Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

A blunt-speaking FERC Commissioner from Pennsylvania called out New Englanders for political correctness on energy and its price.

The RTO Insider recently posted a fascinating article where a FERC Commissioner from Pennsylvania told New England to knock it off and stop importing Russian Gas. FERC Commissioner Robert Powelson told them to get over their “aversion to new energy infrastructure” and build pipelines to deliver domestic produced natural gas.

New England has some of the highest energy costs in the United States and there is a very simple solution to help solve this problem and get them away from buying expensive Russian gas. With Pennsylvania only 200 miles away, the solution seems obvious, build the infrastructure needed to deliver their relief; affordable Pennsylvania natural gas. Here are some excerpts from the RTO Insider piece:

FERC Commissioner Robert Powelson said last week that New England needs to overcome its aversion to new energy infrastructure to avoid natural gas shortages in the winter.

“You all burned 2 million barrels of oil during this recent bomb cyclone,” Powelson said at Raab Associates’ 157th New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable on Friday. “We didn’t do that in Pennsylvania; we burned a lot of natural gas, we ran economic nuclear plants and we integrated renewables with close to 1,400 MW of wind capacity.”

…“Here you are today, with 15 million customers in the New England market during these weather events paying some of the highest gas [and electricity] costs in the country,” Powelson said. “My good friend here [van Welie] will say, ‘Well that was the least-cost resource.’ Well so much for your [greenhouse gas] requirements that you’ve set forth as state regulators.”

…Despite his praise of some aspects of the New England wholesale electricity market, Powelson joked, “Gordon, I might have you come down to PJM, do a little 12-step program.”

…“We’re seeing this tectonic shift in our baseload resources of accelerated retirements of coal and nuclear plants,” he said. “Last time I checked, we’re not building coal plants in New England — is that correct? By the way, I live in Pennsylvania, and we’re not building a lot of coal plants in Pennsylvania; in fact, I don’t think we’re building any…

Powelson continued a theme he had taken up earlier in the week at the American Council on Renewable Energy’s (ACORE) Renewable Energy Policy Forum in D.C., where he said that ISO-NE’s Operational Fuel Security Analysis report issued in January was “like a horror story.” The study found the region will face energy shortfalls because of inadequate natural gas supplies in almost every fuel-mix scenario by winter 2024/2025…

“Fifteen million customers in [New England] paid the highest gas-basis costs in the country and they were less than 200 miles from the Leidy gas hub in Pennsylvania in a $2.34/MMBtu trading market,” he continued. “I recognize it’s probably going to be hard to get 30-inch pipe into New England, but in lieu of that, we’ve got to solve this problem… This is all going to be a failed experiment if we have reliability issues in the New England states.”

Massachusetts Sierra Club Director and Newton City Councilor Emily Norton challenged Powelson at the Boston conference, saying she was “surprised and disturbed” at his “lack of attention to the full costs” inherent in choosing fracked gas, such as the water pollution in Pennsylvania.

“To that customer or to your constituent, I think they should have peace of mind that they’re going to have safe, affordable and sustainable energy to their homes,” Powelson said. “A lot of people in Pennsylvania are switching fuel from oil to natural gas. Not everybody can afford a rooftop solar installation on their house, or a battery storage behind that, or for that matter, a propane or natural gas-fueled Generac or Cummings generator.”

If New Englanders won’t change their minds about natural gas pipelines, they are going to be in for many more expensive winter heating bills and become ever more dependent on Russian LNG, which is nothing less than abominable.