There’s been a standoff between New York City and utility company National Grid going on since May of this year. As you may recall, plans for a new natural gas pipeline from New Jersey were killed off by the state government under pressure from environmental activists. As a result, National Grid wound up imposing a moratorium on new gas hookups because the current supply was insufficient to serve additional customers. This has resulted in more than a thousand potential customers being unable to be hooked up.
Now the Governor has come up with a unique plan to end the stalemate. Using an obscure state law regulating utility companies through the power of the Public Service Commission, Andrew Cuomo (who helped kill the pipeline project) is simply ordering the utility to hook up the gas lines anyway. (New York Post)
The Cuomo administration is ordering National Grid to provide natural gas hookups to over 1,100 previously denied Brooklyn-based customers.
The Public Service Commission, the state body that licenses and oversees public utility companies, announced Friday that National Grid must provide service to customers or else face “millions of dollars in penalties.”
Previously, 1,157 customers had been denied service due to National Grid’s moratorium on all new gas hookups, announced in May.
Cuomo is accusing National Grid of “acting in bad faith” and crowing about their public responsibility to provide reliable service. But he’s simultaneously reiterating his opposition to the Williams Pipeline.
Does this guy understand what he’s asking for here? We’re also left wondering if he understands why the utility stopped authorizing new gas lines in the first place. Does he think that National Grid was simply tired of making money? Obviously they want to sign up new customers so they can begin billing them.
But there isn’t enough natural gas in the existing pipeline to keep adding more service points. If they continue to hook up new customers, you’re going to see the backpressure in the lines start dropping during peak demand hours. If you look at the configuration of a typical gas furnace installation you’ll note that if the incoming gas pressure drops too low, the furnace will simply shut down for safety reasons until the pressure is restored. The same is true for many other appliances that use natural gas or propane.
Since peak demand typically hits during a severe cold snap in the winter, what Cuomo is ordering could result in a lot of people suddenly going without heat, most likely near the furthest extreme of the gas lines. And at that point, complaining to National Grid and issuing more orders isn’t going to make the heat come back on.
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The socialist extreme left that has taken control of JFK’s Democrat party are simply N.U.T.S…..IMHO
Absolutely!
Why politicians shouldn’t be in charge of anything.
Politicians: Experts at nothing, but in charge of everything.
Politicians like Pina Coladas and getting caught in the rain, their not into yoga but they have half a brain.
It’s the New York version of California’s PG&E. With the same predictable results.
Agreed. When pressure drops ensue and people lose their heat, New York will sue National Grid for killing people.
I wonder if Warren Buffet is standing by to deliver gas by train. An oft repeated conspiracy theory is that the Dems were against Keystone XL because heavy donor Buffet wanted the oil transport business. Rail transport is way more risky than pipeline transport. Donations are far more important than safety.
Engineers are bound by statute (at least in Canada) to not do anything that puts the public at risk. I’m sure this is true in all advanced countries. The engineer can over-ride his boss or any statute! Mind you I recommend going to your boss to try resolve the potential problem.
Oh, only if the sciences were so bound. We wouldn’t have 75% of present climate scientists in practice. Engineers also are required to keep their competence current. Sub “best practices” can lead to your licence being lifted and and your use of the appelation “engineer” punishable by law.
No wonder engineering is such a lofty, productive profession. Science used to have rigorous standards for admission into a course of study. Now they have diluted the calling with scads of meaningless faculties, blurred the boundaries between science and social science, and handed out carloads of empty PhDs as participation trophies. Note that they prefer to be simply called ‘scientist’. When you check out their qualifications they frequently turn out to be science-free.
Anyone who desires power/authority is unworthy of it.
Not without accountability. If someone dies because of this, Cuomo should be brought up on charges of manslaughter.
They will blame “the utility.” Everybody walks.
Ah, Cuomo, knowing that heating systems will shot off until pressure is returned, simply sees this as a self-leveling system. Everybody’s systems will be going off and on, but he can claim that everybody has gas. As the hookups increase, the off-cycle will simply increase.
Of course, when demand exceeds supply, the people who are more equal will be more likely to get an equal share of the limited supply.
