TribLive Editorial: Why Do Pennsylvanians Have To Pay A Higher Price For Natural Gas? For Producing Energy?

This editorial first appeared on TribLive.com October 3, 2021--

 

The winter of 2021-22 is going to be a cold one, according to sources as traditional as the Farmers’ Almanac and as high-tech as AccuWeather, which predicts average temperatures in the region around 1 to 3 degrees Fahrenheit below normal, with the chill winds starting to blow as early as November.

That means staying inside, bundling up and keeping the furnace running. That’s shaping up to be a more expensive proposition.

Pittsburgh-based Peoples Natural Gas Co. and Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, based in Canonsburg, were slated to file with the state Public Utility Commission for price increases. This isn’t a request to raise prices. It’s a notification of intent to recover cost paid for fuel in the last quarter — costs that have been on the rise.

And like all rising prices, businesses pass them along to the customer.

The question is can people afford to absorb it?

Pennsylvanian natural gas bills average around $100 a month and tend to hover around the middle of the national numbers. But why? 

The Keystone State produces more natural gas than any state but Texas. How can gas where it is acquired cost 7 percent more than the states where it is transported?

That’s not just bad news for the half of Pennsylvania homes that heat with gas. Even those oil or coal users will still feel the pinch at the light switch because natural gas is the fuel that generates much of the state’s electricity. That means a gas price increase is probably a precursor to other spikes.

“It’s a global energy market,” said Richard M. Redash, head of global gas planning at energy research firm S&P Global Platts.

That’s certainly true, but Pennsylvania has been providing energy as long as people have lived here — first with bountiful forests, then with coal and oil and now natural gas. Yet each of these has a high cost on the population.

That cost has frequently been in the impact on the environment — like rivers run red with mine drainage. Now people question the impact of fracking.

Pennsylvanians are used to cold winters and the energy bills that go with them. It would be nice to sometimes see the benefit of living in one of the nation’s largest energy producing states when it comes time to write the check.

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[Posted: October 3, 2021]  PA Environment Digest