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From WSJ ... New England Risks Winter Blackouts as Gas Supplies Tighten

woobagooba
woobagooba Member Posts: 186
edited October 2022 in Gas Heating
https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-england-risks-winter-blackouts-as-gas-supplies-tighten-11665999002

Blocked pipeline projects from Marcellus, blocked transmission line projects, renewables aren't ready to take the load, Jones Act, Ukraine conflict ... a lot of contributing factors.

Not sure if the gas fired boiler or heat pump is the way to go this winter.

Comments

  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,165
    Without worrying about the cause, this shouldn't surprise anyone. What your energy source is is also pretty much irrelevant. Have some extra fuel on hand (doesn't apply to natural gas; if that's cut off, so sorry). Have a generator with enough capacity and enough fuel (don't count on going to the local gas station for more).
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    WMno57BobZmuda
  • woobagooba
    woobagooba Member Posts: 186
    Preparedness for an unplanned outage is one thing (storm damage etc). Policies preventing transport of nat gas or electricity from a few 100 miles away is another kettle of fish.
  • WMno57
    WMno57 Member Posts: 1,249
    to add to the list of things to have on hand:
    • Starting Fluid
    • Jumper Cables
    • Battery Jump Pack
    • Vehicles with full gas tanks that are started bi-monthly
    • Start your generator bi-monthly
    • Printed instruction's on how to re-establish the magnetic field in the generator
    • Gas
    • Diesel
    • Propane (16 oz, 20 pounds, small plumber torch, weed burner torch)
    • Coleman Fuel, Lantern, Stove
    • Flashlights
    • Radios
    • Matches, Zippo, BBQ lighter, Bic
    • Food
    • Water
    • Lawyers, Guns, Money
    I DIY.
  • JakeCK
    JakeCK Member Posts: 1,356
    WMno57 said:
    to add to the list of things to have on hand:
    • Starting Fluid
    • Jumper Cables
    • Battery Jump Pack
    • Vehicles with full gas tanks that are started bi-monthly
    • Start your generator bi-monthly
    • Printed instruction's on how to re-establish the magnetic field in the generator
    • Gas
    • Diesel
    • Propane (16 oz, 20 pounds, small plumber torch, weed burner torch)
    • Coleman Fuel, Lantern, Stove
    • Flashlights
    • Radios
    • Matches, Zippo, BBQ lighter, Bic
    • Food
    • Water
    • Lawyers, Guns, Money
    What good is money going to do one in a shtf scenario? Toilet paper?
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,588
    edited October 2022
    JakeCK said:


    WMno57 said:

    to add to the list of things to have on hand:
    • Starting Fluid
    • Jumper Cables
    • Battery Jump Pack
    • Vehicles with full gas tanks that are started bi-monthly
    • Start your generator bi-monthly
    • Printed instruction's on how to re-establish the magnetic field in the generator
    • Gas
    • Diesel
    • Propane (16 oz, 20 pounds, small plumber torch, weed burner torch)
    • Coleman Fuel, Lantern, Stove
    • Flashlights
    • Radios
    • Matches, Zippo, BBQ lighter, Bic
    • Food
    • Water
    • Lawyers, Guns, Money


    What good is money going to do one in a shtf scenario? Toilet paper?

    Well.
    We all now know what @WMno57 has at his house.
    And apparently doesn't use toilet paper. :D
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
    EdTheHeaterMan
  • WMno57
    WMno57 Member Posts: 1,249
    At some point TP becomes a luxury, and long sleeve shirts get cut off to become short sleeve shirts.
    I DIY.
    EdTheHeaterManMaxMercy
  • BobZmuda
    BobZmuda Member Posts: 23
    JakeCK said:


    WMno57 said:

    to add to the list of things to have on hand:
    • Starting Fluid
    • Jumper Cables
    • Battery Jump Pack
    • Vehicles with full gas tanks that are started bi-monthly
    • Start your generator bi-monthly
    • Printed instruction's on how to re-establish the magnetic field in the generator
    • Gas
    • Diesel
    • Propane (16 oz, 20 pounds, small plumber torch, weed burner torch)
    • Coleman Fuel, Lantern, Stove
    • Flashlights
    • Radios
    • Matches, Zippo, BBQ lighter, Bic
    • Food
    • Water
    • Lawyers, Guns, Money

    What good is money going to do one in a shtf scenario? Toilet paper?

    According to this site each dollar bill you burn is worth 12.44 BTUs!

    https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating
  • EdTheHeaterMan
    EdTheHeaterMan Member Posts: 7,717
    edited October 2022
    BobZmuda said:


    According to this site each dollar bill you burn is worth 12.44 BTUs!

    https://coalpail.com/fuel-comparison-calculator-home-heating

    I that the same BTU rate for $100.00 bills? $803,858,520.90 per million BTUs

    Edward F Young. Retired HVAC ContractorSpecialized in Residential Oil Burner and Hydronics
  • Sal Santamaura
    Sal Santamaura Member Posts: 529
    edited October 2022

    ...blocked transmission line projects...

