Con Ed is sticking to its plans for the moratorium. The pain of green policies begins to be felt in NY.~ctm
A logo of New York power utility Consolidated Edison Inc is seen in New York July 1, 2012. REUTERS/Eric Thayer
(Reuters) – New York energy company Consolidated Edison Inc said on Friday it still plans to impose a moratorium on new natural gas service in parts of Westchester County after March 15 despite a $250 million plan by the state to reduce energy usage.
“The moratorium will still go into effect after March 15,” Con Edison spokesman Allan Drury said, noting the company needs to stop hooking up new gas customers to avoid compromising gas system reliability because of limited space on existing interstate pipelines into the region.
Westchester County is north of New York City.
New York State has blocked construction of new interstate pipelines for environmental reasons for years as Governor Andrew Cuomo and other state officials want utilities to focus more on renewable power sources and energy efficiency programs, instead of building more gas and other fossil fuel-fired power plants and infrastructure.
Consumers, however, want access to more gas to heat homes and businesses because it is cheaper and cleaner to burn than oil. This winter, U.S. Northeast households, on average, are expected to spend $723 to heat with gas and $1,646 with oil, according to federal estimates.
Drury said Con Edison has received more than 1,300 applications for new gas hookups since notifying the state of the moratorium on Jan. 17, well above the number the company normally receives during a two-month period.
On Thursday, the state announced several steps totaling $250 million to reduce energy consumption and fund alternative energy programs.
Read the full story here.
From Yahoo Finance
HT/Jeff L
Good! Let them do it. The only way people will get a reality check on energy is to be deprived of fossil fuels for a while. In theory, green policies sound so good, so cool. In practice, not so much.
Meh. Get a heat pump. Plenty of new heat pumps do fine in the cold.
If you’re dead set on optimal performance, get a ground source heat pump.
Or pay for extra insulation and use baseboard heating.
So long as we’re talking about new construction, these are inexpensive upgrades.
Heat pumps are pathetic once the temperature drops below 50F.
Ground source heat pumps are expensive and need lots of land.
If you think making walls and ceilings thicker is inexpensive, you haven’t built any houses.
My heat pumps work fine down to 35F, but I wouldn’t want one in NY where it gets really cold. Even where I am in NC, there’s lots of nights below 35. We have a dual fuel setup with propane…wish we had natural gas in our neighborhood!
I have a Mitsubishi Zuba central air source heat pump, when it was -18 degree C my heat pump was giving me 112 degree F plenum temperature.
As natural gas was not an option where I live this option is only slightly more expensive than gas.
Why “upgrade” separate added insulation when the basic construction method can be the primary insulator ? Standard wood frame house construction air leakage compares to the size of an open window. A monolithic dome house has air leakage that compares to a hole the size of a pencil. Standard wood framed houses are built of scaled up matchsticks, and when exposed to a source of ignition behave just like a stack of activated matchsticks.
Then, starting with an intrinsically energy efficient, near fireproof design (read that decreased home insurance costs), plan in the heat pump, grey water heat recovery exchange etc. As a bonus you can relax during windstorms / tornadoes that would disarticulate the vast majority of new construction homes.
Nonsense.
Yeah there is so much unchecked BS…basically because it is BS upon BS upon BS, and sadly the idiot masses don’t question any of it.
One can reasonably ‘seal’ a home against infiltration (uncontrolled air exchange through gaps, holes etc.) but often that comes at the cost of air exchange. Without sufficient air exchange harmful atmospheres will accumulate within structures that are far more detrimental than loosing heat through gaps. To seal a home without accounting for air treatment ignores the other side of the pendulum’s swing. I participated in an experimental program at MIT that ‘sealed’ an experimental house to almost 0 infiltration. While our heating loads were quite controllable we discovered through air quality checks that high levels of VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) were accumulating inside the structure. We surmised that these were being generated by all the interior furnishings mostly from the plastics used in their construction, but also from finished wood products (coatings). Everything was outgassing (upholstery, and drapes too) .
When you seal things tightly you must also be aware of what you are ‘sealing in’ as well.