This is how “Medicare for All” will work. Not enough supply [doctors] in the pipeline, delivery drops [no actual care], but everyone has access [a pipe hooked up to the house.
Politicians should be guiding coherent policy, not micromanaging discrete bits.
God help us when east coast disfunctionals micromanage the nation’s farms.
What’s the big deal? They can cook with dung and heat their home with trash, the green utopia.
“Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.” Kin Hubbard
In San Francisco cooking with dung could solve two problems at once!
As a newly minted American Foreign Service Officer in 1979 my first posting was to Muqdishu, Soomaliya. They didn’t have an agreed upon written language until 1960 so foreigners never had any reasonable way to learn the language until years later. As the junior officer in the Embassy I was the designated dogsbody for most of the trash tasks. I was asked by the Agency for International Development Director to find out why Somalia had fewer miles of paved roads in 1979 than they did at independence in 1960. Talking to the usual Somali diplomatic cocktail party goers turned up no useful information so I violated the common diplomatic practice and actually left the city and visited and talked to village people. Answer was simple. When camel dung supply was low the wife lucky enough to live by a paved asphalt road went out and dug out pieces to burn in their earthen stoves. (Hard to light but long burning) Younger kids were sent further down the roads to bring back ever more pieces. By the ‘80s the roads were mostly trashed. Still are since even the Chinese aren’t interested in investing in Somalia.
The AID Director refused to put that in the telegram back to the Department as he thought it reflected poorly on the populace. Can you imagine the health implications of eating food infused with heated petroleum products? Much less the poor women leaning over the ovens inhaling the fumes.
Every endeavor should have a name.
“imaginary natural gas” could be pumped by the Potemkin Company.
Witht he marketing handled by Pravda.
Sadly the gas in not imaginary. It is there, but simply not enough to go around.
They are scraping too little marmalade on even more toast.
All may be fine until it isn’t. Then we can sit back and say “I told you so.”
What we must NOT allow to happen is for public complacency and acceptance that this is the way it has to be, because it certainly is not.
There is plenty enough NG if they would only quadruple+ the pump pressure on the supply side ……. and if the regulators don’t start blowing apart and thingys going “KABOOM” …… then happy days are on the horizon.
I’m with you, Samuel. Increase line-loss and erosion is the result. All good?
That is good meets desired outcome of the green idea.
Not to mention having to replace all the compressor stations that are about 50 mi apart.
Yeah, that’ll be cheaper, easier, and with less environmental impact that just installing another line in the same ROW.
The other “fix” to improve supply volume is ……. fix the “leaky” NG piping that is buried underground, some of which has been buried there for nigh onto 100 years.
But the cost of the lost NG is not worth the cost of the “fixin”.
Do what the former soviet union did, dilute the gas so the pressure stays up. Just fewer calories per unit volume … until you dilute it enough that the appliances won’t work. Up to that point you make more money by charging for energy not delivered.
Dilute it with CO2 and claim the carbon credits for doing so.
Everyone satisfied.
If only engineers could think like politicians all problems (including the impossible) can be solved.
Lmao. I like the way you think. Sly, very sly
Dilute it with unicorn farts.
Cynical but smart. One of my previous employers loved selling our chemical compounds as hydrates where possible. And reactions that added multiple bromines or iodines to a molecule were a godsend because of the increase in mass of the molecule. Customers often really are that dim.
Having said that, could this energy utility get round the problem in the short term by building more gas storage to smooth out the peaks and troughs in the demand cycle? Costs money, I know.
eGas?
Do you really believe that they would approve a new gas storage facility? If there is any carma maybe the politicians homes will be the first to run out of gas..
They would have to do so near the end points, which while technically possible may be practically impossible due to regulations.
Think of it like an on-demand water heater compared to a conventional water heater. As long as your flow rate is low enough, and on demand (tankless) system works fine. But if you have a very high demand (10 showers operating at once) the flow rate through it isn’t high enough, while a ranked water heater can be sized accordingly – just add larger diameter piping.
But you say, a tanked water heater will run out – exactly true, so you have the size the whole system for both maximum flow rate (pipe size and pressure) and total volume flowed over time (storage capacity).
