Every winter the gas industry tries to scare us, claiming there isn’t enough gas during cold snaps to heat and power our homes. Their solution? More fracked gas and new, expensive gas pipelines. But we don’t have to buy into their propaganda. We have all the power we need without expensive new pipelines.
In 2015, energy giant Invenergy announced its plan to pave over a pristine forest in Burrillville, Rhode Island, to build a 1,000-megawatt fracked gas and diesel oil power plant. For the next four years, CLF and the town of Burrillville fought to keep the polluting behemoth from being built.
Winter snow and ice bring out Big Gas’s fearmongers. Why is the region’s electric grid operator among them?
Ever winter, as the cold rolls in and New Englanders turn up their heat, the gas industry starts calling for more pipelines. But if we want to avoid a climate catastrophe, we need to end fossil fuel use—including the use of fracked gas—by 2050 at the very latest.
Fracked gas was once considered part of a lower-carbon future. But this volatile, dangerous, and polluting fossil fuel now needs to be shown the door. Thankfully, as New England’s growing investment in cleaner energy ramps up, this transition is becoming easier. But standing in its way are the last gasps of the dirty fossil fuel industry. And they are not going quietly.
Just as families in Newport County prepared for a brutal winter night in late January, National Grid cut gas service to more than 7,000 customers, leaving homes and businesses in the cold. They called it a precaution and couldn’t say how it would last. Ultimately, the outage lasted a full week.
“Customers should absolutely not be straddled with higher bills because of the mistakes of utilities,” said Amy Moses, Vice President and Director of CLF Rhode Island. “But the report’s suggestion of reducing demand for gas simply doesn’t go far enough. We need to get off dirty fracked gas and focus on clean renewables, not expand infrastructure that only harms our air and destroys our climate.”
New Englanders don’t need this dirty fossil fuel.
UPDATE: It’s the one-year anniversary of the Merrimack Valley gas explosion, and communities are still recovering from the disaster. It’s a stark reminder that we need to prioritize the health and safety of our communities, which means getting off dirty gas. Our aging gas infrastructure is expensive, leaky, and dangerous. We have cleaner, safer alternatives like electric stoves and hot water heaters ready to go. It’s time to swap out polluting gas for clean energy that doesn’t run the risk of exploding.
“The Trump administration is determined to destroy our planet in an effort to prop up faltering oil and gas giants,” said Greg Cunningham, VP and Director of CLF’s Clean Energy and Climate Change program. “Methane is over 80 times more damaging to our climate than carbon dioxide, and any increase in this dangerous gas only brings us closer to climate catastrophe. These senseless rollbacks are nothing but a giveaway to the dying fossil fuel industry and they will put countless lives at risk.”
