Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; SURPRISE – Cold place which repeatedly rejects new gas pipeline proposals is running short of gas.
New England faces rolling BLACKOUTS this winter with bills set to soar amid fight for natural gas imports with Europe – despite US being one of world’s biggest producers
- Severe cold spells in the Northeast could reduce the amount of gas available, as more of it is burned to heat homes
- America is now competing with European countries for shipments of liquefied gas because of Russia’s decision to halt pipeline gas to the continent
- New England does not import American LNG, because of the Jones Act, with the majority of the gas delivered coming from Trinidad and Tobago
- ISO New England Inc have warned that an extreme cold snap could result in the need for rolling blackouts to keep supply and demand in balance
By EMMA JAMES FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 02:01 AEDT, 19 October 2022 | UPDATED: 03:57 AEDT, 19 October 2022
Residents in New England cities are facing rolling blackouts this winter if temperatures drop for a prolonged cold snap because of lower fuel supplies.
The region relies on natural-gas imports to bridge the gaps during the winter but is now having to compete with European countries for shipments of liquefied gas.
Russia’s halt of most pipeline gas to the continent has ramped up the price and demand for natural gas across the globe.
Both Europe and the US are now scrambling to import more LNG, which could send gas prices skyrocketing next winter – despite America being one of the top importers in the world.
…
The gas shortage is plainly the result of New England political incompetence and green virtue signalling. New England politicians have repeatedly rejected pipeline proposals, enabled by green zealots who claim New England doesn’t need gas pipelines. Now New England could be about to pay a heavy price for this reckless political pantomime.
The article goes on to blame the Jones Act for limiting gas capacity. The Jones Act is a law which restricts cabotage, transport of goods between US ports, to US built and flagged vessels. But all those foreign ships are already busy steaming towards Europe, which is in an even more desperate situation than New England, so I doubt a repeal of the Jones Act at this late stage would make much difference.
I wish there was an easy solution. I’m sure there are plenty of sensible people in New England who opposed this madness, who are about to suffer alongside those who supported it. Even the people who supported it – I mean, saying “I told you so” might bring a moment’s satisfaction, but real people are about to suffer a terrible winter. All I can see in my mind are little kids shivering in the cold, kids who had no part in creating this nightmare, and old people suffering and in some cases dying, in bleak unheated homes, with empty refrigerators and a pile of unpaid heating bills.
The people I’m mad at are the politicians and greens, whose relentless propaganda convinced ordinary people that their reckless, incoherent green virtue signalling was an energy policy.
By next Spring, the survivors may be a little less willing to listen to greens. But what a horribly hard way to have to learn they misplaced their trust.
Well, we in Texas have not dealt with the subsidy miners pushing wind, so we have our own feckless politicians.
Yes.
The ones who persistently refuse to winterise your power system.
Says the guy with the great plan to build more HVDC interconnectors 🙂
Winter is a thing of the past along with ice and snow. The peer reviewed political scientists told us so.
Pushing wind and winterizing the power system are contradictory.
You can’t winterize windmills and solar farms, you ignorant buffoon!
Well you got the “persistently refuse” part right. Unfortunately, it is you who persistently refuses to attempt even the most basic understanding of anything that might have even the slightest conflict with your dogmatic religious belief system.
Is Texas allowed to go back gas backup for their natural gas compressors rather electric backup?
How about going back to nuclear and coal power plants?
Those would go along way toward winterizing their power system!
Long term forecasts predict a warmer winter so maybe they will get through.
I hope so. Spring weather in Australia to date has been dismal, cold and wet. Lets hope the warm weather has migrated North for winter.
Maybe; maybe not: not as much snow, but cold. https://www.accuweather.com/en/winter-weather/accuweather-has-the-scoop-on-the-us-winter-forecast/1264945
Never mind Spring, look at the last 10 years. UAH satellite temperatures over Australian land. Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/uahoct
Correction:
http://www.geoffstuff.com/uahoct.jpg
Less snow, deeper frost, colder basements.