Agreed, but you can engineer controlled introduction of fresh air into a tightly sealed construction, far easier, and cheaper than you can control infiltration of air (hot or cold) into a poorly constructed home.
New homes are equipped with an air exchanger that uses the exhaust air to transfer heat to the intake air.
Specious nonsense.
When one lumps all homes into a prior to 1970s house construction assumption,one might as well recognize the inherent problems with “monolithic dome houses”.
Nor is the assumption that any/all “monolithic dome house” are wonderful perfect examples of efficient construction.
Rocketscientist and MarkW nail the issues.
Kind of like being on the ISS where you CAN’T crack open a window and let in a little Fresh Air
Air exchange requires a fan to more the air. You have to compare the power consumed by the fan to the energy saved (if any) by the air exchanger.
Then again you’ve made the house that much more expensive to begin with.
The ones I have seen are part of a forced air furnace and use the furnace blower fan. The air coming into the cold air return gets exhausted outside and is replaced with outside air before going through the furnace heat exchanger. The extra energy used due to losses in the air exchanger I would imagine to be quite minimal.
Like living in an airtight gas chamber of sorts ? Ever heard of sick building syndrome? Great perspective, mutual flatulence recycling inclusive.
You mean .. like….
a submarine ?
😉
sendergreen you are overlooking the main energy loss of heating/cooling a home, that being fresh air infiltration. A hole the size of a pencil won’t cut it. You are also lose energy from fenestration losses and leakage around the openings. You want to see what’s outside??
My home is constructed of reinforced concrete walls inside Styrofoam formwork resulting in R-40 walls sealed with epoxy stucco in/out. You can’t make that sustain a flame. The roof has R-33 SIPS anchored to Timber Framed Heavy Beams mortise & tenon joinery anchored to steel anchors imbedded in the concrete walls.
Dome construction is very restricted to normal occupancy, privacy and unless you have acreage or live in the boonies good luck getting a variance from local authorities who are bound by Codes and Zoning Laws.
I doubt the fireproof design of any construction and that is why my house has a sprinkler network with a 1500 gallon water source.
Modern homes are already wrapped with a vapor barrier that prevents most air infiltration. This has been standard procedure for decades.
Beyond that, too little air infiltration results in unhealthy air inside the home.
What’s with this “near fireproof” nonsense. What burns in most homes are the contents. Unless you build a house out of inflammable materials, the heat from the contents burning will always be enough to ignite the frame.
As mentioned before heat pumps don’t work when it’s really cold.
Grey water heat recovery? And how much do you want to increase the cost of a new home?
Have you ever tried to pick out furniture for a round room?
Basically you are another activist who has no concern for cost or usability.
“vapor barrier that prevents most air infiltration.” On the outside of the frame is fine. I believe back in the 70’s the building code called for the inside walls be warped in plastic but that created a mold problem in the shower area between plastic and the green board drywall. Since we have done away with a lot of oil base products we have a mold problem in homes.
We could always go back to using 16″ X 16″ X 36″ stone blocks. Hang tapestries on the walls for instillation.
Ground source heat pumps are a piping disaster waiting to happen. And they seldom do as well as predicted. Heat pumps at lattitudes above Maryland are a waste.
one large pipe with ‘heat exchanger’ inside of it. pump water from ground through large pipe & discharge back to the same depth (friction loss only). not legal in most (all?) states due to possibility of return water to ground, but not complicated & most piping is accessible.
Problem with GSHPs is that the upfront cost could take 10 years to pay back. And if you get a 1k repair bill every 5 years, then 15 years pb. On average people seem to move house every 5-10 years.
Problem 2 is lack of installers. Would maybe take 1k years to do every home. And the world is due to end next year due to AGW.
Problem 3, my hypothesis, is imagine if all homes had them. Now, considering that there’s a limited amount of heat energy below each street, would the heat run out? Maybe this would solve AGW seeing as most of it is due to the urban heat effect.
“..would the heat run out?”
