A warning on natural gas

Just minutes before Charlie Baker became governor, the Patrick administration released a $250,000 study suggesting winter electricity prices are likely to remain very high for the next four years and additional natural gas pipeline capacity is needed to address the problem.

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Peter Shattuck, Massachusetts director for the Acadia Center, which advocates for clean energy, said it might not make sense to require customers across New England to pay for new pipeline capacity that may only be needed for about three years under the report’s most optimistic demand scenario. He said the report also failed to consider what might happen to energy markets if the price of oil remains unusually low.