Great news that long term forecasts predict a warmer winter. Ummm … do long term forecasts have a history of being reliable?
British MET went through a period where every winter was going to be warmer than normal, they’d attempted to merge their climate models with their weather forecast models. Of course, turned out global warming causes more snow.
Please warn when you link to grauniad articles. I clicked on your link and was greeted by the mad-eyed stare of the moonbat. Put me off my breakfast..
Many years ago there was a local outdoorsman and fishing guide who had a small spot on local radio. Every fall he observed animals in the wild and then predicted what the coming winter would be like. Every year, without fail he predicted “a long, cold winter with lots of snow”.
One year he actually was right!
Farmer’s Almanac says unreasonable cold in Great Lakes, worse in Central Plains. North East will be bad but there might be a break to milder sometime in February.
Since the warmists seem to think that a 0.7 degree increase in 100 years has created sensible warming, it will be inetersting to hear their screaming complaints that that is creating far too cold conditions for their frail bodies to cope.
“Long term forecasts predict a warmer winter so maybe they will get through.”
This just confirms that it will be a cold winter.
Even next year, they won’t have learned. They will still vote for anything with a ‘D’ after its name, and to get that ‘D’ they have to subscribe to the church of green madness.
Any problems that occur this winterwill happen just after the election. The folks will have to wait almost two more years to get rid of the politicians who are responsible.
Recall elections have a way of scaring some of the worst as harbingers. Soros’ DAs are feeling some heat.
Don Key otey?
Plenty of business opportunity for them to go Green in warmer sunny Californy by all accounts-
CEO blasts San Francisco as ‘city of chaos,’ closes store over rampant crime: ‘Our team is terrified’ (msn.com)
Oh the irony.
Wishing for a warmer winter when what your “reality” tells you is that colder winters are more desirable.
It appears they need to suffer greatly before they STOP listening to greens eco babble and STOP supporting stupid green initiatives.
I congratulate the survivors.
Relatives, friends, churches, and government agencies need to keep people fed and warm. Water pipes tend to burst in unheated freezing homes. Do things now or pay later.
To help keep pipes from bursting when your heat is shut off, leave all your faucets “dripping”.
The water lines in freeze prone areas are buried below the frost line. The water in those lines will be above freezing. And open the cabinet doors under any sinks.
For next winter, vote out the idiots that have bought into the “Global Warming/Climate Change” hype!!!
‘I’m sure there are plenty of sensible people in New England who opposed this madness,…’
Doubtful, based on the number of ‘Hate has no home here’ signs and Ukraine flags one sees along the roadside in CT. Also indicative is the preponderance of ‘Weed’ billboards along I-91 through MA.
I once listened to a speech by far left UK politician George Galloway, in which he described why he supported renewables.
His answer was “corporations have f*cked up everything else, so it makes sense they are also f*cking up the planet”. His allegiance to green messages was based on a general belief in the malice of corporations, not on any overwhelming belief in the science.
I think this is an important distinction. People like Galloway could be unpersuaded as fast as they were persuaded, they have no deep idealogical commitment to green ideas.
I think lefties are being strung along by promises we’re almost there, soon the green energy economic and manufacturing nirvana will arrive, any minute now. That delusion must be approaching breaking point.
** Galloway was the British politician who who testified to the US senate about his meetings with Saddam Hussein.
When you give corporations the freedom and power to redistribute from poor to wealthy through government mandated theft like the Australia RET scheme you have done nothing less than bend over to be fracked up.
The RET is not a subsidy scheme. It is government mandated theft. The payment for “renewable” energy certificates does not come from general revenue; rather it comes from those consuming electricity to those making it. And it all encourage by government.
I have even heard the CEO of Victorian Council for Social Services advocating for “renewable energy”. But she has changed her tune lately to advocate for more state ownership of energy supply – good luck with that.
