Donald Roessler
Washington County, Pa. Landowner and Gas Lease Holder
If you live in New England or the Mid-Atlantic regions or anywhere else cold weather, blizzards or hurricanes are realities, natural gas can be a lifesaver.
After seeing the anti-frackers from Massachusetts opposition to Kinder Morgan’s Tennessee Gas Pipeline I would like to point out some of benefits of having this supply of natural gas in the event of a hurricane or blizzard, which could be lifesaving.
First, natural gas is used for far more than just power generation. It is also used for cooking, heating, and backup generators. Let’s say you do have a power outage because of natural forces such as hurricanes or blizzards, if you have a natural gas supply to your house you can still cook, heat, and produce power with it.
Northeast Blizzard, 1978, Maple Street, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, One Week After Storm
If you already have a gas stove you can cook with it when the power is out as long as there was no disruption to your service due to power outage. Also, how many of you who oppose this pipeline cook with a natural gas grill? In the event of a power outage you can still cook on your grill. It is a good idea to have a supply of propane on hand if you use an LPG grill in the event of a disaster.
Next, natural gas can supply your heat in the event of a power outage even if your NG furnace requires power. People install decorative NG fireplaces and stoves in their home that provide heat without power. They also are available in LPG models in case you don’t have an NG supply. And again if use LPG make sure you have a supply of it in case of a disaster.
And, finally backup power can be generated at the home level with the use of a natural gas powered generator. Again, these can be powered by your home supply of NG or LPG. Hospitals and grocery stores also can generate backup power with it and many already do.
The anti-fracking argument seems to be they don’t want it because it is “fracked gas.” This is laughable because the gas that they might import from other countries could also be “fracked” and is increasingly likely to be so.
Their solution is renewable energy, solar or wind, of course, but they dismiss some facts about these renewables. If you do have a hurricane or blizzard this means cloud cover and high winds. Guess what? Solar energy doesn’t produce electricity when there is cloud cover and wind turbines have to be shut down in high winds because they will explode if they over speed.
And, not only that, there isn’t enough renewable energy in place anywhere to power all of such demands right now. It would take decades to build enough such capacity, whereas pipelines can be constructed quickly and, where the infrastructure exists it can continue to supply energy needs or be put back in service quickly in the event of disasters, as the New York metro region learned during Hurricane Sandy. Check out this example:
Natural gas, in fact is the ideal energy source for sustaining an urban population during periods of emergency, something our opposition friends from Massachusetts ought to think about before protesting the next pipeline.
Donald love this entry pointing out what is obvious to those of us knowing of NG benefits. Governor Christie of New Jersey was to bring in a policy of equipping state buildings with NG powered Combined Heat and Power over time. The gov probably got the idea from seeing some buildings in NYC lit at night while Sandy knocked out huge swathes of Manhattan for light and power. Here is a video of a system named Capstone Micro turbine which I generally favor as the most environmentally friendly system out there.
This is the masonic village in Elizabethtown, Pennsyvania. Maybe near you.
I am out picking up branches from Hurricane Arthur in Nova Scotia and about 30 miles away from me is “frackivist central.” The power was restored here early yesterday afternoon in my town of New Glasgow. The River John frackivist town is probably still in the dark. Systems like the GE Jenbacher, Capstone Microturbine, could have that village base load independent and not vulnerable to 30 miles of power lines going down if these people only knew the advantages. Myself, I am a mile away from a 310 mg Coal fired power plant. Another couple of miles away is a huge open pit coal mine. My community has suffered the health and environmental impacts for about two centuries. We have the cure under our feet if only for selfish granola eaters out in our countryside. I smile to think the frackivists can’t turn on the latte machines or the energy-hog Apple computers.
Love this comment, even though I’m an Apple user myself!
No real slap at Apple Tom . They are great machines . On the energy use side you use about twice as much energy of a Wintel Machine . I was a salesman for Green IT devices and know the numbers very well. Those who get sold on Apple solely by their green claims don’t realize this . Green for Computers also can mean other things
this post supports the assertion that the antis are idiots. NG is not only clean, but buried pipelines are reliable during severe storms. Be assured that the chickens will come home to roost.
It is likely that this will prove itself soon … When will they learn?
Richard with the pipes buried and no electricity running through them you don’t have electro magnetic fields like a High Voltage transmission system of thousands of volts . Cancers and other health problems are very well known. The other great thing with NG pipelines is that we are starting to see Hydrogen Storage pilot projects as a means to make the maximum out of Solar and Wind . With steel pipeline infrastructure you will, be seeing hydrogen energy transmitted without
One loss you have with High Tension electric lines