The horizontal drilling and fracking technology revolution have unleashed vast quantities of new natural gas supplies. There are some problems with that. Natural gas isn’t flexible enough to deal with volatile weather patterns, and its use as the primary fuel for American power generation could threaten national security. Naureen Malik reports for Bloomberg:
Although natural gas is often promoted as a “bridge fuel” to span the transition from coal power to renewable energy, the country’s vast network of gas plants, pipelines and the regulations that govern them was largely built without the realities of extreme weather in mind. Facilities aren’t uniformly winterized, and some rely on a single gas pipeline for supply. Many generators don’t have the ability to burn an alternate fuel or keep back-up gas on hand in case of emergencies. The US has the most sprawling and interconnected gas pipeline network in the world, stoking complacency that the fuel will always be there when needed. But increasingly it’s not, contributing to more than seven hours of power interruptions for US households on average in 2021, more than double the rate reported in 2013.
Because the American gas system operates with just-in-time delivery in mind, it’s hard to adapt when a climate calamity hits, especially in winter. Eventually, the country will utilize less natural gas amid the shift to renewables, but it relies heavily on the fuel in the meantime. And since even the newest gas plants are at risk of becoming obsolete once the transition to clean energy is complete, it’s hard to get the support to build more pipelines and the other key infrastructure that’s needed to shore things up.
That’s the takeaway from more than two dozen interviews with traders, regulators and power-plant operators, many of whom weren’t allowed to talk publicly because of $1.8 billion in pending fines for generators that failed this past winter on America’s biggest grid.
“If you have assets that you can’t get fuel to, it’s useless,” said Thomas Coleman, executive director of Grid Security Project and a former adviser to North American Electric Reliability Corp. “We have a broken system, and it’s threatening our national security and it’s threatening our economic viability.”
Just look at the grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC. It’s the largest in the country with a reputation as one of its most reliable. And yet, in the days leading up to Christmas 2022, when a brutal cold snap hit much of the continental US, PJM’s system was pushed right to the edge of rolling blackouts.
And gas was largely to blame.
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