Also because of the Jones Act the NE can’t bring in domestic LNG. So it must bring in international LNG which is more expensive and more emissions intense.
Following (or opposing!) big ideas and mantras swamp our ability and willingness to do the hard work of cost-benefit analysis of individual choices. Covid opened my eyes to the sad reality that the left was just as guilty of this as the right.
The green activist crowd attached itself to wind and solar early this century and the goal *became* renewable power itself rather than greenhouse gas reduction, a sentiment that made its way into the words of otherwise well-meaning non-ideologues.
But in the same way, a population of pro nukers buried their heads in the sand about wind and solar growth, low costs, etc…
It’s just humans being human. Our brains are just lawyers for our hearts…
Oil, gas and coal needs to be replaced by solar. It is cheaper and plentiful. Matched with "windmills" (lol). You have all the energy you need. I know, "what about at night?" "What about winter in New England". Such small thinking. All we need to do is follow the Chinese. Place solar and wind where it is plentiful and transmit the electricity where it is needed.
Of course, we can't do that because we refuse to invest in infrastructure because tax cuts are more important.
That's how we lose to the Chinese. Their three top priorities are Infrastructure, education and R&D.
Those three will beat tax cuts every time. Here's what China is doing with solar:
China's largest solar farm is the Talatan Solar Park in Qinghai province, a massive, multi-phase project that, when completed, will be the world's largest solar facility. Another large facility, the Midong Solar Project in Xinjiang, became the world's largest operational solar plant upon its 2024 completion with a 3.5 GW capacity, notes pv magazine International and Wikipedia.
Talatan Solar Park: This project in Qinghai province is planned to be the largest in the world upon completion, covering 235 square miles and situated on the Tibetan plateau.
Midong Solar Project: Located near Ürümqi in Xinjiang, this farm is currently the world's largest operational solar farm by capacity, with a 3.5 GW output.
Other large solar projects: China is also building a massive 8 GW solar farm in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, and plans for a 100 GW "solar great wall" in the Kubuqi Desert by 2030
America is cancelling solar and wind (windmills) projects.
The more I think about this article the more frustrated I am by it.
I know ~nothing about energy policy. I think climate change is important but I have no prior about whether in general natural gas pipelines are good or bad. I don't have an absolutist aversion to fossil fuels when their social utility exceeds their social costs, including when they serve the socially valuable purpose of displacing less-clean fossil fuels.
But it takes just a bit of research to raise all sorts of questions about this project that are not well-addressed in the article:
- does it make commercial sense in the sense of ultimately lowering prices for consumers (bearing in mind that the capital costs have to be covered as well)? well, the developer says it does and the utility regulator says it does, so that's something, but the risk is borne by consumers and we're talking about projections well into the future in a period when there are at least plans to roll out a lot more renewable energy. The renewable energy may or may not pan out, sure, and it may turn out to be more costly than this alternative. But it sounds like a complicated technical question.
- what about the local environmental impacts? The letter lists a bunch (and actually gives them prime of place). I have no idea if these risks are meaningful or not. Most commenters here who address them are dismissive of them, and fair enough (they do sound in some standard NIMBY themes), but it would be helpful to know more. It's worth mentioning that before the Trump Administration got involved, the application was rejected on these sorts of grounds.
- and what about emissions? This is not the most important objection to this pipeline politically (it gets mentioned in the letter but it's not the primary issue raised). But Matt's analysis focuses mostly on the current energy situation in NYS and that's not the question--the question is how things look over the lifetime of the pipeline. It doesn't work to say "what is the tradeoff" because unlike nuclear natural gas does have carbon emissions--if it substitutes for renewables that's an emissions-increasing impact. As several commenters have pointed out, the analysis also doesn't account for methane emissions (not even by saying that this issue is overstated--I don't know one way or the other). Again, the lifetime emissions impact is hard to predict, lots of uncertainty, and I take the article's good point that it's not good to treat the pipeline as per se a climate betrayal without actually doing some analysis to show the likely emissions impact. But "politicians say something non-rigorous in a letter on an issue of local concern to constituents" is a common thing.
I could be wrong about all this--again, I am not an expert, I am not even a hobbyist. There are lots of interesting takes in the comments from people who know more than me going in multiple directions. And that's what this is missing--instead of yet another attack at badly reasoned climate activism (definitely a real thing and a real problem), it would have been helpful to have an article about this topic that leaned more into careful analysis of the details. Maybe it obviously makes commercial sense, maybe the environmental objections are clearly frivolous, maybe every thoughtful and informed person who's looked at this thinks this lowers emissions. It is plausibly true, and if true it would be good to know. But I don't feel any closer to knowing it.