Yes. GSHP are very common in Sweden and work quite well down to about -10 C. But if several neighbouring houses use them the result can actually be permafrost, i e perenially frozen ground.
And never forget that GSHP use substantial amounts of electrical power to operate, considerably more than oil or gas heating. Particularly when it is very cold and supplementary electrical heating is needed.
GSHPs are electric, so you have to make sure you have enough electricity. But as far as having enough heat underground, mine specifically required a substantial source of underground running water, i.e. it is tapped right into the water table, which moves around, and also has a significantly higher heat capacity than rock. This alleviates the issue of freezing the entire area under the house, or the neighbouring houses.
If my location had not had the high volume of underground running water, the installer would have had to supplement the natural water with city water from my taps, which would have dramatically increased the operating cost of the system…
I also reverse the process in the summer, heating the ground while cooling my house. I am not sure what the annual temperature swing of the rock under my house is, as a result, but it would be interesting to find out.
Meh, go out and get coal in gunny sacks and install a new coal-fired furnace and water heater. Use it at night so no one can see the smoke.
Yeah and operate it with windmills. Actually, it may not be a bad way to heat: compress air mechanically in a tank using a wind mill (no conversion to electricity) and exhaust it to the outside. Back up wood. I heated a farmhouse just with a large wood kitchen range in winter in Ontario. A few extra blankets were required except for the room directly over the kitchen.
A big kettle on the stove supplied me with a cup of tea in the night when on very cold nights it needed an extra stoking.
The problem is the overwhelming influence of wealthy urban dwellers in NYC who think the same solution is applicable everywhere. Urbanites in NYC use a third the fossil energy of suburban , exurban and rural folks since they are close to the coast, often only lose heat on one or two walls and can rely on public transportation. They pain they impose on the state is not felt very severely in their own pocketbooks. Remember they are also closing Indian Point Nuclear (2000 MW) in 2 years as well. Their salvation may be Canada who has so thoroughly messed up their own renewable energy introduction they have excess nuclear and hydro-electric they often have to dump at a low price.
Shutting down Indian Point in New York State is just as stupid a public policy decision as is shutting down Diablo Canyon in California. But unfortunately, these policy decisions are now locked in.
All baseload generation capacity in the US Northeast is under pressure from renewable energy mandates that warp the regional power markets in ways that limit the utility of cheap baseload sources of electricity in serving the needs of energy consumers.
If public policy as practiced in the US Northeast continues along its current path, all of that cheap baseload capacity will eventually be forced off the regional grid in favor of Variable Energy Resources (VER’s) — wind and solar backed by gas-fired capacity. Even if the gas must be transported to the generation facilities by rail as LNG.
Starting in a decade or so, possibly earlier, the stability of the power grid in the US Northeast will begin to deteriorate, forcing the installation of gas-fired peakers that can quickly ramp up and down in response to swift changes in wind & solar power output.
If the transmission capacity is available, buying nuclear and hydro power from Canada may work. For awhile, anyway. Buying power from Canada will, at the least, buy some time before a power supply Day of Reckoning appears in New York State.
All hydro-electric power generated in Canada that is surplus to domestic needs is already exported, mostly to New York and New England states. And some from Manitoba going to the northern midwest.
If Newfoundland and Labrador finally succeeds in building the Muskrat Falls and Lower Churchill hydro plants, there will be a few GW available for export, but that is years away, if not decades.
Surplus nuclear power from Ontario is only available on sunny, windy days in the cooler parts of summer, when demand is low and the grid is forced to buy wind and solar at 18¢/kWh. Don’t assume it will be available when you need it.
Smart Rock, a more plausible scenario here might be that the ‘Day of Reckoning’ for the US Northeast’s power grid occurs more as a ‘Decade of Reckoning’ which consists of a series of smaller days of reckoning beginning four or five years after Indian Point closes down.
If what has been seen in Australia holds true for the US Northeast as market penetration of wind and solar increases, and as baseload generation capacity is systematically retired, it is probable that local politicians in the region will be initially successful in blaming the increasing number of power interruptions on the lack of a smart transmission grid in the region.
