NH/Mass Gas pipeline project suspended

This project had the potential to impact a lot of conservation land and easements along the NH/Mass border. It also proved to be a distraction to some of the Northern Pass opposition. Although economics is the driver for these mega projects, the local opposition probably helped.

http://www.unionleader.com/Kinder_Morgan_pipeline_suspended

I expect it will come up again at some point as northern new England has a serious deficit in winter time peak gas supply. Many suspected that the projects stated goals were also cover for the pipeline to be used to export shale gas from PA at some un built LNG facility, that market has collapsed in the short term so that economic driver has collapsed. The result will be that during very cold winter conditions and possibly in summer conditions the ISO new England grid may run low on power. Therefore it may actually be driver for the NP project as without reliable gas supply the region is short generation due to retirement of Vt yankee and several large coal plants. Drilling is cranking up in the Canadian side of the Gulf of Maine so its volume could be replaced by Canadian gas if the drilling finds a new field.

By the way, I saw this quote from the Mass governor regarding the project suspension

Gov. Charlie Baker stressed his plan to rely more on wind power and hydropower in a statement reacting to the pipeline suspension.

Hydropower is definitely a veiled reference to Hydro Quebec and windpower most likely is reference to more wind farms in NH and Maine.

peakbagger said:

By the way, I saw this quote from the Mass governor regarding the project suspension

Gov. Charlie Baker stressed his plan to rely more on wind power and hydropower in a statement reacting to the pipeline suspension.

Hydropower is definitely a veiled reference to Hydro Quebec and windpower most likely is reference to more wind farms in NH and Maine.

Click to expand...

Not very "veiled". Frigging "business friendly" politicians... They're trying to redefine massive, pre-existing hydro (i.e., Hydro Quebec) as "green energy", even though all previous renewable energy legislation very carefully made sure that incentives were restricted to *new* production.

Re Gov. Baker's remark:
If the good people of Massachusetts so love wind power, they have steadier winds off their own coast than exist on the hills of New Hampshire. They would also benefit from underwater cables to bring the electricity ashore versus NP's towers. BTW, every Town Meeting where windfarms have been proposed surrounding Mt. Cardigan has now passed resolutions opposing them, which gives those Towns standing when applications reach the Site Evaluation Committee.

I'm not well versed on this but was wondering of this is part of the Spectra pipeline project currently under way in NY?

It looks like the Spectra project is an expansion of the Algonquin pipeline which goes from northern NJ to Boston via Hartford, while the Kinder-Morgan line would go from Wright NY to Dracut, MA.

http://nhpipelineawareness.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/RouteMap2015-11-20.jpg

Thanks for the link jfb. This answers much of what I was wondering.