It’s now safe to apply reason to the climate question. But then, this was published today, and the (virtual) mob with pitchforks and torches needs time to assemble.
Irrational climate views are inspired by the “degrowthers”, who are ostensibly concerned about the environment but when you dig deeper are driven by an almost aristocratic nostalgia for preindustrial times - a romantic vision of happy peasants in quaint little villages working as farmers or artisanal craftsmen. The reality, of course, has been famously described as life that was “nasty, brutish and short”.
The right plan? There should be high voltage transmission lines from Hydro power in Canada and wind power from the Great Plains. There should be an undersea high voltage transmission line from Maine to Florida about 40 miles offshore and at numerous points along that line there should be offshore wind turbines. That same line should be connected to on shore grids approximately Every 200 miles from Florida to Maine. All fuel oil heated houses should have heat pumps, and about 40% of them should have community solar or solar on the roof as well as battery storage. All cars should be electric and all electric cars should be able to discharge power to houses. Closed nuclear facilities should be reopened and upgraded. Every municipal or commercial roof should be covered with solar panels.
In many areas, geothermal drilling should produce district heating as well as power to drive turbines to make electric electricity. If nuclear power proves to be less costly than it has been, then a handful of major nuclear power plant should be added to the grid.
An ambitious economic populist Dem could run on a new Tennessee Valley Authority type model for energy to do most of this.
But sadly, the only world in which this is even a remote possibility is one where Trump has tanked the economy so much that a new FDR type situation naturally arises rather than Dems simply imagining one, but such a world also means we will most likely not have normal elections anymore.
Heat pumps, particularly geothermal heat pumps, are dramatically more efficient than either gas furnaces or gas-fired electricity generators. Rather than increasing gas supply to lower the price of gas for use in furnaces, we should be replacing furnaces with heat pumps to free up gas supply for electricity generation -- while continuing to develop additional renewable generation capacity to further reduce gas demand.
Additional gas supply will lower the price of gas and encourage its continued use in buildings. This will encourage gas utilities to install or upgrade existing gas distribution infrastructure whose costs are typically recovered over 60 to 85 years of use. So, the real argument against gas expansion is financial. We should only be doing it if we are certain that we'll be using the new distribution infrastructure until the next century. This is unlikely and, in any case, would be catastrophic since it means that we would not be reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Gas, if used at all, should be used only for generating electricity or as feed-stock for the chemical industry, not for heating homes, cooking food, drying clothes, or for ornamental lighting.
If demand declines, there will be stranded assets that don't generate enough revenue to cover their costs. Those costs will be shifted either to remaining ratepayers or to taxpayers (when the state bails out the utility). Utility investors assume that the state will ensure that the utility remains profitable, thus, they aren't terribly worried about the long-term. So, the primary impact of higher future rates will be on low and middle income ratepayers who don't have the capital or credit needed to replace their gas appliances with heat pumps and other alternatives.
Note: As long as there are gas consumers, we simply can't allow utilities to "fail." The ability to heat homes and cook food is essential to life in many areas. Thus, the state is always expected to provide a financial backup to ensure the continued operation of gas utilities.
Gas pipeline costs are typically recovered twice as fast as utility distribution infrastructure costs. So, while pipeline developers may have an argument that makes sense for them, their success depends on their convincing utilities to do things that are stupid and short-sighted.
Even though pipelines and utilities are distinct entities, they operate together as inter-dependent entities. Thus, it often makes sense for policy makers to view them as a single system.
The thing that 2 major things that get glossed over in these debates are
1. Voters significantly prioritize cheaper energy prices over climate change, and high energy prices are terrible for citizens, particularly the poorest
2. The idea that it matters that individual states matter *at all* in reducing emissions is nuts. In fact, if the US became net zero tomorrow, it would only shift the downward projecting of warming by 0.1 - 0.2 degrees by 2100
It’s baffling to watch elected officials cling to what is overwhelmingly an elite concern that will have little material effect. It’s even more strange when those elected officials govern the places that have some of the most expensive energy prices in the country
When I read "prices will go up nationwide" if the pipeline is introduced it swayed me to agree that this pipeline shouldn't be built. If the people of the NE want to elect politicians who keep my energy prices lower then Thank You.
On that note, how much of the opposition is genuine v good ol capitalism?
Seriously: What’s the 100 percent renewable vision for the Northeast anyway?
