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New gas pipeline proposed for West Roxbury
By adamg on Wed, 09/03/2014 - 1:58pm
Spectra Energy holds an information session today on its plans for a new gas pipeline that would run through Westwood, Dedham and West Roxbury and include a "metering and regulating" facility across Centre and Grove streets from the quarry.
And the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission holds a formal hearing on the proposed 5-mile pipeline on Monday.
The session today begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Elks Club, 1 Morrell St. The FERC hearing starts at 6:30 p.m. on Monday at the Dedham Holiday Inn, 55 Ariadne Rd.
Algonquin says it wants to install the new pipeline at National Grid's request, both to add a new supply of gas to the region to improve gas pressure in the area.
Primary roads utilized for routing include Providence Highway, Washington Street, Grove Street, and Centre Street. The pipeline would also cross Interstate 95/State Route 128.
In its FERC draft environmental filing, Algonquin says the pipeline would be almost entirely under parking lots and roads. It says the new facility near the quarry would prove inoffensive and that it would install "a blowdown silencer" to minimize noise from periodic "blowdown events" of one to five minutes.
In addition to federal approval, the company would need permits from Dedham and Boston to dig up local roads to install the pipe.
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Comments
Can't wait to hear that locals on this one...
People will moan about safety and inconvenience and the effect on asthma rates and degradation of quality of life. The truth: Once they patch up the roads after burying the new line, this won't negatively affect anyone, so go ahead and do it.
Maybe
Your street available then. This crap will never happen, all three neighborhood will flip their lids.
The price of natural gas is
The price of natural gas is going up. Supply is low and demand is high. But, I guess that would be bitching, right?
There has been a natural gas glut for several years.
Source: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/natgas.cfm
Building a pipeline means they are trying to sell more of it. If it were scarce, existing pipeline capacity would work. But yeah, it'll be a mess in the area where the work happens.
New England uniqueness
There may be enough of a natural-gas glut that all those fracking wells in North Dakota are just burning the stuff off, but New England relies more on natural gas than any other part of the country - and a major proportion of our supply comes from Algeria via big-ass tankers coming into Boston Harbor.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Burn off happens in the absence of any other option as it is always better to sell something than let it go up in smoke.
And the Marcellus Shales cited are a lot closer than Bakken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Formation#mediaviewer/File:Marcel...
The data is about deliverable capacity rather than burn off.
Of course we want it.
And of course we want to reduce our exposure to potentially unstable parts of the world and LNG tankers in the harbor.
I have to babysit 5 high efficiency gas furnaces as part of the free rent barter deal I have going here. They rock.
Some dim anonamid above me asserted gas is scarce and expensive and I felt like playing a bit of gotcha.
Fracking outcomes are worrisome and I'm puzzled why it fell off the radar screen as an issue. Was it debunked or did attention drift elsewhere?
Ultimately, the real aim should be efficiency improvements and use reduction but that is more gradual.
Fracking may also have peaked
According to this finance industry person who certainly has paid more attention to the issue than I have.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-03/trader-who-scored-100-million-p...
Usual disclaimer: yes, this is a 1% market manipulator Satan type, but the underlying premise being presented seems to have merit. Essentially, the easy to frack gas will be fracked soon:
The simplest of his reasons, though, is that producers have already drilled in many of the best areas, or sweet spots. Hall predicts that growth in shale output will begin to moderate this year and U.S. production will peak as soon as 2016.
“Once those areas have been drilled out, operators will have to move to more-marginal locations and well productivity will fall,” Hall wrote in March. “Far from continuing to grow, production will start to decline.”
And yes, better efficiency and insulation is also key.
That is another interesting factor.
These newer plays don't have the longevity of something like the huge Saudi fields in Ghawar for oil but are often more useful for gas.
There is a lot of murk and conflicting information that will clarify over time. Retrofitting old housing stock is a great thing to do as part of any property business game plan and the incorporation of LEED standards in new work is also a great way to add value.
Fact check, Adamg?
Um, Adam, what are you using for a source? When it comes to the voting public, what is most directly important to them is how they heat their home in winter, and less directly, what is used to produce our electricity.
Adam, is your data newer than this?
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=3690
My personal opinion is that the people opposing new gas pipelines are idiots. People won't just leave gas in the ground! Transporting oil on trains is dangerous and LNG is expensive and transporting it also risky. None of the pipeline opponents have advocated not heating their homes in winter, so I don't know what their plan is. As it is we pay about the fourth highest price for electricity in the lower 48 and pipeline capacity shortages is part of the reason. Notice from the above link how much of the country heats with electricity and its simply cost prohibitive for many in New England.
It's supply or demand, it's storage
Due to a lack of storage, energy in North Dakota is being burned off. Drillers flare off more than $100 million worth of natural gas each month
http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000304295#
Gas leaks
Leaks from underground gas lines is a very real problem:
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/21/142504812/bostons-leaky-gas-lines-may-be-t...
Sometimes they do more than just leak
Fire erupts on Middlesex Turnpike after gas line rupture
The article says the leaks
The article says the leaks are from old cast iron pipes. So a new pipeline shouldn't have that issue.
Not much incentive
The gas industry has little incentive to reduce leaks, even in new pipelines.
Most of the leaks in MA are from old pipelines because most of the pipelines here are old. Fortunately, there is a recent MA law that presses gas companies to fix leaks that they have ignored for decades. THAT is the reason new pipelines will be tighter, not just that the are newer.
I've covered this for The
I've covered this for The West Roxbury Transcript and the new pipeline is not cast iron. Those are the ones they want to phase out. Spectra says that the new pipe will be made of a kind of plastic. The seals will be heated so that they melt together. I think they said it was good for around 50 or more years.
HURUMPH!
Well! I should hope it'll aesthetically match the history and ambiance of the Grove St area. We don't want just any old thing built by the historic quarry!
They will probably have to
They will probably have to dynamite to make the trench around there.........
Your asinine comment adds
Your asinine comment adds nothing to the discussion nor is it funny or clever. Welcome, Herald reader.
Moi ? Tough digging up there
Moi ? Tough digging up there , just saying. On a more interesting ( to some anyway ) note, the quarries used to supply the stone for the asphalt made by the Baker Hot Top plant in Jamaica Plain, which was beside the Boston Gas Company down there.
New 128 construction
Great timing. The new offramp at Kendrick Street in Newton construction is starting soon. Anyone trying to get to Needham/Newton/128N from the Parkway... good luck!
http://www.mhd.state.ma.us/downloads/I_95add_lane/Kendrick_Interchange.pdf
Wow!
I hadn't heard about that new exit. That will help me once it's built.
BTW....
You can still take Great Plain Ave to Needham/Newton/128N.
This exit is either going to be great or horrible......
I simply can't picture exits going onto Kendrick St. here.