Yes, but all sections of UK politics, left, right and green, believe George is a self publicising nutjob
griff
You are right.
Cant believe you get downvotes!
Auto
But apparently he thinks that “green” solar and wind power corporations won’t do the same?
I don’t see what supporting Ukraine in the face of a Russian invasion says about other political stances.
surely any decent person supports Ukraine.
surely any decent person supports Ukraine.
No, only a person who is ignorant of the facts behind the whole Ukraine saga which dates back to 2014 and the overthrow of the elected government by EU funded forces.
I often tell people that there are rarely winners in a modern war. The huge toll on both sides of lost lives and injuries and economic consequences. I hate warmongers.
So you believe that instant surrender in the face of aggression is the only way to go?
Ignorant people don’t realize the Ukraine saga dates back to at least 2010 and Russian funding and special forces installing a government in Ukraine.
As in everything else, you are a particularly undecent person….
One guy called Vlad doesn’t … you have to define decent Person 🙂
Supporting Ukraine as in wishing them success is one thing, I’m all for that. However, supporting them by completely funding their endeavor is another thing altogether, especially considering we have our own economic issues here. Are we ever going to get paid back? Or is this another instance like Iraq, where we spend trillions and thousands of lives lost, then sit there as oil companies from European countries that contributed nothing to the effort go in and gobble up the oil assets, while we get nothing, because we can’t upset the “no blood for oil” protestors? And just like Europe, who has relied on the US for their defense for more than half a century, Ukraine will turn on us as soon as it is politically expedient to do so. Our help will be completely forgotten. I say no more helping others militarily unless there is a very clear and agreed upon return on our investment. No more mr. nice guy.
Preventing Putin from winning is a very good return on our investment.
Aggressors never stop on their own.
History repeats itself. In the 70s, when Arab states embargoed the US, oil shortages led to mostly elderly poor people freezing to death in their homes.
“. . . oil shortages led to mostly elderly poor people freezing to death in their homes.”
To be sure, elderly people are more vulnerable to hypothermia than younger.
And indeed, there are frequent reminders on WUWT that more people succumb from “excess” cold than from “excess” heat.
Still, I lived through the 1970s and the oil embargo and I don’t recall any mention of excess deaths resulting from it. Your source, please.
Bottom line: it is awful when the “Warmists” make stuff up; we mustn’t follow their example.
Any way, that’s what I think.
I have it from memory. But I do recall it caused the Kennedys to form an energy company to serve the poor. It was a big deal in congress at the time.
UK’s Office For National Statistics indicates that for winter 2017-18 excess winter deaths in the UK were highest since 1975-76. Since populations have greatly increased, the rate per 1,000 people back then was much higher than today. I suppose that so many things have changed that a direct comparison would be a hopelessly complex calculation.
Am I one of only a few who think that it is going to be bad for a lot longer than just the coming winter? I’m afraid it’s baked in for a few years at least if we are lucky. Ignorant buffoonish heads of state, captains of industry, financiers, economists, abysmally talentless, unteachable scientists …have thrown away 10s of trillions of dollars taken from ordinary citizens’ earnings and savings with a massive negative return on the investment.
They have willfully inflicted damage on low cost power and fuels with a war on fossil fuels and nuclear that they didn’t realize are the foundation of wealth, wellbeing and life itself. They pressed on to replace it with an electric grid and electric motive power that doesn’t work as needed. They then began to destroy agriculture – Sri Lanka was a horribly failed test that they aren’t heeding. They didn’t know that an indispensable fertilizer was made using natural gas.
I am amazed that there hasn’t been a lot of people, the consensus scientists/professors, ‘smart’ denizens of Davos, that haven’t fallen quiet, haven’t bailed out, haven’t taken early retirement. The air is thick with hope and prayer. They seem to be saying “don’t look up!”
I don’t know, but I’m one of the few too, if so.
