Energy News for week ending August 24, 2018

Century Old | Slow to go | Beware your A/C and Water Heater

Good Friday afternoon.

This week the first two stories we bring you are law related.

First, in Rhode Island the Providence Journal gives us, Century-old state law may decide case involving Invenergy, Burrillville, Johnston and the future of energy in Rhode Island. “The crux of a lawsuit over a water deal between the Town of Johnston and Chicago-based power plant developer Invenergy may come down to six words in a century-old state law. Those words — “other ordinary municipal water supply purposes” — either allow Johnston to sell some of its Scituate Reservoir water to the $1-billion power plant that Invenergy wants to build in Burrillville, or they forbid it, depending on how the phrase is interpreted…The case before Judge Michael A. Silverstein was brought by the Conservation Law Foundation and the Town of Burrillville…They say… [the law] does not allow for trucking water to the proposed power plant in Burrillville. But lawyers for Johnston and Invenergy say just the opposite. The 1915 law leaves room for the sale of water for industrial purposes, and subsequent decisions by the General Assembly and the state Public Utilities Commission do not expressly prohibit agreements of the type between their clients.”

The second story with legal implications comes to us from Massachusetts where the Cape Cod Times reports, Second Falmouth turbine may be slow to go. “Two wind turbines at the town’s wastewater treatment plant have been under a court order since June 2017 never to spin again. While plans are being made to haul Wind 1 off the site, allaying fears of neighbors who have battled the town in court for years, Wind 2 may remain where it stands for some time…Falmouth Town Counsel Frank Duffy said Wind 1 and Wind 2 do not share the same legal status and therefore will not share the same fate…‘Wind 2 exists today without a special permit from the ZBA and it is too late to mount a challenge to its existence,’ he wrote. Moriarty’s decision prevents Wind 2 from operating on the site due to nuisance, ‘but its removal has not been ordered and there are no grounds to do so at this time,’ Duffy wrote.”

The last story for the week comes to us from CSO Magazine Botnet of smart air conditioners and water heaters could bring down the power grid. “If smart appliances that can be remotely controlled over the internet were to be compromised and used in a botnet, attackers could cause local power outages or even large-scale blackouts, according to a presentation given by Princeton University researchers at the USENIX Security Symposium. This new class of attacks was dubbed MadIoT (Manipulation of demand via IoT) by researchers from Princeton’s Department of Electrical Engineering. Instead of directly attacking the supply side of the power grid, attackers could enslave high-wattage IoT devices in a botnet to manipulate the demand side of the grid. While Wi-Fi-enabled high wattage appliances can make life handy, such as being able to remotely kick on the AC or oven before you arrive home after work – either via an app or home assistant such as the Echo’s Alexa or Google Home – devices remotely controlling the appliances could be used by attackers to manipulate the power demand. After considering that air conditioners, space heaters, electric water heaters and electric ovens use between 1,000 to 5,000 watts of power, the researchers came up with three attack types which were tested on state-of-the-art simulators of real-world power grid models. The results ranged from causing local power outages to large-scale blackouts.”

That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend.

Natural Gas/Oil/Pipeline/Drilling

Century-old state law may decide case involving Invenergy, Burrillville, Johnston and the future of energy in Rhode Island, Providence Journal

Rivera: ‘Plenty of fault to go around’ for gas leak, The Eagle-Tribune

Generators, electric utilities spar over pipeline funding in FERC fuel security docket, Utility Dive

Intervenors Slam New England EDCs’ Gas Play at FERC, RTO Insider

Midwest Utility Turning to Cows, Landfills for a Gas Alternative, Bloomberg L.P.

Quincy mayor halts National Grid permits until company ends worker lockout, Patriot Ledger

National Grid lockout of 1,200 workers drags on, CommonWealth Magazine

Agencies play tug of war over pipeline protection, E and E News

Renewables/Climate Change/RGGI

BREAKING: EPA moves to replace Clean Power Plan with modest carbon regulations, Utility Dive