As they will be describing the issue seven or eight years from now, the Northeast’s green politicians will be claiming that grid reliability problems can be quickly and easily solved with greater investment in smart grid technology combined with ever-larger spending on ‘cheap and reliable renewable energy resources. ‘
Only after a number of increasingly serious disruptions have occurred, disruptions which cannot be easily discounted through the persuasive power of rhetoric, only then will concrete action be taken to address the Northeast’s grid stability problems.
Once public opinion crystallizes that very serious problems exist which local politicians cannot solve with their green energy rhetoric — my guess is that happens in the US Northeast somewhere around 2029 or 2030 — then it is likely that quick solutions will be sought.
A decade from now at the end of the 2020’s, the quickest solutions anyone could come up with have to involve the construction of gas-fired generation capacity in locations easily serviceable by LNG rail transport.
Why LNG rail transport? Because neither the gas pipeline capacity nor the power transmission capacity will be in place when and where it is needed to supply the energy demand that had previously been handled by coal and nuclear baseload capacity.
When 2030 rolls around, we should not be too surprised if LNG gas-fired peaker plants start appearing on sites previously occupied by coal and nuclear baseload plants.
Here in Ontario, a Liberal government cancelled two gas plants to help win an election, then approved of similar plants in a “deplorable” Conservative riding way out in the sticks. Of course, its not as efficient, and it only cost a billion dollars to switch, but you simply cannot put a cost on virtue signalling.
As Occasional-Cortex puts it, its better to be morally correct anyway.
I only wish we could somehow re-direct the brown and black outs through those ridings that voted Liberal.
‘The only way people will get a reality check on energy is to be deprived of fossil fuels for a while.’
The problem is that the people who are all for it, believe the rationalizations provided by CNN, and blame their problems on who CNN tells them to – and therefore continue to support the policies and politicians that are doing this to them.
I haven’t been able to figure out a way past this – even with people that I know well.
So, drop a coal stove in.
Had one for years. They’re a pain in the neck to keep running. So glad I replaced it with propane heating. It costs a bit more, but the convenience factor is superior.
Did you keep it installed but mothballed, or did you ditch it? The coal I hope you stockpiled would come in handy if not lifesaving if your propane supplier was not longer able to provide your fuel. I think winters are going to get much tougher, and so is the economy.
I have two in my rental house. I like them, they put out great heat.
I’ve never used coal for heating myself, but in the “Great British Winter of 1986-87”, I was in Cheshire on a 12 week work assignment. As a Canadian I kinda smiled at how the local area shut down at a storm that was “standard issue” at home. But the home owner where I was billeted had a great fireplace. She put a chunk of anthracite coal the size of a softball on the grate. When lit it put out enough heat to keep me at least four feet away on the carpet.
An aside there was a countrywide near epidemic of busted hot water heater pipes during “The Storm”. It was a common thing for the small capacity water heating units in newer home to be installed overhead in the attics, which were not well insulated. Lots of piping froze, and burst. A bonanza for the plumbers, and contractors.
Telling though at how much of the Northern Hemisphere is so unprepared for a natural climate change that has the mercury dropping steeply.
A) It isn’t that the attic space is “not well insulated”. It is that attic space is not heated!
Putting hot water systems into unheated attics is contractor malfeasance.
There are many home with coal household heaters converted to oil or gas. Those coal heaters originally kept the houses comfortable and the hot water quite hot; in spite of poorly fitted single pane uninsulated windows. Warmer than the replacement oil or gas units efficiently accomplish.
The conversions were mainly to eliminate piles of dirty coal and attendant hazards; i.e. coal dust.
This lady’s home at the time was virtually new. Her hot water heater was overhead, but didn’t break. As far as I was told this was pretty standard practice. They were just not used to the deep cold they got over about a 3-5 says, if memory serves me. Tis about 32 years ago.
Natural gas produces less CO2 per BTU than oil does. So, by thwarting natural gas, the greenies are causing more CO2 emissions. Furthermore, oil is delivered by truck. As a result there will be more accidents and people will die. Everything will be worse with oil. I hope the greenies are proud of themselves.
