Christmas Future could be deadly.
I just got a photo of my Sister-in-Law, who lives outside Boston, playing in the snow with her trusted companion. It looks idyllic and brings back warm memories of my childhood. Unfortunately, the word warm might not apply in the future. You see, New England could be in for very rough winters in the future and people could be seriously cold and possibly in life threatening circumstances.
New England still relies on fossil fuel to heat its homes during the winter. Heating is from either electricity (heat pumps) oil, or natural gas. The combination of incentives and a cultural commitment to combat climate change is causing a rapid adoption of heat pumps. This is great from an energy efficiency standpoint, but it doesn’t eliminate the underlying need for fossil fuels to keep warm.
Boston and much of New England relies on the Everett LNG terminal to manage keeping warm during the worst of winter. “The Terminal has 3.4 Bcf of LNG storage capacity and has been the “pressure valve” for New England, supplying natural gas when regional systems can’t handle demand. But it is soon not to be. The terminal is slated to close by the end of May 2024.
Unfortunately, the situation gets worse. New York won’t allow drilling, Massachusetts won’t allow pipelines and the northern New England states blocked a proposed transmission line to bring hydropower into the region from Canada. For a population committed to combating climate change, it certainly appears that they are hoping global warming will help keep them warm in winter.
Ending with a quote from the article: “A possible loss of the Everett Marine LNG terminal can jeopardize the reliability of New England’s energy supply during extreme cold weather, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corp (NERC) said on Monday.”