jealous to have, etc.. etc…
“Let the Yankee bastards freeze in the dark”.
Yes but you still want them to bail you out via the federal budget!
Nonsense. Red states residents receive just $1,879 in intergovernmental spending vs. blue states’ $2,124 per resident.
Blue staters are mooching off hard working red staters.
Stupidity thy name is democrat.
Yes, but it’s the voters who are stupid. The politicians have a brilliantly sustainable scheme in place.
You might think of it as a leveraged voter buy-out. It would be impossibly expensive to actually implement their promises, but the simple trick is this: you don’t need to deliver.
You don’t need to actually pay a “living wage” for “people unwilling to work”. It is totally sufficient to be the one who “fights for” this. Your enemies will block this and so you not only get credit for caring, but also avoid blame for the effects of actual implementation.
You don’t need to actually power an industrial economy with unreliable unicorn flatulence. It is totally sufficient to set a goal and signal your virtue. It won’t be reality intruding to prevent the realization of the goals, it will be the evil fossil fuel industry abetted by the evil Republicans. Just need to demonize them a bit more and collect more campaign contributions.
You don’t need to have 51% of the population totally dependent on government hand-outs. You just need to have 51% marginally interested in one or more minor government programs, so that they vote for you to protect their self-interest.
How are Republicans supposed to compete? They offer hard work and no give-aways. They suggest taking care of your health rather than free healthcare for those who neglect their health. They suggest that you should not go into debt for a transgender queer native American person of color studies degree but maybe try learning engineering or a useful trade.
Btw plenty of Republican politicians have similar games that they play. They can promise to repeal Obamacare for a decade or build a wall, or restrict abortion, etc., etc., and always need more campaign contributions but never quite seem able to deliver.
Good comment, Rich.
True. Wear the ribbon, signal your virtue. Presto, you are immunized.
So less NG and more Fuel Oil in New York’s future? https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NY
This truck driver sometimes drives the southern tier taking I-86 and I-88 instead of the I-90 toll road. Driving that road in the winter in those rural areas the sight and smell of wood smoke is common, Wonder when the state government is going to stop the burning of wood for home heating?
I think some states have been trying to stop the burning of wood for home heating by enacting stiff Rules and Regulations limiting/prohibiting “burning biomass smoke pollution” …… as well as greatly increasing the Premiums on homeowners/rental insurance policies when/where “woodburning” stoves are in use.
The state can‘t make it illegal, …… but it can make it COSTLY. (aka: cigarettes)
San Francisco outlawed wood burning out right a few years ago.
Didn’t help Paradise any, did it?
Yup, and they also legalized defecating on the streets …… and then hired a “poop control” to follow the “poopers” around and clean up after the made their smelly deposits.
Let’s count the ways a govt can be braindead :
1) Shutting down the main source of carbon-free power (the nuclear reactors) , whose prices are higher than that of current natural gas makes zero sense when one will shut down the nat gas generators. Far, far cheaper to subsidize a generation technology that is reliable than to spend tons more in subsidies for renewable generators that aren’t. Uncontrollable power has little value.
2) An ignorant and nearsighted view of future power technologies – molten salt nuclear reactors are the obvious future of energy – Bill Gates knows it, the Chinese know it, the Indians know it (both are pushing hard to get one to market). Only the Western govts, with their inexplicable, illogical fear of anything containing the word nuclear are pushing 17th century technologies like wind and solar.
A note about the cost of wind – The vast majority of expense in errecting a wind turbine is the wiring to connect it to the grid, which can be very substantial for a wind farm out in the middle of nowhere that is spread over thousands of square miles, the cost of acuring/renting the land, the cost of the turbines and the cost of pouring a huge concrete base to sit it on, and the maintenance and repair cosats over the lifespan of the turbine. And the substantial side effect costs due to the fact that one cannot replace reliable generation technology with unreliable technologies, such as wind. One must maintain duplicative generation capacity. That costs a lot, even when the backup power is seldom used – only fuel is saved by accepting wind power over gaas fired power, but the gas generators normally has to use fuel even while idling and the cost of the fuel is often the smallest component of a generator’s cost (personnel, maintenance, etc). BUT, the main information that
will be used to determine the cost of wind power is how long the turbine lasts and what is its output is, Recent studies have shown that the lifespans of (especially) the largest turbines are about half that promised, and the output capacity declines with age, resulting in the cost of turbines’ power being twice that claimed by its proponents.
profile.
Kent,
Last year I searched for data on the actual lifetimes of wind farms and mills (turbines). There should be copious data available on the MTBF, operating lifetimes, annual maintenance costs and other parameters which impact the total cost of ownership. I had a difficult time finding data. I concluded that the cost of ownership must be higher than the numbers hyped by the renewables industry.
Could you please provide some links to studies on the lifetimes of turbines?
BH, look up my guest post ‘True Cost of Wind’ some years ago (2015) over at Climate Etc. It contains the reliability and lifetime data you seek—and more. The larger the turbine, the shorter the actual life, because the main failure mode is the axial bearing.
Bottom line after correcting many EIA ‘errors’:
CCGT LCOE about $57/MWh.
On shore wind about $146/MWh. The lifetime differences alone mount to about $30 of this difference. Other big factors include capital cost, capacity factor, subsidies, intermittency backup, and transmission lines.