I am told that the Netherlands is phasing out natural gas. link That means you will have to heat your apartment with electricity. That’s painful.
And, the Flanders Bird Murderers continue to insist that the wind will solve the electricity problem.
And oil burning furnaces and boilers are less reliable.
In other news – Rick Sanchez installed a new gas furnace for his home 2 weeks ago and has approximately 100 gallons of home heating oil for sale in his old tank – first come first served – the successful buyer needs to bring their own jerry can (or many of them).
Rick Sanchez will surely make a quicker sale of his approximately 100 gallons of home heating oil ….. iffen he advertises it as “diesel fuel”.
Unfortunately, heating oil is not fit for purpose as diesel fuel. It has none of the additives that make diesel fuel FFP such as dispersants and detergents for injector cleanliness, and most likely doesn’t contain lubricity improver to protect fuel injector pumps from abnormal wear. Fuel switching such as this can cause thousand of dollars in damage to modern engines. At least the sulfur level is now low enough, but cross contamination with high sulfur diesel can ruin emissions control devices.
In old days, diesel fuel was essentially fungible when there were no aftertreatment devices. Now the emissions control system on diesel vehicles can cost more than the engine itself. All to reduce PM and NOx.
I run farm diesel in my oil fired boiler! I am told that it is all the same product in NY state, just with dye in the non taxed stuff!
Farm diesel in boilers is OK, but boiler diesel in farm equipment may not be. As I said, the diesel engine as a number of Fit For Purpose requirements to protect the engine and fuel injection system that are not required to protect a boiler. It is a Risk/Reward decision.
Many years ago there was a thriving black market in ‘diesel’ fuel for trucks in Northern Ireland. Some of it was agricultural or marine diesel, with the ‘low-tax’ dye stripped out by processing with Fullers Earth. A lot of it was kerosene (light, but usable) or no. 2 heating oil (much closer to diesel, but not identical), again, decolourised.
Long-term use of this ‘diesel’ shortened truck engine life quite dramatically.
Lots of industry around that “‘diesel’ shortened truck engine life” problem:
https://www.google.com/search?q=exchange+diesel+engines&oq=exchange+diesel+engines&aqs=chrome.
Does rick sanchez always talk about himself in the 3rd person?
Like socialism in general, it sounds good I in theory. Well they better hope thw AMO never turns or the sun doesn’t go into a minimum.
The AMO is turning to its colder phase and the sun is certainly less active than in the 20th Century. I think a good financial investment would be in the manufacturing of yellow vests.
One of the wealthiest and more liberal counties in the U.S., I’m sure the noise will start out as an inaudible rumble and build to a noxious screech as the “entitled” find out that they are screwed by their own politics
The entitled, the wealthy, never suffer from these policies like the poor do. The wealthy are inconvenienced, perhaps, but in the end they pay more for something and move on. The poor cannot; they do without.
From the article:
“This winter, U.S. Northeast households, on average, are expected to spend $723 to heat with gas and $1,646 with oil, according to federal estimates.”
Wow! I didn’t realize that heating with oil was more than twice the cost of gas. I do know electric heating is higher than gas, but I don’t know where it falls between the two, or perhaps it’s even higher than gas or oil.
I can hear the NY politicians now. “We have too many people in New York. What can we do? I know! Let’s raise taxes beyond the pain point and double energy costs. While we’re at it, let’s make electricity intermittent. That should take care of the population problem.”
We need to build a wall around Soviet Socialist State of New York and the Peoples Republic of California. I don’t want immigrants to bring their failing socialists ideas to the rest of the US.
Just down state please? What is the name of the line, below which they all vote blue? We need to think of one and build the wall there!
White Plains which is in Westchester from what I can find pays about 23 cents/kWh. If the oil furnace was only 80% efficient oil would have to be about $7.50/gallon to equal the cost of heating with electric.
YeeeeOUCH!!! wOwZA!
Thanks, Greg.
