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Elizabeth Warren’s Massachusetts Loves Natural Gas

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Elizabeth Warren has pledged to ban fracking when she becomes president of the United States. This would cause real problems for her home state. The Massachusetts economy depends on imported natural gas. In a single year, methane supplies around 465 trillion Btu of energy, or some 50% more than second place gasoline. Massachusetts, however, produces no natural gas itself, making energy imports as integral to the state’s functioning as anywhere.

Since the 1970s, Massachusetts has seen a steady shift to heating with natural gas in households, from a greater reliance on heating oil. Especially in the shale revolution era since 2008, natural gas is cheaper, less volatile, and has lower greenhouse gas emissions. Over 1.5 million homes in Massachusetts use gas as the primary source of heating.

Mass.gov reports that over 50% of Massachusetts households use gas for heating, with 15% using electricity, which is becoming more gas-based as well. Oil though still supplies 27% of heating, meaning that there is room for more gas when it is cold outside, via both gas heating and electricity heating. Natural gas is surely a beloved product in The Bay State: on average per capita, Massachusettsans use 64,000 cubic feet of gas each year.

Up from 50% a decade ago, natural gas supplies almost 70% of Massachusetts’ electricity, one of the highest gas reliances in the country and nearly double the national average of 38% (heck, gas producing juggernaut Texas is only at 50%!). This extension of gas power’s share in Massachusetts, however, has nicely helped reduce the state’s power sector CO2 emissions by 45% since 2010. Eight of the top 10 generation plants in Massachusetts are gas-based. In contrast, wind supplies less than 1%, with solar at 15%. And officials in Massachusetts have outlined a goal to end the sale of gasoline vehicles in the state by 2040. The goal for more electric cars, for instance, could surge the state’s gas power demand by 40-50%.

Massachusetts though has notorious and severe constraints for gas pipelines. The unwillingness to build more capacity for gas rears its ugly head particularly in winter, when high electricity and heating needs collide. ISO New England has made clear that fuel-security risks, where power plants cannot get the fuel that they need to operate, are the foremost challenge to a reliable power grid. This has helped U.S.-sanctioned Russia, with Vladimir Putin supplying liquefied natural gas into Boston harbor in each of the past two winters. “Why natural gas from Putin's Russia has to be imported to New England.”

Not just a national security issue, pipelines have much lower greenhouse gas emissions than Putin’s shipped LNG. This indeed all falls in the ridiculous and absurd category because Massachusetts is just a short pipeline away from mighty Appalachia, where Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia yield nearly 40% of all U.S. gas. The Marcellus shale play in Pennsylvania is probably the largest gas field in the world, even right up there with South Pars shared between Iran and Qatar.

Missing out on cheap American shale gas devastates Massachusetts’ families and businesses. Thanks to lowering energy prices, the shale revolution is saving U.S. consumers over $200 billion annually, or $2,500 for a family of four. This explains the following: “Rev. Jesse Jackson, Activists Push for Natural Gas Pipeline to Pembroke Township,” with one of the highest poverty rates in the country.

As cold snap lingers, New England becomes 'world's priciest market' for power plants using natural gas.” Massachusetts has electricity rates for families at $21.55 per kWh, 60% higher than the national average and the fourth highest in the country. Higher energy costs help routinely put Massachusetts in the bottom seven in Chief Executive magazine’s “Best states for business” rankings.

Indeed, just to be clear.

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