Losing the NJ gas means that the peak demand volume (high flow rate for a relatively short period of time) can’t be met. Adding local reservoirs could help, but who wants a fuel-air bomb anywhere near their property?
On the ***surface** that might seem plausible. But if they’re complaining about enviro impact on existing ROWs, what would adding big honking tanks do ?
Plus, what do you do with a 3-day cold snap ? How BIG are these tanks going to be ?
The solution is obvious. Replace the corrupt, idiot governor with someone with an IQ above 50.
You all are thinking NG ……. but talking a “fix” for gasoline or fuel oil.
Building bigger NG storage tanks when there is no such thing to begin with (except for liquified transport) is not an easy thing to do.
Iffen you wan t more NG in the northeast or east, …. ya either the line pressure or you construct new pipelines ….. which is what they are currently doing.
Like this one, ……
The government is already doing that with gasoline and Diesel oil. Adding methanol to gasoline gives more volume, but less mileage. Adding biodiesel to the oil makes more volume, but gives less MPG. Taxes per gallon don’t change, so everyone wins except the driver.
Supposedly the tax revenue issue will be solved when people will pay for miles traveled. Government will want to collect taxes at the pump and also for miles driven plus tolls for using the roads.
California’s tax on gasoline fluctuates with the price of a barrel of oil.
It is not a fixed price per gallon.
Methanol? I think you mean ethanol.
Virtual Gas
iGas ?
CryptoGas ™ !
Costing more energy to calculate that it produces 🙂
Reminds me of the EPA requiring that refineries add an additive that didn’t exist to every gallon of gasoline that was produced.
Yeah, I recall that. The EPA required a certain percentage of the ethanol blended into gasoline come from cellulosic ethanol, i.e. made from switch grass. The problem is that they weren’t able to scale up cellulosic ethanol production to meet the requirements. But that didn’t mean anything to the EPA so it wouldn’t roll back the requirement despite there being a significant shortage of cellulosic ethanol.
It’s the California energy plan based on finger pointing.
What happened to solar/wind power 😐 The greens want no gas, Oh well they can freeze to death or power massive electricity bills when they have to runthe heaters all day long
“natural gas pipeline from New Jersey were killed off by the state government under pressure from environmental activists”
Cuomo – Double dumb ass on you.
(h/t James T. Kirk in “Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home”)
Hey Mickey,
Maybe you shouldn’t be using colorful metaphors. You don’t seem to have the knack for it. Let me give it a go.
Cuomo – Double dumb ass on you!
Yes, I see what you mean. Yours was way better.
no no, that’s Fredo – Double dumb ass on you
What a chop. Are New Yorkers generally this dim?
They elected Cuomo. They elected AOC. The evidence suggests that, yes, they are that dim.
The people aren’t that stupid.
However, this is what politicians can do when they essentially have 100% control of the media.
When the next polar vortex hits, and furnaces go off due to low gas pressure, we will have newspaper stories about greedy corporations and video clips on the evening news featuring a little old lady who almost froze to death in her house.
Not one item during this time frame will mention that the state legislature blocked construction of a gas pipeline to feed the utility distribution system.
All too true, that’s exactly what will happen.
A gas shutoff actually occurred in Newport, Rhode Island this past winter during a cold snap.
Customers at the end of the distribution line were without fuel for several days due to insufficient line pressure.
The media simply reported it as ‘due to a valve issue’ while not describing that the ‘valve issue’was a safety shut down due to low pressure.
The people aren’t that stupid.
Their voting choices suggest otherwise.
Well, it is complicated. Thanks to neglect, the rural upstate has been losing purple/red population because businesses are shutting down or leaving at a significanr rate.. This tilts the voting population to blue, then to idiot blue, then to OMG STUPID blue.
The NY state Senate used to be in control of the Republicans. Now it and the state Assembly are both democrat and a rubber-stamp for a corrupt, idiot governor. Who shut down his own ethics commission — which says something about his own ethics.
The demographic trend also explains how NY state went from one R and one D U.S. senator to 2 democrats. Both of whom are polemic and stupid.
I tell my not-so-stupid friends “HAVE KIDS! Demographics is destiny.”
