Tunnel Vision
For those that don’t know, New England gets cold ⛄️. Really cold 🥶 . When really cold happens, New Englanders do everything they can to keep warm. You know, as most humans would.
The primary way in which they do so is via natural gas home heating. When demand for natural gas used in home heating picks up, so too does the demand for natural gas used in power plants as electric space heaters often supplement gas heat.
This… causes problems.
Because of a dearth of pipeline capacity, and the priority given to home heating, power plants simply can’t get enough natural gas during times of peak demand (aka winter cold snaps).
To make matters worse, climate activists have been successful in blocking essentially all NE pipeline development over the past decade. They have done so with complete tunnel vision, blindly cheering each victory, without pausing for one second to see the disaster they are causing. Buckle up, it’s equal parts hilarious 😁 and depressing 😔.
But first, how did pipelines become such a focal point of climate doomers?
Political movements rely on symbols to rally support and donors. Even if the symbol isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things, movement leaders know that building unity around a clear and simple issue is often worth more than the price of admission 🎟️.
Such is one reason why leading climate activists are so hostile toward fossil fuel pipeline infrastructure. How motivating is it to see a pipeline blocked? You did that 👏🏻.
It’s no surprise that pipelines have become a focal point of the climate movement.
While many activists hold other underlying motivations (eg dismantling capitalism), the primary goal of the climate movement at large is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As any rational person would agree, doing so while simultaneously raising standards of living is no easy problem to solve. Unfortunately, realism is a dying virtue in the climate movement as sane, rational voices are increasingly drowned out by radical, irrational ones.
The origins of pipeline blocking as a climate movement strategic priority stem from the successful shutdown of Keystone XL, a proposed pipeline to connect the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska.
Oil already flows via pipeline between these two locations, but lack of capacity means that some flows via train instead - a riskier and more emissions-laden way to transport oil. Hence the need for more pipeline capacity. If reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the goal, the intense focus on Keystone XL made less than zero sense unless you live in a keep-it-in-the-ground-degrowth fantasy world where everyone has a lower standard of living.
Keystone was initially approved over a decade ago and many were caught off guard as opposition to the project gained steam. Over time, climate activists turned Keystone XL into a symbol to attract media, grassroots, and donor support. Whether Keystone actually reduced emissions or not didn’t matter much, as activists knew that stopping the project would:
a) Create a can-do attitude amongst their grassroots supporters, leading to more momentum and more financial support of their anti fossil fuel organizations.
b) Send a negative signal to financiers considering putting capital toward fossil fuel projects. Nothing scares infrastructure capital more than uncertainty.
Emboldened by their success with Keystone, anti-pipeline activists set out across the country. Here’s how the activist organization 350.org put it (emphasis added):
“Over the coming months, we will build on this victory as we fight to stop new gas pipelines and other proposed fossil fuel infrastructure projects across New England and beyond. Spectra, Kinder Morgan, and other fossil fuel companies should be getting very nervous right now: Keystone XL is one of the first fossil fuel projects to be stopped by our movement, but it will not be the last.”
So here we are. Each new pipeline, no matter how critical, is protested, challenged, and litigated until it is abandoned or blocked.
Yayyy environmentalism.
Back to New England. While pipeline capacity has remained stagnant, demand for natural gas has increased. Because of this, grid reliability has come under increasing scrutiny from the National Electric Reliability Council (NERC) and ISO-NE (the regional grid operator). Here’s how ISO-NE describes the pipeline constraints (emphasis added):
“During the last few years, inadequate infrastructure to transport natural gas has at times affected the ability of natural-gas-fired plants to get the fuel they need to perform. This energy-security risk has become a pressing concern in New England, considering the major role natural-gas-fired generation plays in keeping the lights on and setting prices for wholesale electricity.
Because such a large and still growing quantity of the region’s generating capacity uses natural gas (learn more at Key Stats—Resource Mix), its unavailability can pose a serious risk to the reliable supply of electricity.”
To make up for the natural gas that they’re unable to procure, power plants in New England burn fuel oil (!) to produce electricity. During cold snaps, fuel oil can account for over 30% of New England’s electricity production. Hey, it’s better than blackouts.
Nonetheless, ISO-NE’s emissions have actually gone down over the past 20 years. A pipeline-blocking activist might mistakingly take credit for this phenomenon - I blocked pipelines which stopped fossil fuels which paved the way for more renewables which reduced emissions. Give me my medal 🤩.
In reality, natural gas consumption in the region increased substantially, no thanks to the best efforts of activists. This increase in natural gas consumption displaced coal and has been the primary driver of reducing emissions. So yes, emissions went down. But it happened despite anti-pipeline efforts, not because of them.
Anti-pipeline activists can’t take credit for reducing emissions, but they can take full credit for the fact that ISO-NE burns more fuel oil than ever and has to do so to prevent blackouts.
As an alternative supply source to pipelines, New England also imports incremental gas supply via ships carrying liquified natural gas (LNG). Believe it or not, New England is unable to get supply from US LNG export terminals because an arcane, protectionist law requires all ships that sail between US ports be built, owned, and operated by U.S. citizens, or permanent residents. No LNG carriers comply with such requirements. This means that when New England imports LNG, they do so from foreign countries such as Trinidad and Topago, Qatar, and even Russia.
The irony of the situation is made even worse by the fact that the US is the top gas producer in the world, and New England is a short distance from the most prolific natural gas resource basin in the country in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia.
That NE burns oil and imports LNG from thousands of miles away instead of getting gas from the world’s most prolific natural gas fields only a hiking distance away is one of the biggest self-owns of the climate movement.
To top it off, it all results in higher prices for consumers and businesses. The pipeline bottlenecks cause massive disparities in regional natural gas prices, not to mention that New England now has to bid against Europe for marginal ships of LNG. The result is an electricity bill that is often double that of an average American household.
To summarize, the “success” of pipeline-blocking climate activists in New England has led directly to a less secure grid, an increase in avoidable pollution, and more expensive electricity. The fact that pipelines continue to be deemed “controversial” reflects the sad state of the public’s energy literacy.
It’s high time the good people of New England wake up and smell the roses fuel oil.
We’ve got plenty of pipeline capacity for “♡ Likes” 😉