I suspect that electrical home heating has to be the most expensive and inefficient form of energy usage. …chemical to thermal to mechanical to mechanical to electrical then back to heat, all with transmission losses ( I probably missed a few conversions). …or we could just skip all the middle men.
Rube Goldberg would be proud.
IN olden days before fracking, natural gas prices were probably 4 times what they are now and natural gas was ro be avoided except when absolutely necessary, for example as a peak load power generator. Its high prices were the motivation for pumped storage, whereby baseload generators would produce more power during lulls during the day and send the excess to pumped storage facilities, which would function as peak load generators, thus avoiding the need for a lot of natural gas driven peak generators.
Nobody forces people to live in the DPRNY.
True, but as I point out just above, they can force people to leave.
You’re welcome to move to my state but if you do, don’t bring the politics that turned your state into a sh!thole with you!
People who do that are NOT welcome!
Some local entrepreneur will be opening a “Jaunes R’ Us” store very shortly.
Discounts on vests, bricks and Molotovs!
In Westchester County?
Nah.
Nah more money in selling bottle natural gas and oil for delivery into that area … Capitialism at work 🙂
Let the pain be felt! Because than perhaps sanity will be found.
Andrew Cuomo is such an idiot on this and so many other issues I am really amazed he is not running for the Democratic nomination for President (yet).
Borrowed money to pay for what consumers and private capital are more than willing to stump up for. All of that in the name of ideology. Enjoy NY.
In the 70s, folks in Louisiana talking about New Yorkers who opposed oil and gas– “Let them freeze in the dark.” Looks like the state agrees with them.
Donald Thompson March 18, 2019 at 6:05 am
No they did not oppose oil and gas.
The northeastern states were heavy industry and proud of it.
The freeze in the dark remark was made during the Arab oil embargo, the northeast asked the gulf states to increase production. Instead they engaged in price gouging.
The Arabs did the embargo because of our countries support of Israel. The northeast paid the price for that support, the Gulf laughed its way to the bank. People died in the northeast because of the gulf states hatred and poor citizenship.
I was there and remember well. All of us. We have long memories.
Yes Democrats have make a mess of things. New England would be happy with a pipeline. New York is blocking it. Gas and oil companies are not taking new costumers in the winters it is getting dicey as to weather oil can be delivered.
The split in liberals vs anybody else is not that great. Like in many states the big population tend to control the local governments. The others who live in the countryside are left holding the bag.
Don’t blame all who live there, many a very, very frustrated. And it is there home, and there is much beauty there.
michael
Need to spell check better..
The fight was about the price controls on oil and gas. The actual bumper stickers read “let the bastards freeze in the dark”
Back in the 70s folks in Louisiana were electing Edwin Edwards governor. I think the voters in NY have adopted the mentality of LA 1970s voters, as well.
Wait until the Venezuelan utility model implementation exceeds 97%. Wide parts of the country are still without electricity and water. That would be quite unpleasant in a NY winter.
Just wait a few years, and the properties with a grandfathered natural gas connection will sell at a premium to to those built more recently with expensive electricity only. Who would build in a vacant lot where gas serves all the neighbors but the only option for you is electric heat? I hope my fellow New Yorkers downstate wise up.
The more reasonable options would be oil or propane. Propane has the advantage of easy conversion to natural gas should the state ever regain its sanity.
Absolutely, and the Stove/Range/Oven Furnace and Cloths Drier acan all be initially purchased as Dual Rated Gas/Propane as the house is being built
I was in Houston back in the ’70s after the oil crunch (wow… how time flies) when they had a very cold winter in the North East and not enough natural gas or fuel oil available to keep warm. Some were even suggesting rationing natural gas throughout the country because of the shortage there. It didn’t take long before Houston Power and Light announced that they had enough natural gas in storage for several years usage, burn all you wanted and there was no way to ship any of it to the North East since they would not allow new pipelines and the current ones were already maxed out. Looks to me like they kicked the can down the road back then and never really learned from that experience. It’s a little hard to feel sorry for them when they keep electing the inmates to run the asylum.
