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Report: Significant Generation Losses Possible

Politico covered the recent release of CEA’s Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure report.

The Consumer Energy Alliance will release a report Monday finding the U.S. could lose nearly one-third of its electricity generation capacity by 2030 if it continues to reject new pipeline infrastructure and more baseload generation goes offline prematurely. Per an advanced copy glimpsed by ME, the report finds projected generation losses would eliminate 1,450 gigawatts nationally.

Read more – Politico

Denying Pipeline Expansion Will Jeopardize U.S. Energy Security: Report

CEA’s latest report, Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure, and David Holt were featured in Green Tech Lead.

Rejecting pipeline infrastructure would remove almost one-third of U.S. electricity generation capacity by 2030, dangerously raising electric rates nationwide, says a new report from Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA). Denying pipeline expansion will largely affect poverty-stricken households, the report said.

Read more – Green Tech Lead

CEA Report Shows Importance of Natural Gas Infrastructure Development

CEA’s latest report Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure was covered by Targeted News Service

The Natural Gas Supply Association issued the following statement by President and CEO Dena E. Wiggins on the Consumer Energy Alliance’s report, “Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure”: “CEA’s report does an outstanding job of quantifying the harmful consequences that would befall American households if the U.S. pipeline network is not allowed to expand.

Read more – Targeted News Service

Consumer Energy Alliance Report Details Consequences of Denying Pipeline Projects

CEA President David Holt discussed the importance of energy infrastructure with the Daily Energy Insider.

“There’s really very little recognition of the negative impacts failing to build pipelines will have on the country,” CEA President David Holt told Daily Energy Insider. “Our study shows those negative impacts, and those negative impacts will be felt the hardest by folks that are at or near the poverty level and those small businesses that can not afford to pay $2,000 a month more for electricity prices

Read more – Daily Energy Insider

Pipeline Buildout a Must-have for Agriculture

Tractor mowing green field

America’s farmers depend on affordable, reliable energy to plant, harvest, and prepare their crops to transport to market.  The pipelines our nation relies on helps reduce the cost of energy for these farmers so they can continue to focus on feeding America.

Once struggling in an increasingly globalized economy, many American agricultural communities have been revitalized in recent years by the fast-growing development of natural gas and the expansion of its accompanying pipeline infrastructure. Farmers near the Marcellus and Utica shales, for example, have benefited from leasing land for energy production, which has allowed them to reinvest in their farms and communities by buying new equipment, expanding their businesses and boosting their local economy.

In Colorado, many farmers have benefited from the oil and natural gas development in the Denver-Julesburg basin in the northeast part of the state. From the expansion of royalty payments and pipeline easements to the local availability of oil and natural gas, farmers and ranchers in Weld county have benefited from robust energy development.

Read more – High Plains Journal

Getting Real About Natural Gas in Massachusetts

Northeast Snow Storm

Increasingly dependent on natural gas, the political constraints politicians across Massachusetts have placed on pipeline development only serve to make energy less affordable and the integration of more renewable power generation less reliable.

Natural gas has been a resounding environmental success story for Massachusetts that has delivered every benefit environmentalists predicted it would back in the 1990s. Continued access to reliable supplies of natural gas will be critical to fulfilling Massachusetts’ renewable energy revolution in the 2020s and well beyond.

Those are two realities we believe far too few residents of Massachusetts fully appreciate. Amid resistance to pipeline expansion-and to upgrades of almost any energy infrastructure-what’s overlooked are the reasons why safe, robust, and expanded access to natural gas will remain critical to sustaining all the environmental benefits Massachusetts has won already, and to the “green energy” transformation to come. How can that be? Because only gas can deliver the full-scale reliability we need to backstop our growing reliance on wind and solar power to produce electricity.

Read more – Lowell Sun

Report: U.S. Will Lose One-Third of its Electricity Generation Capacity Without More Infrastructure

Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure

A new report released today by Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) found that rejecting pipeline infrastructure would remove almost one-third of U.S. electricity generation capacity by 2030, dangerously raising electric rates nationwide, especially for poverty-stricken households.

