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Back Bay to get new natural-gas pipeline

The Boston Sun reports not everybody's in favor.

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The mayor just uttered some balogna last week about us "leading the nation on environment," in a rebuttal to 45 leaving the Paris Climate Accord.

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Even if you had enough alternative energy that furnaces and hot water heaters using solely electricity would be economically viable... you're still going to have restaurants. And they're not about to use electric stoves.

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So if we can't go 100% green, we shouldnt even try?

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Just that even if you can switch most things to electrical [and thus make use of alternative energy] you will always need some level of gas transmission lines for cooking at a commercial level; that they're not obsolete as one of the persons quoted in the article was saying. Also I believe most commercial laundry uses gas as well, though that could be changing?

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1. Cooking uses on the order of 1% of the natural gas. If we were just cooking with gas, we'd have far more distribution infrastructure than we need.

2. If it's just cooking, we wouldn't extend pipes -- too expensive. We'd simply use propane tanks where there wasn't already service.

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The last few sentences are quite interesting:

Jacqueline Royce the head of the Green Committee for NABB agrees and believes that new developments should focus on implementing alternative energy in their projects.

“We are concerned that if we are building more infrastructure it is a step in the wrong direction,” said Royce. “We don’t want to be committed to gas of any kind because it will force us to be committed to an obsolete system.”

I wonder if this person uses natural gas for heat or has a less infrastructure dependent heating system such as oil or perhaps coal. I suspect she's using an advanced solar power system in her house though and therefore doesn't need obsolete natural gas.

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...solar is. It can't provide for the requirements of a unit.
Look up "MIT solar house". They built one in the fifties. It was heat transfer. Covered with panels.

"But, but, we've come a long way since then." Right.

Now, look up 'photovoltaic cell efficiency'.

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My job involves selling wind and solar energy to large buyers. Although it seems like solar energy is becoming competitive both in terms of pricing and generation capacity, I failed to consider that dmcboston looked up "photovoltaic cell efficiency" and didn't like the answer. Also solar tech wasn't good in the 50's, so how could it be good now?

What a shame: I have to break the news to my boss, my boss's boss, his boss, and our clients who have spent tens of millions buying solar energy.

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It's competitive indeed. Both the Cambridge and Brookline electricity group buy plans that offer to switch you to 100% renewables now have a rate that's just slightly higher than the default rate.

Brookline default (25% additional renewable) $0.11098/kWh
Brookline 100% renewable $0.13198/kWh
Brookline state mandated minimum (opt-out rate) $0.10398/kWh

Current rate to be replaced $0.10759/kWh

I'm just not quite sure why every time this debate comes out people want to put a hard stop on natural gas (or coal or heating oil). Incentives (carrots) work better than restrictions and tend not to bring as many crazies out overall.

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How would NABB feel about replacing the gas streetlights, many of which burn 24/7, with electric replicas? It's not a huge amount of gas in the bigger scheme, but it's symbolic.

I'd also like to hear what the need for this pipeline is. If it would replace ancient leaky pipes, I'd be all for it.

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Has it been approved by FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)?
That's a key point that's not included in the Boston Sun article.

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