Then the same politicians that caused this problem in the first place will start to declare that this proves that the private sector cannot be allowed to control vital economic sectors. For the safety of the citizens, these vital sectors must be taken over by government so that they can be run by the sons and daughters of powerful politicians.
Which will make things even worse, but people dying won’t ever make the news.
so why doent the gas supplier run the truth in a few days full page main papers?
or fkbook or twit whatever?
point out the stupidity of the bans and the proposals and let the people sort the ptb out
It is a DEEP, DEEP, DEEP “blue” city …… in a “blue” state.
Nothing more needs to be said.
One New Yorker told told me that New York generated all their own electricity and fuel. Yes that are that dim.
Yes they do! NYC is powered by steam! I’ve even SEEN the natural steam vents in the streets … with all sorts of EXCESS steam pouring out! Seems as though NYC cannot even USE all the natural power it’s sitting on. /sarc.
What makes you think the people had any say in this? New York will, for all practical purposes, elect a Democrat as governor. Does not matter who it is. So, the choice is actually made at the primary level, and the local Dem bosses (not the politicians) across the state decide who can be in the primaries. So in reality it’s the local Dem bosses who decide who will be the next governor of the state.
If someone totally unsuitable is chosen by the bosses, a RINO such as George Pataki can sneak in. But with New York State being 60% Democrats, due to the big cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany along with New York City all being Democrat strongholds, the voters who think have no say in the matter.
Well, they have a little say: once they are freed from their jobs, they can vote with their feet. So, once we retired, we left the most horrible nanny state ever.
Just the Left leaning ones…
So ya, most of them.
~¿~
“Think of this as a teaching moment…”, as Barackward Hussein Obama like to intone. We see Londoners cleaning Extinction Rebellion slime off the tops of their stalled commuter trains. Mayhap New Yorkers will take a lesson and clean house on the corrupt Cuomo regime.
Reality is a bitch, Cuomo.
Such a winter cold snap disaster MIGHT rectify this nuttiness. But maybe not.
Perhaps to be seen in a few months:
“The Peasants Are Revolting”
“You Can Say That Again”
This is Henry Waxman-stupid.
“We’re seeing the reality of a lot of the North Pole starting to evaporate, and we could get to a tipping point. Because if it evaporates to a certain point – they have lanes now where ships can go that couldn’t ever sail through before. And if it gets to a point where it evaporates too much, there’s a lot of tundra that’s being held down by that ice cap…”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/06/on-oldie-but-a-goody-7-years-later-failed-waxman-markey-bill-still-failed/
After babbling about the North Pole evaporating he actually said this:
“Well, I think we’re going to be a lot more innovative when we put the profit motive – the market mechanisms in place that will give a very clear incentive. If we raise the price of energy, which will happen if we’re reducing the amount of carbon emissions, and industries have to figure out how to live in a carbon-constrained environment, they are going to have to figure it out because it’s in their profitable interest to figure it out.”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/26/quote-of-the-week-5-waxmans-stunningly-stupid-statement/#comment-111250
It takes Henry Waxman-grade stupidity to think that you can legislate to punish the utility company for failing to deliver natural gas to customers, while legislating that the natural gas can’t be delivered to customers.
Heck yeah, the government has to make its money one way or another.
If they aren’t earning enough tax revenue from selling fuel (because there isn’t enough fuel) simply fine the fuel companies for not providing fuel they don’t have, thereby making up the shortfall in lost revenues.
Hey, bloated parasites gotta eat too ya’know.
David Middleton October 17, 2019 at 10:27 am
I think Cuomo’s intent is to force the utility to divert the N.G. that is going to New England to the new hook ups.
Remember David this is New York. Never miss a chance screw over a neighboring state ‘Were you still in Ct during the ‘toll tokes” wars?
For those of you unfamiliar, both CT and NY used the same company to make their tokens.
In CT they were 35 cents for the road tolls. For NY they were 75 cents for thee New York subway. as you can guess they were interchangeable. New York demanded CT stop using its tokens and threatened legal action.
New Yorkers of course to vote with they feet and cross over to CT and buy the tokens.
Now thats socialism!