The report, titled “Families, Communities and Finances: The Consequences of Denying Critical Pipeline Infrastructure,” found that by 2030, 31 percent of U.S. electricity generation capacity would be removed should the rejection of pipeline infrastructure projects continue at its current pace and if baseload generation options go offline unnecessarily. This would threaten the delivery of vital oil and natural gas feedstock to power generation facilities and sacrifice the reliability of the electric grid. Because natural gas is increasingly used to create electricity, pipeline expansion is more critical than ever. Without more pipelines, natural gas – as well as oil for fuel and power – will not get to market.

The losses from this rejected infrastructure would equal the power generation of a dozen states (or 1,450.25 gigawatts). Since one gigawatt powers roughly 750,000 homes, that’s equal to the power generation needs of California, Florida, New York, Texas, Ohio and all of New England combined.

This projected shortfall would create more economic hardship via skyrocketing electric rates for industrial, commercial and residential users, particularly the 43 million people living on a fixed income or below the poverty line who lean on daily access to affordable energy supplies. Denying pipeline expansion will further increase pressure on households facing energy poverty; approving projects will help relieve financial constraints by delivering resources more cost-effectively.
Furthermore, these scenarios would negatively impact jobs in manufacturing, energy, transportation, mining, agriculture and other industries, the report says. Corresponding impacts would include competitive disadvantages for U.S. businesses and a minimum loss of $15.38 billion in private capital expenditures and economic development.

Electricity, transportation and utility costs would also climb, the report says, as well as increase the cost of virtually every U.S.-made good and service. Fewer pipelines also decreases their statistically proven environmental benefits and jeopardizes U.S. national security and geopolitical influence, according to the assessment.

The report also revealed that the rejection of natural gas and oil pipeline infrastructure would endanger our nation’s energy security by abandoning more than 3.17 million barrels of oil per day – nearly the same amount the U.S. imported daily from OPEC and Russia, in 2015.

“Denying America the critical energy infrastructure it sorely needs, and prematurely shutting off baseload electricity generation starts an adverse domino effect that hurts America, its families, its small businesses and its agriculture, manufacturing and transportation sectors,” CEA President David Holt said. “It would derail the American energy revolution and increase our reliance on imports from foreign nations. Real energy security is not just the presence of abundant natural resources – it is also the ability to readily access and deliver those resources at an affordable price.”

The report also broke down its conclusions by regions:

  • The Northern Plains region stands to experience a 46 percent electricity shortfall. It would also lose out on the vast economic benefits of large crude pipelines.
  • The Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions would suffer a 44.8 percent electricity shortfall, missing out on 20 proposed pipeline projects that would help curtail shortfalls and alleviate bottlenecks.
  • The Southeast region – and its assortment of high energy-consuming states – would see a 29.2 percent electricity shortfall, even if wind and solar generation expand by a factor of 37 percent by 2030, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects.
  • The Southern Plains region, including Texas, would see electricity shortfalls of 23 and 13 percent, respectively, even with huge, projected increases in wind and solar energy development from federal estimates by EIA.
  • The New England region already experiences shortfalls on high-demand days and is projected to lose an additional 30 percent of its electric generation capacity by 2020. New England would experience an additional 9.5 percent shortfall on top its current energy deficits. This shortfall, per the report, would occur even if local renewable power capacity increased by 300 percent, as projected by the EIA. The result would be additional price increases for a region that already has the highest average electric rates in the contiguous U.S.

The report is part of CEA’s “Pipelines for America” campaign, which focuses on educating families, businesses and political leaders about the economic and environmental benefits of pipeline infrastructure. The report examined the effects on supply by 2030 from either the failure to permit and construct new pipelines or the inability to obtain necessary permits to approve and maintain natural gas and other fossil fuel-fire electricity generation power, comparing its findings with supply and demand data from the EIA.

To read the full report, click here.

Study: Pipelines Needed To Keep Lights On

CEA’s David Holt was interviewed on the necessity of pipeline construction for generating electricity for families and manufacturers.

