With all permits in hand, construction on Enbridge’s Weymouth gas compressor is set to begin tomorrow. This is the result of a rigged, heads-we-win-tails-you-lose process that has ignored near-unanimous community opposition, and the opposition of several members of Congress including both Senators. Instead, construction will begin on more climate-killing fossil fuel infrastructure that we absolutely cannot afford to use for a liveable climate; and which provides capacity that has been deemed unnecessary in Massachusetts by the very companies that would buy it.
As we’ve said at great length: This decision is a critical part of Governor Baker’s legacy – and indeed for our climate future, which is looking ever more precarious with every passing week and new report. We have very recent experience with the dangers of gas infrastructure, don’t we? And indeed, this year an Enbridge facility in Kentucky exploded, killing a woman and burning several more.
The early morning blast on Aug. 1 leveled numerous mobile homes near the Moreland community, killing 58-year-old Lisa Derringer.
Six people were hospitalized for burns and 75 were evacuated from their homes following the explosion, which ejected 30 feet of piping from the earth and left a 26,000-cubic-foot crater in the rural area about six miles south of Danville.
The Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station (FRRACS) are gathering pledges for non-violent action against the construction. BU Professor Nathan Phillips has been warning of the dangers of gas dependence for years. resisted the project from the beginning. He’s tested dangerously elevated gas levels in the region during a “blowdown”, a timed release of extra gas from a pipeline. He’s been arrested at the MassDEP offices, protesting the decision to permit the Weymouth compressor. And now he’s vowing a hunger strike and ongoing non-violent resistance. Everyone keep an eye on this story.
As we’ve said at great length: This decision is a critical part of Governor Baker’s legacy – and indeed for our climate future, which is looking ever more precarious with every passing week and new report:
Today in the journal Nature, a group of researchers argues that we’re closer to tipping nine climate demons than previously believed, and that we’re already starting to see some associated effects. “We argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best,” they write. “Hence we might already have lost control of whether tipping happens.”
We can still, however, act to lessen the damage. The bet we have to make is clearer than ever, but time is running out. “How are we going to look back in half a century’s time and regret the fact that we’ve built a more sustainable, flourishing future for many more generations to come?” asks lead author Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter. “Instead of just hanging in there with finite reserves of fossil fuels, and sort of embracing the apocalypse.”
I always have said, the bill for bad judgment comes due eventually. May it not be our children that have to pay.
Can you help me out here? I understand both the local (not here!) and general (no more fossil fuels!) opposition to something like this, I’ve heard the arguments that this expansion is not necessary, and is being proposed primarily so that the natural gas can be liquefied and sold to Europe – though I haven’t yet been convinced that this isn’t just a specious argument.
However I can’t see past the idea that this opposition (as well as things like the Brookline ban on new construction/gut rehab construction to use fossil fuels) seems to be a “pull the ladder up behind you” situation.
Natural gas is an important heating fuel in Massachusetts. It currently heats 50.3% of the homes, and I’d venture to say that most new construction uses it (though that’s just a gut feeling). It is also a bit unique in that the infrastructure to support things “down the pipe” is usually built in areas which are already fully served.
I understand the urgency of climate change and our need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But how does imposing restrictions on “newcomers” foster justice? How is saying “No new natural gas” (or fossil fuel) a reasonable position when the people saying it are likely heating with fossil fuels?
I’ll. take a swing at that.
We have to start someplace. I’m reasonably certain that any attempt to address our contribution to climate change will impact some constituency.
It seems to me that restricting new construction and expansion of the existing fossil fuel infrastructure is less painful than penalizing already-existing users. Is it reasonable to penalize people — especially seniors — who already depend on gas?
Like gasoline consumption, these scenarios have a self-perpetuating catch-22 loop. Clean alternatives to fossil fuel (like clean electric energy) can not become cost-competitive with fossil fuel without external intervention to either increase the cost of fossil fuel or subsidize the clean energy. So long as gas is substantially more affordable than electricity (while externalizing climate impacts, of course), then consumers will continue to choose gas. That creates demand for ill-advised projects like this and suppresses demand for clean electricity.
