Natural Gas Goose Cooked By Offshore Wind & Clean Hydrogen – CleanTechnica

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

---

A proposal to bring more natural gas into New Jersey hit a brick wall last month, after regulators failed to prove that New Jersey needs more gas. The court-ordered halt sets up another round of legal action. However, it’s going to be a tough row to hoe. Natural gas is up against competition from two newly hatched local clean energy industries in New Jersey, in the form of offshore wind farms and the forthcoming Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub.

Clean Hydrogen Trumps Natural Gas

The developers of the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub plan to re-purpose existing gas pipelines with the aim of supporting a locally produced clean hydrogen industry.

The details are still under negotiation, but the general idea is to deploy renewable energy and/or nuclear energy to run electrolysis systems, which separate hydrogen from water with the help of a catalyst. Sustainably speaking, that’s a big step up from the usual way to produce hydrogen, by extracting it from natural gas.

In terms of producing one’s own energy locally, that’s also a 180-degree turn in a new direction. New Jersey doesn’t produce natural gas. Its gas utilities and other industries depend on gas imported from other states.

The nuclear energy issue aside, what New Jersey does have is a new offshore wind industry. Presumably that would play a key role in the new hydrogen hub. Electrolyzers can run at night, when residential and commercial electricity demand drops and wind speeds are more optimal (see more offshore wind background here).

The Mid-Atlantic hub includes parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey. It is one of a network of seven new H2 hubs across the US in the new $7 billion Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub program, funded by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

The program is administered by the US Department of Energy. As stipulated by the law, the Energy Department is required to include extraction from natural gas in the program. However, gas is not required to be present in each hub. The Mid-Atlantic hub is among those to exclude it in favor of alternative sources.

The Fracking Boom Continues

As for that proposed natural gas expansion, it’s back to the drawing board for the Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project. The project comes under the umbrella of the century-old Oklahoma-based energy firm Williams. The business suffered some ups and downs back in the 20th century, but it has ridden the fracking boom of the early 21st century to a more robust portfolio. “Today, the company is one of the largest gatherers and processors of natural gas in the Marcellus and Utica shale-gas supply regions,” Williams says of itself.

Williams also notes that it has “continued to invest in expanding its Transco interstate natural gas pipeline system – the nation’s largest, and fastest-growing – to create access to the ‘best markets’ to the north and south of the Marcellus and Utica supply areas.”

Transco is the Transcontinental Pipeline, which brings methane gas from the Gulf Coast to markets in the southeast and northeast, with extensions in Pennsylvania as well as New Jersey and New York. The REAE project aims at leveraging that infrastructure to increase capacity.

What Is The REAE Gas Expansion Project Anyways?

Although Williams emphasizes that the expansion would deploy its existing pipelines and rights-of-way, it still involves new pipelines. On page 8 of its July 30 ruling, the 5th Circuit notes that “The Project would consist of building approximately 22.3 miles of 30-inch-diameter lateral gas pipeline and 13.8 miles of 42-inch-diameter loop pipeline in Pennsylvania; one new gas-fired compressor station in New Jersey; modifications to five existing compressor stations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey; and the modification and addition of other ancillary facilities.”

The court also notes that 73.5% of gas from the Project would go to New Jersey, with the rest divided among New York, Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania (here’s the link to the ruling again).

Who Needs More Natural Gas, Anyway?

To the extent that Williams was depending on the new REAE project to grow its methane footprint in New Jersey, it has some homework to re-do. So does the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which issued an approval for the project last year.

The 5th Circuit ruled against FERC on July 30, charging that the agency failed to account for the fact that the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities issued a determination in 2022 about the need for additional interstate gas capacity in New Jersey. The determination was that there will be no need for more capacity through 2030 and beyond.

The Court cited a 2019 independent capacity study commissioned by the Board in support of that determination. As cited by the 5th Circuit, the Board reported that “under most demand scenarios, barring a major catastrophic event impacting one or more primary paths on a major interstate pipeline, New Jersey is well positioned with available interstate [natural gas] supply beyond 2030.”

The 5th Circuit also came down hard on FERC’s treatment of potential greenhouse gas emissions related to the REAE project.

“The Commission’s decision not to make a case-specific determination about the significance of the Project’s anticipated GHG emissions, in light of its own stated precedent that it can do so, nor to explain why it believed it could not do so, was arbitrary and capricious,” the Court wrote.

Good Luck With That New Gas Expansion

If Williams fails to bring the REAE project into being, that wouldn’t be its first recent failure in the northeast region. In 2021, our friends over at Grist catalogued a laundry list of thwarted fossil energy pipeline projects. That includes the Williams-backed Constitution project between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which FERC approved in 2014. Tree-clearing work was already underway when the New York Department of Environmental Conservation stepped in, and Williams backed out in 2020.

The New York DEC also came down against a Transco-related project between New Jersey and New York in 2017. Williams reportedly dropped the idea just a few months ago, in May of 2024.

For the record, Grist Solutions Lab contributor Grey Moran makes it clear that local property owners and local activists are the frontline fighters pushing back against new fossil energy projects, with regional and national environmental groups lending organizational and legal assistance.

The case against the REAE project illustrates the network of legal firepower arrayed against fossil energy stakeholders in the Northeast.

In a celebratory press release describing the 5th Circuit decision, the non-profit law firm EarthJustice explained that it represents the organizations Food & Water Watch and the Sierra Club, while Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, were represented by their in-house counsel in the case against FERC and the REAE project.

“EarthJustice co-counseled with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the Niskanen Center, which represents New Jersey Conservation Foundation, New Jersey LCV, Aquashicola Pohopoco Watershed Conservancy, and affected landowner Catherine Folio,” EarthJustice added.

Offshore wind and clean hydrogen stakeholders in New Jersey could add to the resistance against new fossil energy projects in the coming years, so stay tuned for more on that.

Follow me via LinkTree, or @tinamcasey on Threads, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Image: Instead of getting more natural gas from elsewhere in the US, New Jersey growing its own offshore wind industry and a new clean hydrogen hub, too (courtesy of Mach-2).