In 1979 I was working at the “largest full-conversion refinery in the world” in Baytown when the 2nd Arab oil embargo happened. I recall waiting in line just up the road with everyone else at the gas station. The alternate-day quasi-rationing scheme was implemented to try to control the chaos. This history is all so easily forgotten or perhaps just willfully ignored. Who would have thought that 40 years later, the U.S. would be powering its way to global dominance in energy, except for its own misdirected policies like refusing to build new pipeline capacity?
In the late 70s Suburbans were relatively cheap, I factory ordered a 4-gear floor stick shift 4 wheel drive. Unfortunately, rust stopped it (too much salt exposure before galvanized bodies) before the motor did. With enough passengers it got better mileage/person than the midgets. Could you use one of these in new parking spots reserved for modern hydrocarbon savers?
Old human failure, history too easy to unlearn. Bumper stickers didn’t stick. Also forgot about oil and WWII.
Joe Crawford March 18, 2019 at 6:31 am
It was not at matter of pipelines. Few homes used natural gas. Heating oil was what was used still is
Stratford Conn had had some homes that were built after ww1 that used natural gas. The piplines were there just no fuel for them.
We had Some of the oil companies that owned the gas stations, removing gas from their stations They did this in the dark of night.In my home town the police caught them doing it, the governor had to issue an order to stop the removal.
Bad memories.
Conn. in the 1980s\1990s switched out all but one of its coal fired power plants to natural gas.
Tankers bring in the fuel, same for the other New England states.
The Northeastern pipeline systems are some of the oldest in the country. New York is the problem. They won’t allow more pipelines to the east, Con Ed is just letting New York know they will not short those in the east for their stupidity. Of course that still leave a shortage, and New England pays the price because of the added cost of shipping by sea.
The scumbags that protest new pipelines and tie everything up in courts are a plague on mankind.
michael
So, how did we arrive at a supplier unwilling to supply? (Rhetorical)
coned WANTS to supply, their pipelines are at capacity, so they need new pipelines installed so that they can raise their delivery capacity, but NY is not allowing them to install said pipelines, thus the moratorium on new installs.
i wish i knew how to get gas that cheap for the winter.
my neighborhood does not have natural gas.
i have propane, on Average during winter that 700 figure, is my MONTHLY bill for the coldest months-at least until the boiler gets replaced to something more efficient, it is currently dying and is going to be replaced in a few weeks to something 83% efficient vs whatever it was in 1990ish when the boiler was installed.
one caveat, i aslo use propane for hot water and cooking too but during the summer that is maybe 50 bucks a month (and i just replaced the stove in dec, and have a tankless water heater for hot water)
Leave!
Staying in an area that demands no growth is a recipe for failure.
Not just “no growth”, actively de-constructing.
The all-electric home was the one innovation in the 50’s that failed.
It worked in Louisiana. But our weather is milder.
Let them freeze in the dark.
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”
Edmund Burke, Letter i. On a Regicide Peace. Vol. v. p. 331.
http://www.bartleby.com/100/276.41.html
Finally the wealthy elites start to feel the consequences of their decisions for us.
“New York’s Westchester County,”
Move ALL the wealthy Elites into NY NY then have Persident Trump build a taller wall there.
Or better, build a Dome over it a-la Logans Run and eliminate those that turn 30
A thought – To honor AOC’s New Green Deal, Central Park in New York City should be covered entirely with solar panels.
Don’t cover up the bedrock outcrop in Central Park that has the striations carved in it from the last Ice Age.
Well, might be a good idea to document the new Age by drilling holes into & installing a pinwheel on the exposed rocks. The pinwheel will quickly decay to rust, but the holes will remain & mark the new Age — the Idiotocene.
What will probably happen is ConEd will be sued and hit with a court order denying their moratorium and forcing them to continue service new connect orders. This will be hailed as a great victory and nobody will feel any immediate pain. There is no doubt some safety margin in ConEd’s estimates of when limited pipeline capacity becomes critical, so it is unlikely major problems will crop up for at least a couple of years.
