Two days after the NY Department of Environmental Conservation denied the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline application, National Grid has issued a moratorium on providing natural gas service to new NY customers. National Grid follows an identical move by ConEd, which issued a similar moratorium earlier this year; both companies claim that the approval of pipeline projects are necessary to sustain natural gas service to the area. The NESE pipeline project developer, Williams Companies, has contemporaneously resubmitted its application, which will also require environmental permits from NJ. National Grid believes the pipeline project will be approved and operational by the end of
This month, the NJ Senate Environment and Energy Committee unanimously approved a bill that “requires all electricity in New Jersey by 2050 to come from carbon-free sources, presumably renewable energy and nuclear power.” Currently, natural gas supplies roughly 40% of the state’s electricity and heats about two-thirds of NJ homes. The bill’s proposed shift away from natural gas is intended to further the state’s clean energy goals and move towards reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Although environmentalists applaud the goal of the bill, they are critical of the absence of specific benchmarks for phasing out fossil fuels. https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/19/05/16/lawmakers-embrace-go
The NY Department of Environmental Conservation rejected the Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline, finding the project would “result in water quality violations and fails to meet New York State’s rigorous water quality standards[.]” The NESE pipeline, proposed by Williams Companies, would run 37 miles and connect natural gas fields in Pennsylvania to NY and NJ. Williams claimed the $1billion pipeline would curtail a purported foreseeable energy shortage and is allegedly critical to fulfilling the area’s energy needs. Environmentalists accuse Williams of “manufacturing a crisis to justify a project that would rip apart fragile ecosystems, handcuff New York to fossil fuels and hobble t