    For a number of years I contributed to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests' "Trees not Towers" campaign. It was successful; Northern Pass is dead. Why? Because of greed. Had Northern Pass LLC done the right thing and proposed burying the line over its entire route, neither I nor any other "greenies" would have had objections. In my opinion, all transmission lines throughout the country ought be buried. However, any impingement upon profits is unacceptable to developers of all stripes. Thus, southern New England will be unable to avail itself of Canadian hydropower, but New Hampshire will be spared the blight of even more massive towers.
    I cannot speak to the specifics of any other proposed transmission line projects, especially whether, unlike Northern Pass, they would provide at least some benefit to the northern New England states they're asking to go through.
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,165
    @Sal Santamaura -- you and I were and are very much on the same page on the Northern Pass project! Surprised? But for me it was only partly the transmission line. For me it was the source of the power -- HydroQuebed's "green" hydropower. Which they create by building big dams, flooding huge areas of wilderness north of the St. Lawrence -- and, not incidentally, forcing whole First Nations tribes off their lands and communities with no compensation or even opportunity to object.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • woobagooba
    woobagooba Member Posts: 186
    I've seen this play out now several times. Cape Wind. Northern Pass, Clean Energy Connect, Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct. RIP.

    Local renewables are not yet ready to take the load (mass scale storage is not yet viable).

    Electrification is being incentivized (EVs and heat pumps) w/o an adequate plan to supply the electrons.
  • pecmsg
    pecmsg Member Posts: 4,775
    I've seen this play out now several times. Cape Wind. Northern Pass, Clean Energy Connect, Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct. RIP. Local renewables are not yet ready to take the load (mass scale storage is not yet viable). Electrification is being incentivized (EVs and heat pumps) w/o an adequate plan to supply the electrons.
    Our government making decisions without thinking it out?

    NEVER!
  • yesimon
    yesimon Member Posts: 45
    woobagooba said:
    Not sure if the gas fired boiler or heat pump is the way to go this winter.
    https://twitter.com/javierblas/status/1582363859364347904



    Folks on heating oil 👀
  • Jersey2
    Jersey2 Member Posts: 166
    Maybe people in New England should convert to oil, and have a large capacity tank. Buy it in the summer and store it for use in the winter. That would eliminate the dependence on imported gas. I have to believe that oil prices will fall in a few years.
    I'm not a plumber or hvac man and my thoughts in comments are purely for conversation.
  • Hot_water_fan
    Hot_water_fan Member Posts: 1,823
    Electrification is being incentivized (EVs and heat pumps) w/o an adequate plan to supply the electrons.
    More efficient to burn gas off site for a heat pump than on-site regardless. 
    WMno57
  • ChrisJ
    ChrisJ Member Posts: 15,588
    Jersey2 said:
    Maybe people in New England should convert to oil, and have a large capacity tank. Buy it in the summer and store it for use in the winter. That would eliminate the dependence on imported gas. I have to believe that oil prices will fall in a few years.
    Space does have value to most people and I'm sure storing oil does come with it's own set of issues.
    Single pipe quasi-vapor system. Typical operating pressure 0.14 - 0.43 oz. EcoSteam ES-20 Advanced Control for Residential Steam boilers. Rectorseal Steamaster water treatment
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 23,165
    New England is not a homogeneous place of elegant subdivisions and the Boston/New York corridor or places like the Burlington/Bennington corridor in Vermont. A goodly chunk of the territory by area -- not by population -- is very rural.

    Natural gas is not an option in those area, which cover at a guess at least 3/4 of the area -- and perhaps, also at a guess, a tenth of the population.

    For those areas, though, the choices are oil, LP, and electricity. Oil and LP are within a few percent of each other, priced per BTU. Electricity is still more expensive unless the heat pump COP is at least 3..

    For the storage question on oil, most reliable dealers offer a "prebuy" option during the summer months. This gets around the storage problem for the homeowner or business.
    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
  • Sal Santamaura
    Sal Santamaura Member Posts: 529

    @Sal Santamaura -- you and I were and are very much on the same page on the Northern Pass project! Surprised? But for me it was only partly the transmission line. For me it was the source of the power -- HydroQuebed's "green" hydropower. Which they create by building big dams, flooding huge areas of wilderness north of the St. Lawrence -- and, not incidentally, forcing whole First Nations tribes off their lands and communities with no compensation or even opportunity to object.

    I understand your objections. I've long felt that the singular root cause of this planet's substantial problems is massive human overpopulation. In light of the fact that there is no will whatsoever to stop, much less reverse, that population growth, I accept the inevitable negatives of projects like Northern Pass as long as they're (in my opinion) more than balanced by benefits. In this case, they didn't come close.