If the next few winters are mild and new connect orders don’t spike (NY state is losing population; don’t know about Westchester County), they should be reasonably safe.
As others have noted, new construction can heat with oil. But programs which try to promote electric heat pumps as substitute for gas or oil will just cause another problem down the road when grid capacity becomes insufficient.
Is it considered fraud to ‘sell’ products or services that knowingly cannot be delivered or performed?
Would not the state, with such a coercion be forcing ConEd to commit fraud?
The gas companies should shut the gas off to state government buildings and the homes of corrupt NY officials and politicians, who caused the problem. So others can have gas.
Actually there is a limit as to how many connections you can have on a given gas system… if you don’t get enough gas pressure through to the regulators because of over-demand it can end up putting out the pilot lights of thousands of stoves/furnaces/ovens/water heaters and you start getting gas explosions.
So when ConEd says “no more”… it has [snip]-all to do with climate or green.
It has to do with the risk of billions of dollars of damage.
Doubt very much there are many appliances in wealthy Westchester county that still use pilot lights. My furnace and water heater are close to 20 years old and neither use a pilot light. Our stove is more than 5 years old and doesn’t have pilot lights. Not even sure if there is anything available anymore that has a pilot light including “apartment”/”mobil home” stoves. The issue I can see is if you put something on the stove to simmer and the pressure dropped enough to extinguish the burner. When the pressure came back up the burner would still be on but not lit.
“. The issue I can see is if you put something on the stove to simmer and the pressure dropped enough to extinguish the burner. When the pressure came back up the burner would still be on but not lit.”
Umm, that is why you need pilot lights…
Water heaters and furnaces still have pilot lights. Even in CA.
But, even really old units have a thermocouple controlled fuel flow shut off. If the flame goes out, the gas flow to the pilot shuts off.
No big explosions immanent.
The marxist states like NY, CA, MA, NJ, MD, etc, sure know how to chase people out. Part of their strategy — destroy this states and then send out sycophants to destroy other states (almost always ones w/warm climates).
CA was the recipient of the early flow of intellectually unencumbered refugees seeking a life where thinking wasn’t required.
Nobody leaves CA because of the physical climate, just the political one.
This situation is not about cost or efficiency. NY is punishing its residents and businesses by not allowing additional NG pipelines and connections. CO2 polluting the atmosphere, causing global warming/climate change is a politico-religious hoax designed to fund and empower socialism. I’m sure you know that the Green New Deal does not go far enough to “stop climate change” according to these witless fools.
As if another reason were needed to avoid New York, this is one. As for the heat pump that is so popular in the comments, I guess if you don’t mind your home at slightly above freezing when it’s -25°F and a 30 mph wind, it’s a wonderful option. Don’t get me wrong, I have a friend who often has a home that gets that cold and you can survive most definately. I just don’t understand CHOOSING to live that way and paying a fortune to do so….
Much talk about how expensive electricity is for heating a home, but what about the reverse cycle air conditioners. Here in Australia they are very popular as a means of heating, true we do have a much milder winter climate, its our Summers which can be a problem.
Another point, a lot of talk about insulating a house so no heat escapes. What about Radon gas, you know that radio active stuff from deep down in the Earth. It was much discussed way back as being a danger.
MJE VK5ELL
Con Ed New York is to be congratulated for running the “demonstration of effects” in advance of AOC’s Green New Deal that (perchance) requires elimination of the use of all fossil fuels within the next ten years.
If only the masses were able to perform a simple extrapolation from this . . .
One way to escalate things I guess. Tell people in one of the richest counties in the State , if not the country, that they cant have something. That will soon test the resolve.
Build a Kang 炕 or even a Hypocaust. Those who cannot remember the past, should, PDQ!!!
I have a Mitsubishi Zuba central air source heat pump, when it was -18 degree C my heat pump was giving me 112 degree F plenum temperature.
As natural gas was not an option where I live this option is only slightly more expensive than gas.
Hard to BBQ on a heat pump… and lugging around 25lb propane bottles is a pain.