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By Bill Howley
If you live in Calhoun, Roane, Gilmer, Lewis or Upshur Counties and
think PATH isn't a threat to you because it doesn't go through your
land, you couldn't be more wrong.
Most of us in Calhoun County would like to see more jobs for our
pipeliners and an end to gas well shut-ins. This will only happen if we
stop the "coal by wire" industry from hijacking the natural gas based
future of electrical power in our country.
The extraction and selling of natural gas has been a major economic
activity in Calhoun County for almost a hundred years.
I don't believe
that there is a single resident of Calhoun County whose life is not
connected in some way with the natural gas industry.
In addition to
producing a lot of natural gas, Calhoun County is home to some of the
best gas pipeline construction workers in the world.
What does Calhoun County's leading industry have to do with the PATH
power line? Everything.
Natural gas is the fuel that is replacing coal as the leading fuel used
in the production of electricity. Natural gas produces no sulfur
emissions when burned and releases only 1/3 the amount of carbon dioxide
that coal does.
Natural gas now produces more than 20% of the
electricity in the US. Natural gas now produces more power than nuclear
power plants.
Coal is a bulky fuel that must be moved by train, barge and truck from
where it is mined to where it is burned.
Natural gas flows readily
through pipelines, with the help of compressors and pumping stations,
from the wellhead to the power plant.
Once in the power plant, gas can
be controlled and transported using computerized equipment with no
special handling.
Because natural gas releases few pollutants when burned and requires
relatively little handling at the power plant itself, gas-fired plants
can be built much smaller and closer to where electricity is needed by
consumers.
These plants are being built in increasing numbers all over
the US.
Many people like to believe that wind and solar power will replace coal
as a source of electrical power in the US.
This will never be the case
in the next century.
Even the most optimistic experts on wind and solar
estimate that these power sources will never make up more than 10% of
total generating capacity.
The one alternative fuel that can replace
coal on a large scale for base load electrical power is natural gas.
Coal is expensive to transport, so the coal industry has joined very
closely with the big electrical utilities to create a huge electrical
power infrastructure.
Our current electrical grid consists of large,
highly polluting coal fired generating plants built far from population
centers from which electricity is shipped to cities by huge power lines.
Many electrical power experts call this system "coal by wire."
Extra
high voltage lines like PATH are an essential part of this coal based
system. By the way, the coal by wire system wastes 7% to 9% of all
electricity just in the friction of electrical current passing through
the power lines over long distances.
A natural gas based electrical system looks very different. It consists
of more and smaller power plants much closer to where consumers live.
Power lines are smaller and shorter. Natural gas pipelines, almost
always underground, eliminate the need for huge, above ground power lines.
Coal has one advantage over natural gas: it can be easily stored and
stockpiled. There is relatively little storage capacity in the US for
natural gas.
Right now, natural gas is used primarily for heating. In
the summer time, when demand for natural gas drops, local wells here in
Calhoun County are often "shut in" and local producers cannot sell gas
at all in summer months.
If natural gas were the main source of
electricity in the US, summer time demand for gas would rise because of
increased electrical demand for air conditioning.
Because PATH will provide "cheap" coal-fired electricity to the east
coast, PATH is part of a process that will cut off all of natural gas's
potential to solve many of the environmental, efficiency and reliability
problems that face the electrical power industry in the US.
PATH is a loaded gun aimed straight at the head of Calhoun County's
leading industry.
Natural gas is the future of electrical generation.
PATH and coal represent its past. Coal will still be a major source of
electrical power in the future, but we should be doing everything we can
to support the shift to natural gas as the generating fuel of the future.
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