I can’t stop being flabbergasted that nobody, and I mean nobody, is doing the simple ‘grade school’ level maths involved. Absolutely nobody is testing the idea of surrendering to these deluded nincompoops.
I regularly run into deluded CAGW believers, and I no longer even discuss the issue itself. All I discuss about it now is the complete unpreparedness of Western governments regarding renewable energy, electric heating and electric vehicles. Every single one of them agrees with me 100%. Obviously, they agree for different reasons, but they still realise that the empty words of politicians will cause irreparable harm to a great many people.
It’s a start for them to realise this, at least.
‘They seem to be saying “don’t look up!”‘
I think they’re saying ‘we’re winning and there’s nothing you can do to stop us’, but hopefully we can show them otherwise in 20 days.
I hope your wishes don’t depend upon Republicans…neither party has any principles….
Nominally true, but maybe they can slow down the Left a bit.
I’m not aware of any of the Dems running (especially incumbents) that would not vote to continue the degradation of the USA. Maybe there are some.
Republicans have a lot of RINO’s in their ranks. Some, like Liz Cheney, lost their primary.
We’ll still be stuck with Brandon’s and Kamal’s handlers for a couple of years.
But a Republican majority in either house may be be able to kneecap further nonsense.
Australia gets by economically through iron ore, coal and gas exports. Increasing demand for China to make everything helps the Australian economy. Lithium is now a money spinner for Australia as well.
The other thing about Australia is that it is possible to live without heating or cooling. Not many places in the country rely on energy to avoid pipes freezing. Some places get tough to live in without air-con but it was done in the past.
Australia has no manufacturing to speak of. So it is an economy that could get by on expensive energy. This year coal swung back to being the most valuable export. So as much money in exporting it as using it to make stuff.
Europe is different. They basically have to export intellectual property to China to replace their manufacturing – that has a useably date though. If you are not making stuff then you have limited view of the global supply chain. Paying retired UK airforce pilots $500,000 per year to advise on plane technology is a good example of Europe exporting know how. China’s airforce is small by world standards but will soon be at the pinnacle. It is against Australian law for a retired Australian airforce pilot to work in that capacity in another country but not UK.
No, I think we could be looking at a ten-year – or even, perma-depression.
Even if the idiots in charge were replaced overnight, the lead times and cost of repairing the infrastructure damage would account for most of a decade.
By which time, most real industry will have buggered off to China/India/Russia/choose your location.
Vaclav Smil’s “How Things Really Work” should be mandatory reading by anybody in a position of authority in government or private industry. If any of you haven’t read it yet — DO IT!
Just started reading it.
Easy to follow and RATIONAL.
If only Greta’s parents had given her this book for her 14th birthday, she would not have been making such a fool of herself for these past 4 years.
Eric, I agree with you concerning children and others that need extra care but damn for the rest of them it is hard to pity them. They have been told over and over that they are being lied to and still they shrug us off and think we are nothing but knuckle dragging beasts.
I get mad too Bob, but ultimately we either try to help them, even if they don’t appreciate the help, or retire to Galt’s Gulch and close the door on them. I don’t think we’re quite at the point the characters in Atlas Shrugged were at.
Nick shrugged, let them learn the hard way.
Sadly, for some, that is the only way, Darwin’s way!
Even if you are right Eric it would be a struggle to expend precious resources on such thankless, greedy and pompous trash.
Northern Hemisphere has solar intensity trending down in autumn that makes for cooler winters. Winters will inevitably get colder.
I do not know how long it will take for the climate scammers to be bought to account but at some point there will be a realisation that CO2 does nothing and boreal winters are getting colder. Those data fiddlers should lose their hands for perpetrating a massive con. Their beliefs are reflected in the homogenised trends rather than faithfully presenting measured temperatures.