There is not enough operational experience to quantify either lifetime or reliability for wind turbines. Please don’t mistake “infant mortality” and/or poor engineering for axial bearing failure(s).
Keith,
There is more than enough operational data on wind farms to create good statistics on lifetime, MTBF and maintenance costs. Please see the following references.
Cowley Ridge Wind Farm, Canada’s oldest windfarm, was decommissioned in 2017 after more than 22 years of operation. https://www.windpowerengineering.com/business-news-projects/decommissioning-canadas-oldest-wind-farm/
“Daniel Halladay and John Burnham start the U.S. Wind Engine Company” in 1850. https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/history-us-wind-energy
There is a mid-17th Century windmill on Route 6 in Eastham, MA. When I was a child, this mill would be set up an run for demonstrations during the summer.
“62 wind farms in England, Wales and Scotland are aged 15 and over and 22 of these are more than 20 years old.” https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/repowering-the-uks-oldest-wind-farms-could-boost-energy-generation-by-171/
In 2015 “On May 30, the world’s oldest operating wind turbine will turn 40 years old. ” https://cleantechnica.com/2015/05/21/oldest-operating-wind-turbine-world-turning-40/
“The San Gorgonio Pass wind farm is a wind farm located on the eastern slope of the San Gorgonio Pass in Riverside County, just east of White Water, California, United States. Developed beginning in the 1980s” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gorgonio_Pass_wind_farm
“The first wind turbines were placed on the Altamont in the early 1980s ” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Pass_wind_farm
“Wind development in the Tehachapi Pass began in the early 1980s” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehachapi_Pass_wind_farm
Infant mortality is certainly an engineering issue if it continues to happen. Axial bearing failure is either an engineering problem or an installation problem. Large axial bearings are not limited to the wind power industry and there is extensive engineering data on them.
You also have to factor in the “learning curve” to operation and maintenance of these things: https://windpower.sandia.gov/other/080983.pdf
Wind turbines are an old technology. All they have done is supersize them.
Thank you, Rud
I found your post.
molten salt nuclear reactors are the obvious future of energy
when you get one (just one) up and fully running commercially, then you can start making grandiose claims about it being the “obvious future”. Until then you are hawking vaporware. Despite the knowledge of MSR being around decades, there has yet to be any in fully functional commercial operation, and none on the foreseeable horizon.
As I’ve said on many of the numerous occasions you’ve made your grandiose proclamations about the vaporware known as MSR – I’d love to see it live up to the hype, but it hasn’t happened yet and doesn’t appear to be happening any time soon.
The article above ignores the Utica Shale, which was named after Utica NY. This formation, more than a mile underneath the Marcellus, but far more extensive in New York State, was drilled for gas about 10 years ago. That project was one of the drilling projects shut down by the Cuomo gang.
Read it and weep, New Yorkers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utica_Shale
your problems are self inflicted.
Relax. New York will have gas when everyone else has run out.
Unless those bastards in Pennsylvania use horizontal drilling to get theirs!
I was working in upstate New York when Cuomo went full bore virtue signally and banned fracking. I remember that there were numerous state agency reports concluding that fracking in the Southern Tier did not pose problems, but Cuomo was undeterred.
Virtue signally is always more important than facts, jobs in the Southern Tier and affordable heating for New Yorkers.
Utica (and the Mohawk Valley) was a thriving, bustling manufacturing area up thru the mid 1970’s, ….. and then the EXODUS began, …… first as a “dribble” and then a “flash flood”, ……. and by the mid 1990’s the economy had deteriorated to where most everything was dependent on state and federal money. After Univac moved their manufacturing to Tennessee, others followed suite, some moving, some just closing their doors.
My own line on the Left’s political frenzy
Nihilism will be imposed until it is seen not to work.
🙂
Not sure about Nee York, but in many places it is much cheaper to heat a home with natural gas vs electricity.
When we lived in a high rise in Manhattan, it was heated with low grade fuel oil that ran big steam boilers in the basement. There was gas available for cooking. The fuel oil produced lots of soot and foul odors. I don’t think they have switched to gas for heat, although they should because it is a lot cleaner.
I couldn’t be more pleased.
New York is absolutely correct to keep its gas in the ground, preserved for our children, while using gas produced by more profligate states and nations. Of course, rationally, they should promote pipelines. And it might be wise to not close nuclear plants, just in case.
But hey, it’s an experiment, right? Can stupid decisions turn out to be profitable? We see that in the stock market and the lottery all the time. Right?
But hey, it’s an experiment, right? Can stupid decisions turn out to be profitable?
once you add in the lost opportunity costs, the answer is no.
Anti-fracking “concerns” are so yesterday. The anti-fossil fuel, anti-democracy-anti-US and anti-human Climate Cabal want to shut down NG pipelines for the following circular reasoning: that 1) Due to climate concerns, we shouldn’t be investing in fossil fuel infrastructure guaranteeing the near-impossibility of reducing CO2 emissions and 2) Demand for NG is not increasing, and is expected to decrease because of 1). It’s a classic Catch-22, and they know it. Without access to NG, obviously you can’t have demand for it.
New York prisoners freeze because of power outage:
https://www.google.com/search?q=new+York+prisoners+freeze+power+outage&oq=new+York+prisoners+freeze+power+outage&aqs=chrome.