North Carolina relies on a single pipeline for its natural gas, making it uniquely vulnerable to disruptions, shortages, and even more nefarious problems.
“North Carolina’s future, not to mention lights, heat, and air conditioning in millions of homes, is at risk because of the state’s full reliance on a single natural gas pipeline,” Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico.
In an unprecedented move, N.C. Senate leaders say they won’t confirm Dionne Delli-Gatti, Gov. Roy Cooper’s pick to lead the Department of Environmental Quality because she admitted to having only “a little bit of knowledge” about a proposed second natural gas pipeline and failed to articulate the administration’s natural gas strategy.
Today’s batch of burning questions, my smart-aleck answers and the real deal:
Question: With the Duke Energy plant at Lake Julian, they switched over to natural gas, which is a good thing, but now they are dependent on a pipeline to bring that gas in. In the old days they probably had 30 days’ worth of coal stockpiled on site there. What kind of surplus of natural gas, if any, do they keep on site at Lake Julian now? Do they have tanks on site? How long would they last? If not, what happens if that pipeline goes down like the Colonial Pipeline just did?
To embed, copy and paste the code into your website or blog:
With crossover behind us, the legislature was a bit slower this week. While calendars were not jam packed with back-to-back committee meetings, lawmakers were still in town to discuss and approve several important pieces of legislation. We will focus on some of those bills in this week s newsletter.
As of Thursday morning, in the state of North Carolina, there were 1,187 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, 793 individuals hospitalized, and sadly, 12,950 confirmed deaths. There have been 7,989,892 doses of the vaccine distributed in NC, which is about 52% of the total adult population.
North Carolina remains vulnerable to fuel shortages because it’s too reliant on a pair of pipelines for gas and energy, industry leaders and experts told lawmakers.
The point is made even more crucial because of a recent rise in both the number and sophistication of cyberattacks, such as the one that recently crippled the Colonial Pipeline, leading to widespread gas shortages on the East Coast.
North Carolina relies on the Colonial Pipeline for gas and the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line for natural gas.
“When you depend on one source, as we’ve seen in the last few days, you run that risk, and the risk is enhanced because of cyber security attacks such as we’ve had now,” said Edward Finley, who was appointed as chair of the N.C. Utilities Commission under former Democratic governors Mike Easley and Bev Perdue.