By RY RIVARD and MARIE J. FRENCH, Politico
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities held a two-day technical conference looking at the future of natural gas utilities in the state last week. The proceeding, which is expected to produce a report next summer outlining the regulators’ view of the industry’s future, was ordered by Gov. Phil Murphy in a major speech earlier this year on climate change and clean energy.
Some of the discussion may have been more reassuring to the industry than the governor’s sweeping goals might seem. Murphy has, on paper, pledged to help hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses dump natural gas by the end of the decade and has pledged to move the state to clean energy. But in opening remarks that got a lot of attention, BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso said gas isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Gas is here to stay,” Fiordaliso said. “What we have to do is improve the quality of it. We need backup. We don’t have enough clean energy to generate the energy that is necessary to supply the 9.3 million here in the state of New Jersey with energy. And, until that day comes, things like nuclear power and gas will help us to provide the reliability that the citizens of New Jersey demand and should have every day of the week.”
Other notable quotes and exchanges from the conference:
“I think the whole point of this proceeding should be — is that really true? Is gas here to stay? Or do we have a moral and economic imperative to basically end as quickly as possible the use of gas?” — John Reichman of EmpowerNJ
“We’re not even 100 percent sure on the questions and we wanted to make sure we were getting input before we framed a proceeding and missed something.” — Stacy Peterson, deputy executive director for BPU.
“Sometimes businesses say, ‘The [business] climate isn’t so great here, I’m going to Pennsylvania,’ in Pennsylvania they say, ‘Hey, it’s not so great here, I’m going to West Virginia’ — eventually you end up in Texas where they don’t believe in capacity markets and the grid does down or Florida, where you’re uninsurable.” — Eric Miller, New Jersey energy policy director for NRDC
“Certainly at this point we should not be paying subsidies to support expansion of the gas system.” — The state’s ratepayer watchdog, Brian Lipman, on gas main extensions.
“Cows defecate at a pretty stable rate.” — Andrew McNally, from South Jersey Gas, on the stability of investments in non-traditional gas, like methane capture from cows. — Ry Rivard
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