I sat in silence as the woman with the red beret and purple sweater waved a glossy postcard promoting an upcoming discussion on alternatives to natural gas. The woman and her cohort shouted: Stop natural gas! It should be left in the ground where it belongs! Don’t bring hydrofracking to New York! Burn biodiesel instead! I was stunned.
The woman and I were seated together at a meeting on natural gas conversions. The meeting was held at a Catholic church in my neighborhood in New York City. It was well attended because a lot of buildings, like the one that I live in, are required to stop burning fuel oil #6 (bunker fuel or resid). The change must be made by 2015. After that, buildings can chose to burn fuel oil #4 or #2 (diesel) or natural gas. If they choose fuel oil #4, they have to convert to diesel or natural gas by 2030.
As buildings figure out their options, a lot depends on where they are located. Some buildings have already switched to natural gas, but in many locations the existing natural gas distribution lines are not big enough to supply building heat. Con Edison (New York City’s utility) is offering to build larger lines at no cost if a revenue stream of 40% of the capital cost is guaranteed.
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) senses that natural gas is the best option for places like New York City. EDF has been working hard to bring all the stakeholders together. EDF created the map which shows the "dirty fuel" buildings http://apps.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=49624. EDF worked with the neighborhood association to organize the meeting that I attended. EDF brought the utility, the fuel supply companies and the building owners together.
This is a win-win-win. Energy and environment on the same side of the table. ConEd gets new business with a two-and-a-half year payout. New York City gets cleaner air and better quality of life. All the buildings have to do is form a cluster -- groups of users of sufficient size -- and they will replace expensive oil with cheap natural gas and keep the savings. It seems that good energy choices and good environment choices are not mutually exclusive after all ... except that the program was not over.
This is a win-win-win. Energy and environment on the same side of the table. ConEd gets new business with a two-and-a-half year payout. New York City gets cleaner air and better quality of life. All the buildings have to do is form a cluster -- groups of users of sufficient size -- and they will replace expensive oil with cheap natural gas and keep the savings. It seems that good energy choices and good environment choices are not mutually exclusive after all ... except that the program was not over.
Red and purple woman and her cohort called for one more speaker. Tri-State Biodiesel (TSB) came to the microphone. TSB is a private company that produces biodiesel. There is not very much information on their website, but they seem to have been around nearly a decade, won social responsibility awards and gotten press coverage. TSB takes soybean oil, waste animal fat, used cooking oil or some combination of the three and converts them into heating oil. Gathered from as many as 3,000 locations in NY, NJ and CT, many of which are restaurants, it sounds like it could have some potential. Plus, the sales manager is a likable guy. Likable enough that no one seemed to notice that biodiesel is priced the same as petroleum diesel, although the consumer gets a rebate from the government.
Once the rebate was mentioned, my skepticism began: Can it scale? Is it reliable? Is it affordable? Even if you pick up every gallon of waste oil, how much supply can there possibly be? What happens during a cold snap in January when all the buildings simultaneously need to top off their fuel tanks? What happens when the single processing plant goes down?
Plus -- and this is the real sticking point for me -- if my building switches to biodiesel and oil prices go down, TSB goes out of business. The environmental activists are so deadset against hydraulic fracturing that they promote continued reliance on diesel. Don't they realize how conflicted their position has become? Has anyone ever thought about whether a product that depends on high oil prices AND a government rebate is really going to go the distance? Buildings only change fuels every 50 years. The last, and only, time that my building changed was when it converted from coal to fuel oil in the 1960.
As I left the meeting with the postcard thrust into my hand, I couldn’t help but think, it might not be a good idea to trust my building's energy future to someone who wears red and purple at the same time.
Till Next Time,
Energy Mom
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