Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Natural gas is only cheap if you don’t need it very much

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How many times in the past five years have you heard the one about the way that new fracking and horizontal drilling technology have created long term abundance of cheap natural gas in North America?

I just took this snapshot of daily energy prices as of January 22, 2014. (The daily energy price page will provide a different picture if you click the link on a different day.)

Snapshot of daily spot market energy prices - Jan 22m 2014

Snapshot of daily spot market energy prices – Jan 22m 2014

Here is the natural gas price table:

US natural gas spot prices January 22, 2014

US natural gas spot prices January 22, 2014

Those circled numbers do not have a misplaced decimal point.

Just imagine how high prices might get when next week’s arctic blast hits. How do you think New Englanders will feel next winter when their grid no longer has the support of 620 MWe from Vermont Yankee.

It’s not too late to ask Entergy really nicely to keep the plant running. If I lived in Vermont, I would be using my constitutional right to petition the government to see if I could convince my representatives to start the process ASAP.

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Comments

  1. Burning jet fuel even, that sounds almost crazy. http://www.greenfieldreporter.com/view/story/a40a79517da74411a06061e622b6731e/NH–Cold-Snap-Power#.UuGhXsJq_Dw.facebook

    Due to Ed Markey’s record of anti-nuclear “politician-ing”, I make a motion that he no longer be allowed to fly now that jet fuel is a fuel to power electricity generation in New England (granted, I understand that electricity supplies could be tight with this weather even with several more Nuclear Power Plants operating in New England).

    Also Rod, it is January 23rd, not 22nd.

      • The “Select Spot Prices for Delivery Today” table looks to me like it is for the day of. The other tables that list 1/22 look to be looks back.

        I am thinking the weather on 1/22/14 wasn’t quite cold enough yet to support those prices, and I would guess that those prices will have gone up even further by the time that page is updated tomorrow morning between 7:30 and 8:30.

  2. Doesn’t this have more to do with there not being enough pipeline capacity in the Northeast region? It is not a matter of being unable to extract enough gas out of the ground. The problem is not enough pipes, which is a problem that can be corrected.

    • @Pete51

      That is what the natural gas industry would like us all to believe. However, even with the problems in delivering sufficient gas to customers caused by the pipeline constraints, the total gas in storage numbers are getting quite low. There have been substantial drawdowns week after week. If the pipeline constraints were eliminated, those drawdown numbers would be much larger because there would not be any customers being curtailed or curtailing themselves due to high costs.

      If there were more pipelines, then the natural gas industry would say that all they need to do is to drill more wells faster.

    • Pete, a pipeline is a very expensive infrastructure. Building one for a situation that will occur only once every 5 or 10 years is a very inefficient use of money. In any case, it should be considered part of what makes gas expensive, beyond the cost of each MWh.
      It’s actually the same for wind turbine with new infrastructure, new lines that must be build specifically for them.

      • I keep trying to tell the Greenies over at Climate Crocks that energy systems depend on energy stockpiles (heaps of coal, reservoirs of water, tanks of oil, uranium fuel pellets) to deliver power capacity.  Power flows won’t do.  The gas coming from a pipeline is just another power flow; if you can’t increase it to any required level on demand, you have a ceiling to slam your head against when circumstances increase needs above the limits of supply.

        That said, if you were going to add stockpiles throughout the New England area, what would they look like?  $75 million in fuel oil for gas turbines is one such, but suppose you had Freewatt heating systems and made them dual-fuel, both NG and propane.  First, how much would the Freewatts cut the base demand for NG on the electric side, and second, how much buffer would you get from smallish stockpiles like 100 gallons per household?  I don’t have numbers for this.

  3. I was going to do replace my oil-heating system with a heat pump this year, but got started thinking about it too late (figures it would be cold this winter and I would burn a fortune in oil). I live in NH. I really hope VY closing doesn’t affect general pricing of electricity. I heard from the contractor that they are filling many orders for heat pump systems now. By the way, Mitsubishi has a heat pump now that they claim works down to -14 F. It’s being sold through Home Depot with local contractors … so a little more mainstream.

    I wish there was some discussion now to build the second unit at Seabrook, but I suppose that will have to wait until the situation is clear to everyone.

    • How much work was done to complete a 2nd Unit at Seabrook?

      I would think the demand there could warrant a project there ramping up relatively quickly. I have been thinking for some time that Turkey Point 6 and 7 will likely be the 5th and 6th AP1000’s to be built in the U.S., but the way the Northeast is looking, an additional unit at Seabrook would make a lot of sense if it would fit. I wonder if a GW-sized unit would be more likely than starting to put in some SMRs (if those designs are ready soon enough).