Wednesday, February 21, 2018

NatGas choked

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

One of the principles of responsible environmentalism is to use local products. (Example: people who commit to eating only local food are called "locavores.") If you transport food or anything else from far away, when it's available nearby, then there's unnecessary use of energy which makes for a bigger "CO2 footprint" - not to mention bigger expense. 

photo: pressherald.com

So, does this make sense? "To save New England(U.S.) from freezing in the dark this winter, a shipment of high-priced liquefied natural gas, or LNG, had to be imported . ." The shipment came from a location over four thousand miles away . . to the biggest natural gas producer in the world (the U.S.) . . and natgas comes out of the ground just 300 miles away in PA.

This goofy situation seems to be the product of local politics and regulations. "This is what happens when you don’t build your own natural gas pipelines, which are the safest and most economical way to transport energy." People literally pay the price for this situation in shortages and high prices.

Boston Globe editors say, "Massachusetts’ reliance on imported gas . . is a severe indictment of the state’s inward-looking environmental and climate policies. Public officials have leaned heavily on righteous-sounding stands against local fossil fuel projects, with scant consideration of the global impacts of their actions . ."

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