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McAuliffe Doubles Down on Pipeline Support, Hints at Economic Prospects

CNC machine shop with lathes, technicians and workers

New pipelines bring not just construction jobs, but the prospect of new economic opportunities as businesses relocate or expand to access affordable, reliable supplies of natural gas investing in communities for generations.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe is doubling down on his support of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline with hints that a number of major economic development projects — one of them “gigantic” — may choose to build in Virginia because of the prospect of a new supply of low-cost natural gas that the 600-mile pipeline would deliver from West Virginia.

Read more – Richmond Times-Dispatch

Why CT Needs Expanded Gas Pipelines

Bricklayers are building as a team

Brad Belden discusses operations at the Redland Brick KF plant in South Windsor which his family runs, and how energy costs compared to their other facilities are exponentially higher due to infrastructure constraints.

Right now, the KF plant pays 70 percent more for natural gas than its counterparts in areas with more pipeline capacity, like Ohio. That figures balloons to two and a half times more when other expenses, including transportation costs and additional charges, are factored in — a steep price tag for a business still recovering from lower demand triggered by the last recession.

Read more – Hartford Courant

Energy Infrastructure Is Vital but How to Pay for It?

Worker at construction site with rebar

A recent forum in Youngstown brought together Democrat and Republican elected officials with labor and business to discuss the importance of energy infrastructure like pipelines and the investment Ohio has seen as a result of increased energy production.

The association estimates that national demand for natural gas will increase 40% over the next decade, but getting that energy from where it’s produced and developed to those end users is going to require existing infrastructure to be upgraded and expanded and new infrastructure to be built. That means not just pipelines and other energy infrastructure but improvements in transportation infrastructure over land and water – highways, bridges, railways, waterways, ports and airports.

Read more – The Business Journal

Marcellus Shale Gas Pipelines Deliver Lower Energy Prices

Household Furnace Repair

Pennsylvania is now one of the largest natural gas producing states in the country.  As production continues to increase, pipelines are being built to deliver lower cost energy to families and businesses.

Pennsylvania’s economy — its families and businesses — have benefited greatly from the state’s natural gas revolution. However, the often unmentioned and unseen (yes, underground) link between natural gas production and energy costs savings are pipelines.

Simply put, pipelines deliver savings.

Read more – The Morning Call

Rational, Balanced Energy Policy Needed in Upstate New York to Protect Families and Small Businesses

Rochester New York

A new study issued by the Brattle Group sheds some light on the New York Public Service Commission’s (PSC) Clean Energy Standard and suggests that not all policy approaches under consideration to replace the output of Upstate New York nuclear plants would fully protect families and small business from unintended price increases.

While Consumer Energy Alliance strongly support an “all of the above approach” to meeting our energy needs – including the continued expanded use of wind, solar and nuclear energy – the Brattle study found that the rapid replacement of output from these nuclear plants with a 100 percent renewable energy standard would cost consumers – at a minimum – $12 billion more than the “Zero-Emission Credit” plan approved by the commission. In August 2016, the New York PSC passed a clean energy standard that would require the state to generate half of its electricity from zero-carbon emitting resources.

“The findings of this study underscores Consumer Energy Alliance’s (CEA) position that we need a rational, balanced energy policy that includes every resource we have. Maintaining and building new zero-emissions nuclear power plants, while we continue to expand our oil and natural gas portfolio, increase our use of renewables and strive for even more conservation and efficiency, represent prudent, consumer-friendly approaches to meeting our future increases in energy demand – especially as our economy begins to grow again,” said CEA Vice President of State Affairs Brydon Ross. “If it were even physically possible to replace our entire current electricity portfolio with renewables, the cost to do so would be enormous and have major implications on grid reliability. It would also likely harm the prospects for increasing renewables over the long term. Renewables expansion must be done in a thoughtful and realistic fashion. Nuclear power provides 63 percent of the carbon-free power across the country. Environmentalists, conservationists, and activists alike should support this resource rather than prematurely forcing policies that will unnecessarily increase cost for families.”

To read the study, please click here.

How Natural Gas and Renewables Work Hand in Hand

Electric generation is the most fundamental concern for most environmentalists. Generally they encourage renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power. While these sources are good for the environment, they suffer from limited availability and storage problems, which means that they can’t provide for all of the world’s energy needs or be the sole source of energy for the United States’ $17 trillion economy. There is a fuel that can fill the gaps to provide affordability and reliability and that is natural gas, which makes for a very effective fuel to assist these growing renewable resources.

Availability

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, about 10 percent of America’s energy came from renewable sources during 2015. Building new and expanding additional electric generation infrastructure takes a very long time, so it will be years before the United States can derive a majority of its energy from renewable sources. And while some developed nations get more of their energy from those sources, most of them are in a similar position as the U.S. That means that the world, and developing nations will need to choose another fuel source to make it through the coming years.

Natural gas is cheap, abundant, and easy to produce, which makes it the natural choice to be a leading fuel source. The low price means that people are willing to choose it over other fossil fuels without regulatory pressure. Extracting natural gas is also safer and with new revolutionary technology, it can be extracted from the ground with less environmental damage. No method of energy development comes without a cost. Especially as ‘clean’ technologies rely on various forms of carbon derivatives, but natural gas production comes with fewer environmental costs than other fossil fuels.

Emissions

Renewable energy sources are advantageous because they have few, if any, emissions. Nuclear power has minimal emissions, but concerns about waste disposal, cost, and accidents rule it out as an option is many parts of the world. For conventional resources, some pollution happens when fuels are extracted, but most of the concerns for the environment comes from the emissions when they are burned – although rigorous standards have been created and implemented by various government agencies working in conjunction with producers.