Or to be more realistic, let's include nuclear and not insist on 100%. In that case: What's the plan to cut the Northeast's gas-fired electricity generation by 50% or more?
Seems like they had nearly all their eggs in the offshore wind basket. Now that that isn't working out (at least on the scale and timetable many hoped for), what's the plan? Does anyone know?
>"There was no globally binding treating, there was no cap and trade bill, and the world is not going to limit warming to two degrees Celsius."
Hey, I ate all those burgers and my liver is a mess from all the drinking and there is no chance blood pressure will be under 130/80 but people telling me not to eat that next burger should think very carefully about the fact that I will indulge in additional drinking if you tell me not the eat that burger. It's a very complicated calculation which you cannot perform so shut up!
My partner keeps on eating the burgers I make them. The doctors tell me to stop but I think it's a left wing, vegan conspiracy. I don't even want to try to cook something different because all my money is going on beef and beers.
Great! It's a scientific fact that for a man's manhood to not shrink, he needs a heavy diet of beef and burgers and gasoline fume inhalation from his big pickup truck as well as ball tanning.
Lol. He ate two burgers yesterday and was fine. This disproving the fake left wing narrative. Yes some days there are some massive health events but these have nothing to do with anything.
Is there any value to the symbolic importance of not investing in long-lived infrastructure facilitating fossil fuel use? And to not creating an additional entrenched interest in keeping us burning gas forever? And to the fact that, like it or not, most climate-motivated voters think it’s obvious that banning new pipelines will help (even though as you point out, it is not obviously true)? I don’t know how to quantify these factors but they seem pretty real.
I would not have closed the nuclear plants if I had been the king of New England. But I wouldn’t be building new ones because the cost per kilowatt is very high and the delivery time is far from now.
So what’s the plan for New England if no nuclear or new gas, will it be to have enough battery and transmission capacity to get renewable power from other parts of the country in the winter?
> Which is a remarkable fact that, were it my article, I would have made note of.
This attitude toward writing articles neatly encapsulates why I subscribe to this newsletter and recommend it to others.
Also because of the Jones Act the NE can’t bring in domestic LNG. So it must bring in international LNG which is more expensive and more emissions intense.
Following (or opposing!) big ideas and mantras swamp our ability and willingness to do the hard work of cost-benefit analysis of individual choices. Covid opened my eyes to the sad reality that the left was just as guilty of this as the right.
The green activist crowd attached itself to wind and solar early this century and the goal *became* renewable power itself rather than greenhouse gas reduction, a sentiment that made its way into the words of otherwise well-meaning non-ideologues.
But in the same way, a population of pro nukers buried their heads in the sand about wind and solar growth, low costs, etc…
It’s just humans being human. Our brains are just lawyers for our hearts…
Oil, gas and coal needs to be replaced by solar. It is cheaper and plentiful. Matched with "windmills" (lol). You have all the energy you need. I know, "what about at night?" "What about winter in New England". Such small thinking. All we need to do is follow the Chinese. Place solar and wind where it is plentiful and transmit the electricity where it is needed.
Of course, we can't do that because we refuse to invest in infrastructure because tax cuts are more important.
That's how we lose to the Chinese. Their three top priorities are Infrastructure, education and R&D.
Those three will beat tax cuts every time. Here's what China is doing with solar:
China's largest solar farm is the Talatan Solar Park in Qinghai province, a massive, multi-phase project that, when completed, will be the world's largest solar facility. Another large facility, the Midong Solar Project in Xinjiang, became the world's largest operational solar plant upon its 2024 completion with a 3.5 GW capacity, notes pv magazine International and Wikipedia.
Talatan Solar Park: This project in Qinghai province is planned to be the largest in the world upon completion, covering 235 square miles and situated on the Tibetan plateau.
Midong Solar Project: Located near Ürümqi in Xinjiang, this farm is currently the world's largest operational solar farm by capacity, with a 3.5 GW output.
Other large solar projects: China is also building a massive 8 GW solar farm in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, and plans for a 100 GW "solar great wall" in the Kubuqi Desert by 2030
America is cancelling solar and wind (windmills) projects.
The more I think about this article the more frustrated I am by it.
I know ~nothing about energy policy. I think climate change is important but I have no prior about whether in general natural gas pipelines are good or bad. I don't have an absolutist aversion to fossil fuels when their social utility exceeds their social costs, including when they serve the socially valuable purpose of displacing less-clean fossil fuels.
