CommonWealth Beacon - A warning about Project Maple

CommonWealth Beacon published a story on Enbridge’s “Project Maple” expansion project. You can read an excerpt below and the full article here.

A warning about Project Maple - CommonWealth Beacon

“THE PIPELINE COMPANY Enbridge is exploring what it calls Project Maple, a major expansion of its fracked gas pipeline that runs from New Jersey to Massachusetts.

The Canadian fossil fuel corporation erroneously claims New England, New Jersey, and New York need more gas for homes and buildings and to generate electricity. In reality, as federal and state financial support is increasingly available for clean energy development and alternatives to gas appliances, the tide is quickly turning against fossil fuel usage regionwide. This is especially true for electricity generation and home heating – the region’s two largest consumers of fracked gas.

According to a recent Synapse report commissioned by Sierra Club, adding Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island’s targeted 9 gigawatts of offshore wind to the New England power grid by 2030 would generate enough power to account for approximately 30 percent of the region’s annual electricity demand, massively displacing gas consumption and the need for new gas pipelines.

Clean, renewable offshore wind would also boost grid reliability since the coastal turbines generate the most power during winter when the gas supply is especially constrained and unreliable. Offshore wind would also retain more than half ($1.57 billion) of the $3 billion that New Englanders send out of the region annually on gas for power plants. …” (CommonWealth Beacon)