If we do nothing, this unsustainable cycle will be broken through catastrophic and unplanned extreme weather events and climate changes. In order to avoid that catastrophe, we must break the cycle somewhere.
Decades ago, China chose to address this by investing massive government subsidies in clean electricity. America continued to expand fossil fuel production and infrastructure during that same period.
Where do you suggest we break the cycle if not in new construction?
How is it not a no-brainer to transfer current fossil fuel subsidies to cleaner alternatives? We should be aggressively building wind and solar farms. Energy companies don’t even necessarily have to suffer financially. They can transition to cleaner production themselves in which I am confident there is plenty of money to be made. I’ve also long thought that all new construction – residential, commercial, and public – should be fitted with their own solar panels. That needs to be just as routine as hooking up to electrical wires currently is.
@ How is it not a no-brainer to transfer current fossil fuel subsidies?:
Because we aren’t willing to admit the subsidies exist. We call them by different names and fund them in ways that obscure rather than reveal their true nature.
For example, the prior administration was proud to “support” (which always includes direct and indirect federal subsidies) fracking. Surely you remember the chest-thumping about restoring America’s place in the leadership of fossil-fuel exporting nations, and how all this new natural gas is creating a manufacturing boom, causing factories to relocate to the US from overseas because the energy costs are so much lower, and so on.
For that matter, a significant portion of the multi-trillion dollar federal budget is to preserve affordable and reliable access to fossil fuel energy at home and abroad.
I agree with you, of course, about what we need to be doing.
We can and should be at least as much a leader in the cleaner sources as we put so much effort into being regarding fossil fuels. That too would restore our standing, cost less, and create jobs.
You are mandating higher costs onto someone else while being able to escape those same costs yourself. I suppose that makes it a no-brainer if you can get something for nothing because someone else is paying for it. It just sucks to be that other person.
I reject your premise of higher costs, especially if we subsidize them.
I stated this below, but natural gas costs $14.02/mmBTU, electricity costs $34.32/mmBTU. That is twice as expensive, so that is “higher costs”.
Additionally, if you’re going by the Brookline plan, if you renovate your house, you must remove your working existing fossil fuel heating system and install electric heat. Isn’t that a higher cost?
So in that case, your renovation costs more, and afterward you incur higher operating costs.
I appreciate that we need to start somewhere; however, this is really political expediency at its finest – voters putting the burden on “those people”, not on “us people”. The cost of social benefits should be borne by everyone, not “them”.
If we have a goal of converting housing heat to electricity, then I suggest that we raise our taxes and provide financial incentives for anyone who wants to do this. My guess, though, is that not many will want to, because right now, electric heat is more than twice as expensive to operate as gas ($34.32/100k BTU vs. $14.02/100k BTU for gas).
If you want to get really progressive, then put a tax on fossil fuels to fund the conversion. That will equalize things a bit, and make fossil fuels a less attractive option.
What seems to be happening here is a large dose of NIMBY and anti-development partnering with people who are concerned with greenhouse gas emissions. I find it particular egregious for people to be activists on this issue, but still use fossil fuels while denying others the opportunity to do so. That’s a bit like baby boomers arguing to eliminate Social Security for young people so that it can last longer for them.
I agree that a tax on fossil fuels to make them competitive with electric heat is an interesting alternative. I think such a tax would have to include rebates of some sort to ease the transition. This discussion has ignored renters so far. I think any approach that forces energy to be more expensive — at least during a transition period — has to somehow soften the blow. This is especially true for those who can least afford these increases — renters, especially low-income renters, seniors, and low-income property owners.
Doesn’t all this start to sound a lot like a carbon tax?
You seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder about this. When I suggested solar and wind farms I did not say “except near me”.
@ chip on shoulder:
nopolitician is making a perfectly valid point, though.
My wife and I replaced both gas boilers in our two-family within the past 5 years, the last happening this fall. We also added heat pumps two years ago that we use for AC.