But it takes just a bit of research to raise all sorts of questions about this project that are not well-addressed in the article:
- does it make commercial sense in the sense of ultimately lowering prices for consumers (bearing in mind that the capital costs have to be covered as well)? well, the developer says it does and the utility regulator says it does, so that's something, but the risk is borne by consumers and we're talking about projections well into the future in a period when there are at least plans to roll out a lot more renewable energy. The renewable energy may or may not pan out, sure, and it may turn out to be more costly than this alternative. But it sounds like a complicated technical question.
- what about the local environmental impacts? The letter lists a bunch (and actually gives them prime of place). I have no idea if these risks are meaningful or not. Most commenters here who address them are dismissive of them, and fair enough (they do sound in some standard NIMBY themes), but it would be helpful to know more. It's worth mentioning that before the Trump Administration got involved, the application was rejected on these sorts of grounds.
- and what about emissions? This is not the most important objection to this pipeline politically (it gets mentioned in the letter but it's not the primary issue raised). But Matt's analysis focuses mostly on the current energy situation in NYS and that's not the question--the question is how things look over the lifetime of the pipeline. It doesn't work to say "what is the tradeoff" because unlike nuclear natural gas does have carbon emissions--if it substitutes for renewables that's an emissions-increasing impact. As several commenters have pointed out, the analysis also doesn't account for methane emissions (not even by saying that this issue is overstated--I don't know one way or the other). Again, the lifetime emissions impact is hard to predict, lots of uncertainty, and I take the article's good point that it's not good to treat the pipeline as per se a climate betrayal without actually doing some analysis to show the likely emissions impact. But "politicians say something non-rigorous in a letter on an issue of local concern to constituents" is a common thing.
I could be wrong about all this--again, I am not an expert, I am not even a hobbyist. There are lots of interesting takes in the comments from people who know more than me going in multiple directions. And that's what this is missing--instead of yet another attack at badly reasoned climate activism (definitely a real thing and a real problem), it would have been helpful to have an article about this topic that leaned more into careful analysis of the details. Maybe it obviously makes commercial sense, maybe the environmental objections are clearly frivolous, maybe every thoughtful and informed person who's looked at this thinks this lowers emissions. It is plausibly true, and if true it would be good to know. But I don't feel any closer to knowing it.
It’s now safe to apply reason to the climate question. But then, this was published today, and the (virtual) mob with pitchforks and torches needs time to assemble.
Irrational climate views are inspired by the “degrowthers”, who are ostensibly concerned about the environment but when you dig deeper are driven by an almost aristocratic nostalgia for preindustrial times - a romantic vision of happy peasants in quaint little villages working as farmers or artisanal craftsmen. The reality, of course, has been famously described as life that was “nasty, brutish and short”.
The right plan? There should be high voltage transmission lines from Hydro power in Canada and wind power from the Great Plains. There should be an undersea high voltage transmission line from Maine to Florida about 40 miles offshore and at numerous points along that line there should be offshore wind turbines. That same line should be connected to on shore grids approximately Every 200 miles from Florida to Maine. All fuel oil heated houses should have heat pumps, and about 40% of them should have community solar or solar on the roof as well as battery storage. All cars should be electric and all electric cars should be able to discharge power to houses. Closed nuclear facilities should be reopened and upgraded. Every municipal or commercial roof should be covered with solar panels.
In many areas, geothermal drilling should produce district heating as well as power to drive turbines to make electric electricity. If nuclear power proves to be less costly than it has been, then a handful of major nuclear power plant should be added to the grid.
An ambitious economic populist Dem could run on a new Tennessee Valley Authority type model for energy to do most of this.
But sadly, the only world in which this is even a remote possibility is one where Trump has tanked the economy so much that a new FDR type situation naturally arises rather than Dems simply imagining one, but such a world also means we will most likely not have normal elections anymore.
The government would need to implement this and unfortunately we've stopped being able to produce things at scale since the 1970s.
New England is also, famously, the area of the lower 48 that is most reliant on heating oil.
Heat pumps, particularly geothermal heat pumps, are dramatically more efficient than either gas furnaces or gas-fired electricity generators. Rather than increasing gas supply to lower the price of gas for use in furnaces, we should be replacing furnaces with heat pumps to free up gas supply for electricity generation -- while continuing to develop additional renewable generation capacity to further reduce gas demand.