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/11/07/nyregion/17-1-2-accord-puts-and-end-to-the-great-token-war.html
michael
I moved to Texas in 1981. Although, I did work as a State Park Patrolman in the summers of 1979 and 1980. Our park, Squantz Pond, was flooded with New Yorkers every weekend. At the time, Connecticut had a “bottle bill” and New York didn’t. Very few New Yorkers were aware of this and every weekend our trash cans were filled with beer cans & bottles that were worth $0.05 each. Both summers, our maintenance crew saved up enough money for a group trip to NY Mets games… 😉
I have a similar story from second year college. So, upperclassmen (non freshmen) were responsible for furnishing their lodgings (‘Houses’ much fancier than dorms since most also had a living room replete with a working fireplace) way beyond simple bunkbeds and desk dorm rooms.
So I realized that graduating seniors had to get rid of their suddenly useless House stuff. The Houses had a tradition of subterranean summer basement storage with numbered ‘tickets’, since these Houses were also used by the University for summer program barebones dorm students.
So, I went around my and the closest houses end of freshman spring term inspecting all the stuff stored on senior tickets (to be abandoned), and bought all the best and least roached on the super cheap. Spent total maybe $1k. Then in the fall, furnished my sophomore House place (5 guys) with the best and sold the rest to sophomores needing stuff. Best part was, my roomies moved all of our stuff, and those who bought my tickets had to move theirs. Made my first financial 10x in less than one year killing without breaking a sweat. Repeated third year—but not my senior year!
Taught me a life lesson to work smart, not hard—although both is better.
If you can work smart, you know when to work hard…😎
Granddad used to say “Use your head for something other than a hat rack, so you won’t have to use your back. Born in the 1890s, in the Jim Crow South. Grandma went to the Jim Crow North to find a job; was good at piece-work, and found herself having to come back South (to survive ’cause she would have been lynched, maybe, she never said so?). Thus my Mom came to be, and thus me.
It’s almost like they read Atlas Shrugged and thought that Wesley Mooch had some pretty good ideas.
Yep.
Wait for the Greens to gain more control and see what happens. We will be going from one unintended consequence to the next. The sad part is those in control of the Greens will be seeing their wishes come true.
So give them a hookup. Then shut the valve.
For every regular customer hooked up, disconnect a government office or one of Cuomo’s donors.
Sounds like a plan I like.
Start with his Lordships office and or home let him feel the minions pain.
James Bull
And they don’t know for gas shutoff. Wait til they experience this. Protocol, which I have debated the necessity for but is not with no merit, is to check every affected customer before turning back on interrupted service. A two hour foible with a frozen valve last winter that cut pressure and caused service shutdown at extreme of the line involved on aqiudneck island (Newport) RI, caused a two week oitage.!
Further explanation: A lot of older furnaces, water heaters, stoves, etc did not have any kind of automatic shut off on the pilot light. When the gas was turned off, the pilot lights went out. When the gas was turned back on, unless someone lit the pilot lights, gas would just flow into the home from each device until someone either someone noticed, or something more dramatic happened.
“more dramatic” = an earth shattering Ka-Boom!
or sometimes, somebody not waking up the next morning…
With a hard winter coming with stronger nor’easters there will be a lot more finger pointing to come. It couldn’t happen in a more appropriate place though, except maybe Markey Land.
Probably won’t happen this year. Not enough time to hook up a lot of new customers between the time of the order and the coldest part of winter.
Next year however could be another story. Just long enough for most people to forget about Cuomo’s order.
The Gov orders more directives and Atlas Shrugged.
Quite apropos, Richard!
That is exactly what I thought. And based on the book, when the cold hits, the utility company will get the blame.
But Captain, the replicators are offline!
On Star-Trek shows, the most common line is “Something” is offline. Then the captain orders — “Switch to secondary “something”. You’d think with that highly advanced technology, backups would come online automatically…..
apparently the automatic switching is also offline 😉
need a backup Governor in NY?
NY Governor Cuomo repeals fluid flow physics, demonstrating democrat smartitude.
Details to follow – Film of freezing citizens in January. Gas utility will be blamed.
I recall “The New Ice Age” of the late 1970s which the CAGW alarmists now deny happened.
