14 DAY TRIAL // The Department of Energy in the United States has recently announced plans to build $215 million (nearly €155 million) gasoline storage facilities whose capacity will be one of about 1 million barrels.
Information made available to the public says that the facilities in question are to be constructed in the New York Harbor area and in New England. In time, the country is to set in place several other storage reserves of this kind.
Oil Price informs that the gasoline storage facilities set to be built in the New York Harbor and in New England area will serve to help the country be better equipped to deal with natural disasters brought about by climate change and global warming.
Specifically, this storage reserves are expected to ensure that, should disasters such as 2012's Hurricane Sandy once again hit the United States, those regions that are affected the most will not be faced with gasoline shortages.
The same source tells us that the United States government first started looking into the possibility to build such fuel storage facilities precisely in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
This is because, following this 2012 natural disaster, many people in both New Jersey and New York had to endure long periods of blackouts and lack of fuel. In fact, it appears that some stations were left with no supplies for nearly a month.
According to several research papers, ongoing phenomena such as climate change and global warming have high chances to boost the number of natural disasters that hit the United States on a yearly basis. Hence, plans to erect such facilities can be regarded as a means to do some damage control.
More precisely, word has it that the gasoline stored in these facilities and the other ones that the United States plans to build in the near future will only be used should powerful storms and other natural disasters damage pipelines or refineries in charge of meeting the fuel demand of various regions.
“In addition to our mitigation and international efforts, the president’s Climate Action Plan calls on us to take measures today in order to better prepare for the effects of climate change we already see occurring here at home,” Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz commented on this initiative.
For the time being, it is unclear when exactly work on the gasoline storage reserves in the New York Harbor area and in New England might begin. Hopefully, it will not be long until the United States Energy Department shares more information with the public.