This story originally aired on “Marketplace Morning Report” on March 3.
As natural gas’ role in the U.S. electric grid grows, there’s also been an increase in natural gas deliveries to power plants through pipeline companies and their large transmission lines, according to new analysis from the Energy Information Administration.
As electricity demand grows in order to charge our EVs, run our data centers and keep the AC blowing during peak summer heat, there may be a need for more transmission infrastructure down the road.
Our electric grid is getting cleaner thanks to renewables, but so is natural gas.
“People have called it a bridge fuel, because it is lower CO2 content than coal. It's pretty flexible in terms of its operations,” said Ian Lange, an associate professor of economics and business at the Colorado School of Mines.
Natural gas is a handy tool to mix with renewables, he noted. “You need a power plant that can sort of either ramp up or ramp down as wind and solar alter what it's doing minute to minute, and so gas was seen as very easy to do that.”
Plus, natural gas is plentiful, according to Ed Hirs, a University of Houston energy fellow.
“Natural gas has become the leading resource for electricity generation following the advent of hydraulic fracturing and the tremendous supply of natural gas that we've been able to generate in the U.S.,” he said.
Natural gas also comes out when you drill for crude oil, which we do a lot of in the U.S. these days. The resource is so abundant that it’s even driven down electric bills — but only when that natural gas can get to where it needs to be.
“There are a lot of communities around the U.S. that are not getting the cheapest supplies of electricity, because they don't have access to natural gas distribution systems,” Hirs said.
This is where transmission pipelines — and pipeline companies — are critical.
“Let's just say you're out in Midland, Texas, and there's all these wells, right? There’s hundreds of wells," said Tom Seng, an assistant professor at Texas Christian University. "Well, you don't connect a large pipeline to each well.”
You connect them to a single point, and that goes through a giant transmission pipeline. Those transmission pipelines run underground across the country, almost like spider webs — mostly going directly to natural gas-fired power plants.
These meet today’s electricity demand, but “as we know, the demand for power is going to go up. We're going to need more natural gas supply, among other things," Seng said. "So the question becomes 'Will we have to build out new transmission infrastructure to meet those needs?'"
As we see weather become more extreme and data centers and EVs become more popular, we may see more pipelines … down the pipeline.
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