Although the heat pump is able to heat, it is MUCH MORE expensive to operate than a conventional radiant heater — as in about 50% more expensive. That, in turn, is much more expensive than our high-efficiency condensing boilers.
The only way we could replace our gas boilers with electric counterparts is by filling our roof with solar panels. I’m not sure that would generate enough power for us to end up ahead. We’d also be exquisitely sensitive to the vagaries of government subsidies of solar power. My impression is that those have been incredibly volatile over the past decade.
I don’t think this issue will succumb to easy or bumper-sticker solutions.
Well, first off: National Grid and Eversource say they don’t need the compressor station. The gas is going to Canada => Europe.
2: Electrification is indeed a major front for clean energy. You can green the grid but you can’t green a pipeline. I am personally in the process of taking out gas-burning appliances, one by one. It’s expensive as retrofit but affordable new. Heat pumps are real, efficient, and viable year-round.
3. In any event we haven’t maxed out efficiency by any stretch of the imagination. I am told that standards in, say, Germany, are so much higher than here. And it’s ingrained cultural habits as much as anything — living generations who lived through the postwar era, eg.
4. Considering how much gas is leaked from old pipes — let’s plug those holes before we ask for more.
How they are still considering this after the tragedies in Lawrence and Andover is beyond me. I’m still baffled what Baker gains beyond campaign contributions (which he also doesn’t really need). Local Republicans oppose the project and he is really throwing them under the bus and making them vulnerable to Democratic challengers. I did work in 2016 on a state rep race and the UIP town committee in this community and it’s the only issue they cared about. Truly tripartisan opposition (ue, R, and D) across the board.
The local support is bipartisan because the very nature of natural gas means that the people in Weymouth don’t need this compressor station – their gas needs are being served by a compressor station in another community downstream. That is why these kinds of project are not subject to local control – they are subject to federal control.
That is why I find this to be egregious behavior – classic “I’ve got mine, jack”. If Weymouth wants to stop this project, then the just thing for them to do would be for the supporters to disconnect from the gas grid so that others can hook up into it. Instead, they’re just blocking others from having what they have.
@ disconnect from the grid:
I don’t think it’s that easy.
The natural gas infrastructure that we’re talking about includes pipelines that are thousands of miles long — for example from Houston to New England.
I share your feeling that federal regulation is needed. The politics of this seem similar to those involving opening or closing a military base. The needs and costs are national, and in a reasonably-functioning government are evaluated and balanced in a rational way.
We don’t have a reasonably-functioning government.
As frustrating and imperfect as NIMBY responses are, they are pretty much the only option available given the miscreants setting national energy policy.
I see it as an unholy alliance between environmentalists, NIMBYists, and people who are prone to fear-mongering (notice how this post is all about the “boom”?) that is “making progress” in an unjust way by harming some people (the latecomers). Moving away from fossil fuels should be done, but this tactic is just wrong.
LNG is a geopolitical tool. Trump has been trying to bully Germany into dropping the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would transport Russian gas to Germany. The fear is that dependence on Russian gas would give Russia political leverage over Germany and the EU. We avoid this by replacing Russian supply with more expensive US LNG.
So we will ultimately be fracking more and building more gas infrastructure to give us sway over Europe. If Germany chooses to go forward with Nord Stream 2 (which seems likely at this point), there will always be some other country for the US to lean on… because making countries dependent on overpriced US gas is apparently considered a serious strategy for enhancing US power abroad.
Fracking was supposed to be about achieving US energy independence, not fulfilling the power fantasies of the US political establishment.
Fracking, like everything else about petroleum, was and is about just one thing — enriching the handful of executives and directors of the companies that benefit from it.
All the happy-talk about energy independence, jobs, and political influence — whether from Barack Obama or Donald Trump, Democrats or Republicans — is just a smokescreen.
Only one fundamental principle is needed to understand fracking, geopolitics, US politics, or US energy policy — follow the money.
We’ve got this World’s Sole Superpower just lying around…. someone may as well make money off it. That;s where our strategic thinking is right now.