Natural Gas – New England: LNG-by-rail to the rescue?

By Paul Homewood

Ironic news from New England, as the global oil and gas consultancy GCA reports:

Natural Gas – New England: LNG-by-rail to the rescue?

The Massachusetts legislature has adopted a very green agenda in recent months, which has resulted in a stance against fossil fuels that some critics are pointing to as counterproductive, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. The State has opposed gas pipeline expansion in the region, one of the most energy dependent parts of the US for winter supplies of gas and LNG for both heating and electricity generation.

Some have pointed at the recent import of gas originating from the new Yamal LNG export facility in Russia (of which the second arrived just this week) as a negative and unwanted consequence of the lack of pipeline capacity. Electric generators in New England are also having to consider oil-fired peaking generators as a result of potential gas shortages, with double the carbon of the equivalent gas-fired plant.

Another possible consequence of the “anti-gas pipeline” stance being taken is that novel technologies are being looked at to move gas around, some of which GCA has been following in less developed jurisdictions. For example, LNG-by-rail, which has only been permitted so far for the Alaska Railroad Company (since 2015) appears to be emerging as one way to alleviate the winter gas shortages in New England. Based on ISO containers placed on flatbed trucks, the technology represents a potentially viable and cost-effective way of shipping LNG over land. At sufficient scale, LNG-by-rail has a number of advantages over trucking by road, where GCA estimates the cost penalty is of the order of US$1/MMBtu for every one hundred miles, an order of magnitude costlier than a high-pressure transmission line.

The technology has sufficient backers that a number of regulatory moves are being made to try to have LNG reclassified under current regulations that apply to cryogenic substances, and various safety case initiatives are underway. Coupled with interest in the use of LNG as a fuel for locomotives, such as the “NextFuel”TM – a locomotive concept being developed by GE, the rail industry may soon start to mirror the marine sector, being both a means to transport large quantities of gas, and also a user itself, as a low cost, efficient and environmentally friendly fuel.

http://gaffney-cline-focus.com/march-16-2018

Green opponents of gas pipelines may end up with a much more energy intensive alternative. Not to mention one that sounds like an accident waiting to happen.

Currently, natural gas is supplying 37% of New England’s power, that is 3752 MW, according to ISO New England, the official grid operator:

https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts/guest-hub?p_p_id=fuelmixgraph_WAR_isoneportlet_INSTANCE_WQKSMAX9RozI&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_state_rcv=1

During the day it has run between 3000 MW and 4000 MW for most of the time, but peaking at 4852 MW:

https://www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress/web/charts/guest-hub?p_p_id=fuelmixgraph_WAR_isoneportlet_INSTANCE_WQKSMAX9RozI&p_p_lifecycle=0&p_p_state=normal&p_p_state_rcv=1

Significantly, according to ISO, natural gas generators are at risk of not being able to get fuel when pipelines are constrained if output is above 4000 MW. Presumably this refers to average output, rather than peak.

Given that power demand can peak at over 22000 MW, it is hardly surprising that New England’s grid relied heavily on oil and coal during January.