We, in Europe , face a similar crisis , but , looking on the bright side , Bill Gates assures us that dying of hypothermia is good for us in the long term :
https://swentr.site/news/564994-europe-energy-crisis-gates-renewables/
European energy crisis is ‘good’ – Bill Gates
Meanwhile in Germany deforestation is proceeding well , but unfortunately some people are not playing by the rules:
https://notrickszone.com/2022/10/19/wood-theft-skyrocketing-as-germans-try-to-keep-warm-firewood-tracked-by-gps/
(useful comment on burning green wood by John Hultquist)
People like Gates can get away with saying stuff like that now. Give it a few winters without sufficient FFs and people may respond differently.
Surely it is not only New England? Many more places in North America and Europe. Am I being unreasonable to hope that it is a particularly severe winter?
Boo hoo! Let them eat cake….
what happened to the heating oil venezuela used to donate to the poor in massachusetts?
Remove politics and the masses of regulations and leave the problem to engineers and they can sort out things rather quickly. They are after all in the business of getting things working, within time and budget if possible.
It’s not just that the clueless idiots blocked a much needed natural gas pipeline (the Kinder Morgan pipeline from Pennsylvania), these same idiots also blocked construction of two different powerline projects that would have brought green renewable hydropower down from Quebec. These are the same folks complaining about their electricity bills. (Here in NH the electric rates have doubled, and in some cases, have more than doubled. The anti-pipeline/anti-power line folks are the ones complaining the loudest.)
DCE: “(Here in NH the electric rates have doubled, and in some cases, have more than doubled. The anti-pipeline/anti-power line folks are the ones complaining the loudest.)”
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They are called useful idiots for good reason. As far as I’m concerned, you can skip the ‘useful’ part and emphasize ‘idiots’.
They will never figure out that they brought the problem on themselves. There must be somebody else that is doing this to them, right?
New England’s self-administrated energy problem has been inevitable. For example, here is an article written last December:
“New England is an Energy Crisis Waiting to Happen”
https://doomberg.substack.com/p/new-england-is-an-energy-crisis-waiting
I don’t know how bad they want the country to suffer before they realize that you can’t force everybody to go on green energy.
Former Keystone pipeline worker rips Biden after comments on oil production (msn.com)
Oh the ironing. The only remaining coal-fired plant left in New England, Merrimack Station in Bow, NH, sits idle most of the time, and is only fired up when demand is high, such as during a severe cold snap, or extended heatwave. Because coal bad. This costs ratepayers in the region $millions per year. We have some of the highest electric rates in the country.
Oh but the thought plickens. This week, a trial for a lawsuit against the plants’ owner, Granite Shore Power began with the plaintiffs being Sierra Club and Conservation Law Foundation. I know, right? Who would have guessed? They are using EPA rules about the discharge of warm water into bodies of water, in this case the Merrimack River. It will be up to the judge -Joseph Laplante, to decide the case, and if he decides for the plaintiffs, then the future of said plant is unclear. The owner isn’t going to want to eat further $millions to do an upgrade on a plant that isn’t used much, in addition to fines it might have to pay. Without that plant, the region would be subject to rolling blackouts far more frequently.
As far as NG, a major pipeline project to the region got shut down midway 6 years ago, with the reason cited as ” inadequate commitments from prospective customers”. There was demand, just not enough to support the huge costs of the project. So who was dragging their feet? I don’t know for sure, but the first place I would look would be the biggest user, Eversource. And anti-fossil fuel sentiment was likely the biggest driving force. Eversource is pushing hard for “renewables” and is going all-in for offshore wind power, although that is probably a decade away yet from being realized. We can only hope that the Green madness will be dead and buried by then.
Is the Schiller power plant on the Seacpast completely converted away from coal? I know there’s three boilers – one can burn biomass, one coal, and one oil. I know the oil-fired boiler hasn’t been used in years. Didn’t realize the coal-fired boiler may be decommissioned.
:Agenda 21″ posits humankind will “withdraw” from certain geographic areas and “Nature” will once again flourish there. It sounds like a really stupid sci-fi flick on Svengoolie but alas it was signed by a whopping 178 countries in 1992.