Additional gas supply will lower the price of gas and encourage its continued use in buildings. This will encourage gas utilities to install or upgrade existing gas distribution infrastructure whose costs are typically recovered over 60 to 85 years of use. So, the real argument against gas expansion is financial. We should only be doing it if we are certain that we'll be using the new distribution infrastructure until the next century. This is unlikely and, in any case, would be catastrophic since it means that we would not be reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Gas, if used at all, should be used only for generating electricity or as feed-stock for the chemical industry, not for heating homes, cooking food, drying clothes, or for ornamental lighting.
"We should only be doing it if we are certain that we'll be using the new distribution infrastructure until the next century."
Who is the we? Pipeline investors? Why should I care if they make money?
If demand declines, there will be stranded assets that don't generate enough revenue to cover their costs. Those costs will be shifted either to remaining ratepayers or to taxpayers (when the state bails out the utility). Utility investors assume that the state will ensure that the utility remains profitable, thus, they aren't terribly worried about the long-term. So, the primary impact of higher future rates will be on low and middle income ratepayers who don't have the capital or credit needed to replace their gas appliances with heat pumps and other alternatives.
Note: As long as there are gas consumers, we simply can't allow utilities to "fail." The ability to heat homes and cook food is essential to life in many areas. Thus, the state is always expected to provide a financial backup to ensure the continued operation of gas utilities.
The pipelines, in this instance, are separate entities from the utilities, right?
Gas pipeline costs are typically recovered twice as fast as utility distribution infrastructure costs. So, while pipeline developers may have an argument that makes sense for them, their success depends on their convincing utilities to do things that are stupid and short-sighted.
Even though pipelines and utilities are distinct entities, they operate together as inter-dependent entities. Thus, it often makes sense for policy makers to view them as a single system.
The thing that 2 major things that get glossed over in these debates are
1. Voters significantly prioritize cheaper energy prices over climate change, and high energy prices are terrible for citizens, particularly the poorest
2. The idea that it matters that individual states matter *at all* in reducing emissions is nuts. In fact, if the US became net zero tomorrow, it would only shift the downward projecting of warming by 0.1 - 0.2 degrees by 2100
It’s baffling to watch elected officials cling to what is overwhelmingly an elite concern that will have little material effect. It’s even more strange when those elected officials govern the places that have some of the most expensive energy prices in the country
When I read "prices will go up nationwide" if the pipeline is introduced it swayed me to agree that this pipeline shouldn't be built. If the people of the NE want to elect politicians who keep my energy prices lower then Thank You.
On that note, how much of the opposition is genuine v good ol capitalism?
Seriously: What’s the 100 percent renewable vision for the Northeast anyway?
Or to be more realistic, let's include nuclear and not insist on 100%. In that case: What's the plan to cut the Northeast's gas-fired electricity generation by 50% or more?
Seems like they had nearly all their eggs in the offshore wind basket. Now that that isn't working out (at least on the scale and timetable many hoped for), what's the plan? Does anyone know?
Long-distance transmission lines, probably.
High energy prices
>"There was no globally binding treating, there was no cap and trade bill, and the world is not going to limit warming to two degrees Celsius."
Hey, I ate all those burgers and my liver is a mess from all the drinking and there is no chance blood pressure will be under 130/80 but people telling me not to eat that next burger should think very carefully about the fact that I will indulge in additional drinking if you tell me not the eat that burger. It's a very complicated calculation which you cannot perform so shut up!
My partner keeps on eating the burgers I make them. The doctors tell me to stop but I think it's a left wing, vegan conspiracy. I don't even want to try to cook something different because all my money is going on beef and beers.
>all my money is going on beef and beers.
Great! It's a scientific fact that for a man's manhood to not shrink, he needs a heavy diet of beef and burgers and gasoline fume inhalation from his big pickup truck as well as ball tanning.
Lol. He ate two burgers yesterday and was fine. This disproving the fake left wing narrative. Yes some days there are some massive health events but these have nothing to do with anything.
Is there any value to the symbolic importance of not investing in long-lived infrastructure facilitating fossil fuel use? And to not creating an additional entrenched interest in keeping us burning gas forever? And to the fact that, like it or not, most climate-motivated voters think it’s obvious that banning new pipelines will help (even though as you point out, it is not obviously true)? I don’t know how to quantify these factors but they seem pretty real.
I would not have closed the nuclear plants if I had been the king of New England. But I wouldn’t be building new ones because the cost per kilowatt is very high and the delivery time is far from now.
So what’s the plan for New England if no nuclear or new gas, will it be to have enough battery and transmission capacity to get renewable power from other parts of the country in the winter?
Well, that would be the sane thing to do. Whether it is what actually happens is another question.