A massive gas outage threatens millions of Americans with frigid darkness
A gas storage facility went offline in Washington State.
A short breaking news item for you this cold Saturday evening: A massive storage facility two hours south of Seattle abruptly went offline, knocking a major source of natural gas out of the pipeline system serving millions from the Pacific Northwest to New Mexico.
The Jackson Prairie Underground Natural Gas Storage Facility in Lewis County, Washington, triggered an emergency on the 1,500-mile Northwest Pipeline that ships gas to power plants and heating networks across the American West right as a frigid winter storm sends temperatures plunging.
Puget Sound Energy, the utility that operates the facility, first confirmed the news to me this evening. The plant is steadily coming back online now, but the company asked customers to conserve electricity and gas throughout the night anyway.
It’s unclear what caused the outage, but recent research from the Union of Concerned Scientists shows a big uptick in gas infrastructure failing during extreme temperatures. U.S. energy systems in general are decades outdated.
As climate change puts more demand on the power grid – when everyone turns on air conditioners during a heat wave, for example – those aging systems are breaking down. Simply fixing old gas pipelines risks worsening the problem, since investing in the fossil fuel system implies its continued usage despite the climate effects and that money is badly needed for new zero-carbon infrastructure.