Other energy sources have more emissions, but they aren’t created equal. Natural gas offers significantly fewer emissions of CO2 and most other air pollutants than other fossil fuels per unit of energy. It isn’t as clean as the sources of renewable energy, but it’s the cleanest option available in the many situations where renewable resources, small and utility scale, are not available.

Storage

The greatest practical problem with renewable energy is that it tends to be unreliable. Solar cells stop working at night, and their efficiency drops when the sky is too cloudy. Wind turbines only function when the wind is blowing at the right speed and, moreover, many installations are located far from where there is generation demand. The reliable sources of renewable energy, such as geothermal generation, tend to be limited to specific areas. Mixing several renewable sources together can cover most of those gaps, but it can still fall short. That means that most societies that rely on renewable energy need massive storage facilities, which are very expensive, or a backup fuel source to accommodate intermittency and fuel source availability.

The backup source should be cheap, since it won’t always be in use, and it needs to be easy to store until it is needed. That narrows the options down to fossil fuels, since nuclear power plants are too expensive to be installed purely as backups in most situations. Choosing the right fossil fuel for the job comes down to cleanliness and price, which favors natural gas.

Solving Energy and Environmental Issues With Rational Energy Policy

Oil field workers in front of oil derrick

CEA’s Andrew Browning discusses the importance of energy and environmental policy to Colorado’s small businesses and farmers.

Susan Sarandon outside the U.S. District Court in Washington. Shailene Woodley and Rosario Dawson at Union Square in New York. Karenna Gore in Boston. They all have used their household names recently to protest pipelines, make headlines and back a “Keep It in the Ground” movement, regardless of any safety or regulatory stringency or its adverse impact on Americans who can’t afford higher energy bills. You know who isn’t making headlines? The 200-something breweries in Colorado which lean on energy to roast barley, power bottling equipment, and fuel delivery trucks, and the state’s 37,000 farmers who depend on local energy to manufacture fertilizer and fuel farming equipment and delivery trucks, the latter of which brings locally-grown, sustainable foods to table tops across the state.

Read more – Denver Business Journal

As Freezing Temps Approach, What Consumers Can Do to Keep Warm, Cut Costs

Smart thermostat for energy efficiency and conservation

CEA’s Emily Haggstrom appeared on Fox 31 to discuss how consumers can save money on energy bills this winter.

Read more – KDVR Fox 31 

Can New Tariff Models Help Massachusetts Solve the Rooftop Solar Compensation Puzzle?

Solar panel installation on roof

CEA’s James Voyles discusses solar incentives in New England with Utility Dive.

The current Massachusetts policy returns 185% of the installed cost of a 3.9 kW customer-owned facility and 182% of a 6-kW customer-owned facility, according to recent Consumer Energy Alliance (CEA) research. Using the same methodology, CEA reports in its filing that residential rooftop solar systems would receive “incentive rates in a range from 199% of the installed system costs, if the system receives both net energy metering and [Next Generation tariff] incentives, to 141% of the installed system costs, if the system only receives the NextGen incentives.”

Read more – Utility Dive

The Importance of a Home Energy Audit

Detecting heat loss at the house with infrared thermal camera

A home energy audit helps individual homeowners find out their residential consumption and energy flow. An audit is useful to determine areas of your home where there is energy loss and by identifying where power usage may be curbed to earn savings. The process involves conducting a walk-through or a visual inspection of your home, and utilizing testing equipment to identify problems and analyze energy flow.

An energy audit can be done either by you, you, or a professional energy auditor. Depending on the size of your home, a typical energy audit can be completed in an hour to several hours. If you’re unsure about investing in a professional energy auditor, there are tools online that can help you conduct your own assessment. While it may not be as thorough as a professional audit, it could provide you with a basic understanding of the process. This can include a “do-it-yourself assessment” where you inspect your home like a professional audit – looking at copies of monthly utility bills to determine spikes and dips in energy expenditures or potential issues with existing appliances and systems in your home.

On the other hand, a professional energy audit involves a thorough survey of the home using a variety of techniques and testing equipment. According to energystar.gov, the equipment includes blower doors for leak detection and other gadgets like infrared cameras to determine temperature fluctuations such as an unusual hot or cold spot in the home, which could indicate issues with the heating or cooling system.

For those who are unsure about getting an energy audit, a home with an enormous power bill may have issues with the insulation, heating, and cooling. These issues include indoor air leaks, heat loss, and ventilation problems. The process is not just applicable for older residential homes, newly-constructed homes could also have issues that may not be detectable through a simple visual assessment.

A professional home energy audit can help to pinpoint these issues and develop immediate solutions by inspecting your home and specifically looking at windows, doors, and other areas, as well as heating and cooling systems. By addressing these issues, it could potentially result to energy savings of 10 – 20 percent per year, according to energy.gov. Non-efficient appliances, gadgets, and lighting are other potential areas of energy loss that may be identified through an energy audit. Energy auditor can also look at a home’s existing appliances or lighting fixtures to check for energy efficiency compliance and suggests upgrades that can help you with additional savings.

There are few disadvantages to having a professional energy audit. It is important to note that auditing fees can add up as costs associated with multiple services often increase with added equipment and testing. To prepare for an audit, energy.gov suggests you create a list of observable problems, copies of monthly utility bills, and other required information. One of the objectives of an energy audit is to help you develop a plan to curb energy costs. Having the necessary information available to the auditor will help to facilitate this process.

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