Texas was pumping NG to the frozen NE but we Texans were paying much higher prices per CuFt because of interstate commerce laws – and we were freezing and had gasoline shortages down here as well.
Bumper stickers appeared – “Leave your lights on and freeze a Yankee!”
I am always amused when I hear that people can’t live in the South without air conditioning.
I’m 70 and grew up without A/C. How many Northerners grew up without heat?
They grow them stupid in CA and NY
“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.”
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/693772
When I first read of the Williams pipeline being blocked I did picture the awful scenario in my mind of blizzard or near-blizzard conditions hitting the area and gas pressure dropping and tens of thousands of people losing heat. And then they are trapped in their freezing homes because they can’t get out of their homes to a warm shelter. And the rescue services can’t get to them because of the blizzard conditions. But of course we were assured years ago that ice and snow would become a thing of the past. Tell that to the farmers up north in the US and Canada right about now.
Sadly, it will take a few of these self-imposed disasters to catch the attention of the general public. When the frozen pipes cause widespread property damage and deaths start accumulating due to lack of heat, people will take notice, but may not yet understand what they have done to themselves. When this happens we MUST NOT allow the simpletons to say this was all caused by climate change. The blame must fall squarely on those who perpetrated it, ignorant and small minded politicians.
These self inflicted disasters probably will not happen until at least winter 2020-21 The new hookups will not be installed overnight, and these first 1100 or so hookups may not be enough to cause the failure (there is likely some margin built into the limits). By then, no one will remember the anything about the Williams pipeline or even this crazy Cuomo order. the blame will be placed directly on National Grid. When they are sued, maybe they will file for bankruptcy like PG&E did.
The proper thing for National Grid to do is comply… while demanding releases of liability from each and every customer in the affected area, new or old. These releases should be graphic in their descriptions of the potential problems and repeatedly state why they are doing it. Anyone who won’t sign is cut off for liability insurance reasons.
“ blizzard or near-blizzard conditions hitting the area and gas pressure dropping and tens of thousands of people losing heat.”
Yup, that is a BIG problem when one “heats” with NG.
And the reason you can‘t get rid of “fossil fuel” heating, …… the “fuel oil” kind.
All across the north east, from Buffalo to Boston, homes and businesses have at least one, many have two, …… 250 gallon fuel oil tanks supplying their furnace.
Looks like he’s trying to out-Fredo his brother. And maybe National Grid should shut off gas to the Governor’s Mansion. They can always say they did it for the environment.
Looks like he’s trying to out-Fredo his brother
That will that some considerable doing as his brother is the most Fredo of Fredos
Their response should be “if we do as you ask there will be rolling outages of service as there isn’t enough gas to provide reliable service to everyone at the same time due to your own actions in refusing the pipeline” and then follow through with such rolling outages. Let the people of New York suffer the consequences voting such idiots into office. Perhaps then they’ll learn to vote more wisely next time.
And also, they should advertise the facts of why New Yorkers service will be so unreliable with fliers to their customers and TV, newspaper, and radio Ads. Let it be known to all an sundry why it’s happening and what the likely consequences will be and what needs to be done to fix the situation so that when the $#!& hits the fan they can say “we warned you, but you didn’t listen”.
Yep.. pop a note on the next bill they send
This is “Progressivism”: Turning a first-world energy infrastructure into a third-world one. At least we know who to blame when the lights and furnaces start going out.
Will bringing livestock indoors during cold weather make a comeback in the state?
The fun part comes that the supplier is taken to court for failing to supply by the city .
However as New York is one of those cities that looking for big money from ‘evil fossil fuel ‘ companies because of ‘climate doom’
Perhaps they should stop supplying ‘evil fossil fuel ‘ to these cities to save them from ‘climate doom’?
+42
Being impolite ‘Muricans, we don’t call stupid people “dim”. Case in point:
In a discussion regarding a planned military buildup on the Pacific island, Johnson expressed some concerns about the plans to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the U.S. Pacific fleet.
“My fear is that the whole island will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize,” Johnson said. Willard paused and replied, “We don’t anticipate that.”
and how he kept a straight face hearing that?
hand it to him for self control