New England power producers are warning millions of Americans in the Northeast of the potential for rolling blackouts this winter as well as limited, or even rationed, heating-oil supplies. The warning comes as worldwide energy supplies have reportedly reached a crisis level caused by horrible, government-enforced green-energy policies and the war in Ukraine.
With heating oil being a major source for home heating in New England, suppliers in the Northeast have begun rationing the fuel ahead of winter, after stockpiles dropped to a third of their normal levels. Then add the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecast that “most of the country will be slightly colder than both last winter and the average winter for the previous 10 winters,” and you end up with serious concerns of supply shortages and soaring prices for home heating.
Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association (CEMA), told Bloomberg recently that heating oil wholesalers are beginning to limit allocations for retail suppliers as New England’s stockpiles are approximately 70 percent lower than their average level since 1993.
This recent announcement must have caused some consumers to panic, as Herb spoke on a local radio program on Wednesday to “set the record straight regarding home heating oil supplies and misinformation circulating!”
“We are under allocation, NOT shortage. There is plenty of home heating oil to meet the needs of Connecticut homeowners” he tweeted, adding, “I think some politicians are trying to seize the moment and politicize this issue; there’s a lot of social media chatter on it, but our members are making home heating oil deliveries every day!”
CEMA President Herb continued, “When people talk about shortages, they don’t exist today. Home heating oil dealers can get it at every point of supply in CT and the only thing that can disrupt that is politicians who tell people to top off! Topping off is like going to buy 5 months of toilet paper during Covid and then your neighbor doesn’t have any toilet paper. That’s what we are trying to avoid.”
The issue with supplies being lower this year is caused by the same factors impacting world oil markets, including the failure to rebuild production capacity following the pandemic, disruptions from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the related Western sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Then add in Biden’s war on domestic energy production and his green, anti-human environmental policies, and you end up with a “perfect storm” that will only expose the Left’s desire to destroy America in the name of protecting us from the consequences of climate change.
Inflation will add to the cost of heating homes in the Northeast and across the nation as well. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s short-term energy outlook report shows that wholesale prices at energy trading hubs will be 20 percent to 60 percent higher on average for the winter of 2022–23. The increases will be passed along to end users, some of whom could have monthly utility bills of over $1,000 this winter. That is, if they can get heating fuel and electricity.
The Wall Street Journal shared, “The New England ISO expects that the grid can weather a mild-to-moderate winter without significant reliability challenges. However, it has warned that electricity demand could threaten to surge beyond available supply after multiple sustained periods of severely cold weather, which would result in calls for conservation similar to those issued in California in September during a region-wide heat wave.”
Who really wants to suffer through rolling blackouts and conserving heating oil when it’s 10 degrees outside? No one does. However, it seems that the predominantly Democrat-controlled Northeast is about to face this Soviet Union-type of problem, and it may just be time to start splitting firewood as a back-up plan to heating their homes.
As for Biden and his green-energy-loving friends, winter’s bright spot may just be the fact that their energy policies will go up in flames, as it will become quite obvious the nation’s energy supplies and infrastructure are grossly insufficient to meet current demand. That alone will hopefully change people’s minds on the ludicrous green-energy mandates and goals set by government. America needs to become energy-independent again and build a power grid capable of supporting the nation’s growing energy needs.
