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FUELS www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | JANUARY 2016 15 pipelines. Instead, the study recommended improving energy efficiency and management. "The region is unlikely to face electric reliability issues in the next 15 years and additional energy needs can be met more cheaply and cleanly through energy efficiency and demand response," Healey said in a statement in November, upon release of the study. Demand response is an approach to energy conservation in which consumers are encouraged, through lower rates, to reduce or shift their electricity usage. The approach can help electric system planners and operators bal- ance supply and demand. The attorney general's study, which took three months, examined whether the region would encounter electric reliabil- ity challenges through 2030, and it evaluated the cost-effective- ness and environmental impacts of various solutions, should solutions be needed. "As we make long-term decisions about our energy future, it's imperative we have the facts," Healey said. "This study dem- onstrates that we do not need increased gas capacity to meet electric reliability needs, and that electric ratepayers shouldn't foot the bill for additional pipelines. This study demonstrates that a much more cost-effective solution is to embrace energy efficiency and demand response programs that protect ratepay- ers and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Ferrante said, "The very important point here is that more natural gas certainly is a threat to our industry, but, as well, it's very expensive." Kinder Morgan, based in Houston, Texas, has estimated the cost of its proposed pipeline at approximately $5 billion, and Ferrante said the combined cost of building the Kinder Morgan and other proposed pipelines is projected to be between $6 billion and $8 billion. "In the states that are impact- ed, which is every one of the New England states, the natural gas utilities want those costs to be put on the backs of electric rate payers," Ferrante said. Ferrante, MEMA chairman Ted Noonan of Noonan Energy, Springfield, Mass., and Michael Trunzo, director of public policy and industry relations for the New England Fuel Institute, have been working together to represent the fuel oil industry's position on the gas pipelines, and that has included meetings with the Massachusetts state attorney general's office and with Distrigas/GDF Suez NA, which operates a terminal that receives LNG delivered by ship at its facility in Everett, Mass., on the north edge of Boston. To the AG's staff, Ferrante said, "We were very candid that this would damage our industry, this was just more natural gas that is going to be used to convert homes, but apart from that we don't believe it's needed. There appears to be enough supply of natural gas and liquefied natural gas to meet the region's energy needs. There's no reason to spend these billions of dollars on new pipelines and then put that on the backs of electric consum- ers. That's been our message." Carol Churchill, communications manager for Distrigas of Massachusetts, the LNG terminal operator, told Fuel Oil News via email, "We agree with Attorney General Healey that the region should not gamble with electricity ratepayers' money to subsidize long-term natural gas pipeline contracts when reliable and far more cost-effective means, such as LNG and other solu- tions, are proven and available. "We have always believed LNG, together with dual-fuel power generation, energy conservation, and demand-side man- agement programs, to be cost effective and reliable complements to natural gas pipelines to meet long-term demand," Churchill said. "Conversely, we do not believe subsidized pipelines to be in the best interest of energy consumers." Churchill added, "LNG is a proven solution that requires no additional infrastructure, and has been used to meet peak demand in New England since 1971. "With LNG, customers can contract for what they need when they need it, on flexible terms, and aren't required to commit to a 20-plus year bet on a single solution to the region's energy needs as they would be with a new subsidized natural gas pipeline," Churchill said. The attorney general's study was conducted by the Analysis Group, a Boston firm. It found that, through 2030, the region's power system reliability "will be maintained during the region's coldest winter months," Healey said in her statement. The study used "extremely conservative" assumptions, including apply-