Politicians, bureaucrats and academics have no compunction about signing up the citizenry for stuff that won’t be really happening for years after they’ve all comfortably retired.
It’s that classic “going along to get along with the group”
Especially on stuff that will no impact on their personal lives.
In keeping up with the calendar, the U. N. plan is now called “ the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
I’ve often wondered, considering that nature has no ‘self-awareness’, all life on Earth will be extinct one day, and the cruelty in nature of animals eating other animals, or dying of starvation or disease, just what purpose is served by allowing nature to flourish without Man?
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. (Ben Franklin)
Sorry, I have zero sympathy. Elections have consequences. These are the policies you voted for, New England. You made your bed, now sleep in it, however cold it may be.
About 20 years ago, when I was living in New Hampshire, there was a nation-wide push by the libertarian party to try and get representatives into Congress. The finalists for the push were Wyoming and New Hampshire. The “winner” supposedly had the pledges of 40-50,000 libertarians, to move and therefore have a shot at electing a congressman or senator.
Interesting theory. Pledges like that, whether from Hollywood types pledging to leave for Canada or libertarians pledging to leave for New Hampshire, have a way of amounting to nothing.
New Hampshire has its “life free or die” motto, which seems to fall into that pledge category as well.
I’m not sure how one is expected to fight against this religious indoctrination when politicians from both parties support it, the schools teach it and any scientist who dares to question it loses his job.
This is happening. The bear may eat New England and California first, but he’s a hungry one, and those regions are just the hors ‘doeuvres.
People get the government and outcomes they deserve
Speaking of the Jones Act, some government advisory board had a recommendation to charge all past and present members of Cato and Mercatus Institutes with treason, for criticizing said act. This came to light through FOIA requests.
https://www.cato.org/blog/charge-all-past-present-members-cato-mercatus-institutes-treason
Apparently, I’m one of the few citizens of MA who reads this site. So, I know the attitude of the greens here. Basicly, they hate almost all forms of energy. A decade ago they were all in favor of “solar farms” while they were mostly being built in the low income middle of the state, where I live. Once they started poping up in wealthier areas, all of a sudden the greens are complaining that trees are being cut to build the solar “farms” and we must never cut trees since they sequester carbon. Nobody in this state wants to be withing 50 miles of a wind “farm”. The greens of course hate nuclear energy, all fossil fuels, pumped storage projects and biomass. They all claim if only we covered every building with solar panels, we could run our entire economy, heat all buildings, power all transportation- but even a state energy czar a few years ago said that’s impossible- and for being honest about this he was fired.
I’ve been fighting these idiots for years. I’ve been a forester for 50 years so I consider myself infinitely greener than any of these energy hating idiots.
The Left has put us all back at the mercy of the elements. We had risen above this. They sink us back down to a primitive state we all thought was long gone.
The naive Climateering voters of New England deserve all the freezing discomfort that will be coming to them in their “renewably’ powered winter.
Why? We have all the gas and oil we will ever need until better alternatives are found and developed. Meanwhile how about some Nuke plants of the new generation? We don’t have any commercial insulations of our latest nuclear reactors for producing power. We need a beta city to showcase the newest and cleanest we currently have. That and build more reservoirs and hydro. We need water reserves and the power it provides. It’s green and offers many benefits.
If we would put our innovation, industry and investment into ADAPTING to changes in climate as our ancestors have done over the past three megaannum instead of vainly and foolishly trying to change the climate over the next three decades, mankind as a whole would be far better off. Fifty years from now when our children and grandchildren come to realize the futility of such effort and the incredible cost it has imposed upon their standards of living most of the masterminds and profiteers will have been incinerated or be comfortably residing below the frost line and never held to account for their folly and greed.
The New England voters chose it KNOWING this was the inevitable result. Let them enjoy it, along with California and any other place dumb enough to believe that green energy can be the primary energy source for a modern economy. Experience is the best teacher.