Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Crea Lintilhac, director of the Lintilhac Foundation in Shelburne. She serves on the boards of the Conservation Law Foundation, the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, the Conservation and Research Foundation and numerous other science advisory boards.
No one can fault Don Gilbert, president of Vermont Gas Systems, from promoting his favorite fossil fuel, but his assumptions on the emissions and cost savings of a proposed gas pipeline are based on outdated information and not aligned with more recent science.
Vermont Gas Systems is in the planning and permitting stages of a major natural gas transmission pipeline expansion in Chittenden and Addison counties. The proposed pipeline project will extend from Colchester to Vergennes and Middlebury, then under Lake Champlain to Ticonderoga, N.Y., to serve the International Paper mill.
In recent weeks, opposition to the pipeline has increased as landowners, climate activists like Bill McKibben, and environmental groups like the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, Toxics Action Center and the Vermont Natural Resources Council became aware of the environmental and human health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing, gas consumption and high transmission pipelines.
The opposition is concerned that the gas in the pipeline is obtained through hydraulic fracturing, “fracking” an increasingly common form of extracting gas that blasts a high-pressure cocktail of sand, water and chemicals below the surface of the earth to crack open deposits of gas in shale formations.
In detailed testimony recently filed with the Vermont Public Service Board, the Conservation Law Foundation explained that the simplistic evaluation by Vermont Gas, that the gas pipeline expansion will reduce emissions, is simply wrong.
Testimony from Dr. Elizabeth Stanton shows that the emissions from the full natural gas life cycle of the project result in significant increases in global warming pollution. That’s because it is most likely Vermont Gas Systems’ gas supply would come from hydraulic fracturing wells producing methane emissions. Methane — a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 — is particularly troubling because, molecule for molecule, methane has roughly 25 times the warming power of CO2 according to recent EPA estimates.
According to a 2011 Cornell study, gas obtained through fracking is worse than coal and oil in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
In Dr. Stanton’s testimony, she says that in 2010, Vermonters paid over $600 million to import fossil fuel-based heating fuels; most of the money leaves the Vermont economy. She also says that “Expanding natural gas increases emissions more than three million tons over 100 years and brings environmental costs of an additional $76,000,000.”
The consumer is better protected from energy price swings and spikes by efficiency and conservation, not natural gas delivery. Natural gas is not cleaner energy.
Testimony by Dr. Jon Erickson, dean of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont, shows that by expanding the gas pipeline we would be locking in to fossil fuels at a time our climate and energy goals require moving in the opposite direction.
He states: “Any expansion of the delivery of natural gas to customers in Vermont has the potential to substitute for other nonrenewable, carbon-based fuels (such as fuel oil), but also has the potential to displace current and future uses of renewable energy (such as wood-based home heating or district heating).”
His testimony goes on to state: “Beyond greenhouse gas-related risk, the extraction of natural gas supplies is using increasingly environmentally damaging procedures such as hydro-fracking, a practice that Vermont has banned within State borders. Environmental regulation in other States and Canadian Provinces poses a risk to the long-term stability of natural gas supplies.”
Then there is another testimony from Jeffrey Wolfe, former CEO of groSolar, who says that
“Since similar energy cost savings for individuals are likely available through weatherization costing less than the per customer cost for the pipeline, this would be a way to lower energy bills for these customers. Weatherization and other energy efficiency measures results in very sure reduction and stabilization of energy bills.”
The consumer is better protected from energy price swings and spikes by efficiency and conservation, not natural gas delivery. Natural gas is not cleaner energy.
Since a major expansion of the pipeline could cause thousands of Vermonters to lock in with natural gas for generations rather than switch to a renewable alternative, I believe this huge investment in the pipeline infrastructure takes us in the wrong direction.