As natural gas continues replacing coal as a primary fuel for generating electricity, a new study claims federal regulators must approve billions of dollars’ worth of pipeline infrastructure to keep the lights on in one-third of the country. “Real energy security is not just the presence of abundant natural resources — it is also the ability to readily access and deliver those resources at an affordable price,” said Consumer Energy Alliance President David Holt, whose organization sponsored the study predicting that one-third of the country’s electricity capacity would fade to black by 2030 without the new pipelines.

Read more – The Intelligencer

Little Growth Sparked by 2015 Georgia Solar Power Law

Solar panel installation on roof

CEA’s solar energy report, Incentivizing Solar Energy: An In-Depth Analysis of U.S. Solar Incentives, was used to look at how Georgia’s current solar incentives compare to neighboring states.

Homeowners in Georgia can only expect to reap about half as much in tax credits or other incentives — $7,963 in Georgia vs. Gas x user reviews $16,000 on average in other states — for a typical residential roof-top system, according to a study released last month by Consumer Energy Alliance, which compared 15 states’ solar incentive programs.

Read more – Gas and Electricity

A Pipeline to Your Kitchen

Oil is a staple for most cooks, but not the kind you get from olives, avocados, or coconuts. Crude oil and natural gas also play a huge role in many kitchens across the country. Oil and gas we use for energy is also integral to the food we cook, the tools used to prepare our food, our storage containers, floors and counter-tops, as well as many other products in our kitchen that contain petroleum derivatives.

In kitchens across the country, natural gas or propane are commonly used for ovens and stoves to provide an instantaneous flame that is easy to control various heat levels that can save money – up to 30 percent – over that of electric heating elements. Many professional chefs and home cooks prefer to cook with gas over electric because of the advantages that the range provides.

Not only is natural gas an abundant natural resource that is widely used in large cities throughout the U.S., with nearly half of all U.S. households using natural gas for heating and other residential uses. One of the reasons that this option is so cheap is that it needs very little refinement from its raw form. Propane is also an efficient burning fuel refined from crude oil that is easily shipped and stored in areas that don’t have the infrastructure to deliver natural gas. Reliance on heating oil is primarily used in the Northeast, where 22 percent of households use propane to heat their homes.

While stoves are the most obvious use of oil and natural gas, these energy sources permeate our kitchens in many other forms. From cookware to coffee pots and utensils to dish sponges, the kitchen is full of plastics that we use derived from oil and natural gas.

Feeling hungry, how about a snack? Plastic packages help keep our food fresh as it travels from where it was made, to the store, to our homes, and eventually into our hands as we take in the preserved product for nourishment. Items like yogurt cups, egg cartons, squeezable condiment bottles, and drink containers are all possible because of oil.

Even parts of many appliances are formed from plastics. When you make your coffee in the morning and grab the milk from the fridge or stir in your favorite creamer, you are probably touching something that was once oil. Oh and don’t forget to clean up after your meal! The various types of storage containers help to keep food fresh longer because of their air and liquid impermeability. Don’t forget to clean up the stove with the right cleaning fluids, toss the scraps in your trash bags, use the scrub brush on those plates, and sweep up with your broom – all of which contain some element of petroleum.

While most of us dream of luxury marbles and colored granite, many Americans who are budget minded or live in large multi-family apartments have installed vinyl flooring. This durable material is cheap to produce, relatively environmentally friendly, and, you guessed it, made possible through the use of petroleum. The moldable and easy to dye nature of plastics make it a versatile choice in such applications. Laminate counter tops are also made possible by plastics and offer a durable and easy to clean surface for a fraction of the cost of higher end materials.

The versatility of oil based products is amazing and has led to them playing a huge role in modern life. Not only does it get us to the store and back, it also simplifies much of our experience in the kitchen. Many of the products we have discussed today can also be recycled or reused so this makes them an environmentally friendly option when disposed of properly. If used responsibly, petroleum products make life better and can continue to do so for years to come.

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