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Members of Landowner Group in Broome County, NY Receive First Payment for Lease Deal

Stop the press: There’s actually been some GOOD news from New York State on the drilling front. Inflection Energy has just issued payments to some 130 residents in the Town of Maine (Broome County, NY) to secure drilling rights to their land, when/if drilling ever begins in New York State.

The deal, announced in February, calls for $6,000 per acre over eight years. About 130 residents with more than 3,000 acres have begun receiving checks for the first year’s payment of $1,000 per acre, said Robert Wedlake, a lawyer with Hinman, Howard & Kattell representing the group, called the South Maine Millennium Coalition.

The Inflection deal calls for 20 percent royalties “subject to certain deductions,” according to a press release from Wedlake and Inflection.*

*Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (May 9) – Town of Maine residents getting $3 million for gas rights

Wall Street Journal Predicts Shale Gas Will Rock the World

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes a special section on energy, and the lead story, taking up the entire front page and continuing inside, is titled, “How Shale Gas is Going to Rock the World.” The article is written by Amy Myers Jaffe, a Fellow in Energy Studies at Rice University. Ms. Jaffe writes a stellar article that shows how shale gas, if not derailed by environmental extremists, will be THE energy story of the next several decades. MDN highly recommends you read this article (generally requires a subscription, but this special supplement is free and open for now—read it while you can).

Here’s a couple of paragraphs from the article to give you a taste:

We’ve always known the potential of shale; we just didn’t have the technology to get to it at a low enough cost. Now new techniques have driven down the price tag—and set the stage for shale gas to become what will be the game-changing resource of the decade.

I have been studying the energy markets for 30 years, and I am convinced that shale gas will revolutionize the industry—and change the world—in the coming decades. It will prevent the rise of any new cartels. It will alter geopolitics. And it will slow the transition to renewable energy.*

And no, slowing the adoption of renewable energy is not a negative—it’s a positive—because it will give renewable technologies time to develop without having to be heavily subsidized with our tax dollars and forced on us by a nanny state government. That is, natural gas is a bridge that will allow the free market (in renewable energy) to take its course naturally. Gotta love capitalism! Capitalism is superior to any other economic system in the world—and Ms. Jaffe shows us why.

*Wall Street Journal (May 10) – Shale Gas Will Rock the World