PA Country’s #1 Electric Exporter – Threatened by Wolf Carbon Tax
A new report from the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) shows Pennsylvania sent more than 79 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity to other states in 2020–by far the biggest electricity exporter in the country. And it’s mostly thanks to cheap, abundant, clean-burning natural gas. PA’s position as the number one electric exporter is now threatened by its recalcitrant Governor, Tom Wolf, who insists on forcing the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a $2.36 billion carbon tax over the next 10 years aimed at shutting down coal and gas-fired power plants. Is Wolf certifiably insane?
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Nearly 20 years ago Indeck Energy floated a plan to build an electric generating plant (powered by natural gas) in Niles, Michigan, not far from Chicago. In 2016 those plans got serious (see 
A recently published book that attempts to show fracking in Lycoming County, PA area in the worst possible light, along with a section excerpted from the book running in the New York Times, once again reopens an old case that accuses Range Resources of ruining the water supply for several homes near a fracked well drilled by Range. In 2011 Range drilled and fracked the Harman Lewis Unit 1H well along Green Valley Road in Hughesville, PA. Following an investigation, the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) slapped Range with a record $8.9 million fine in June 2015, accusing the company of faulty casing in its well, leading to methane migration that had contaminated several area water wells (see 
We don’t often use material from the known fake news source called the New York Times, but here we are using a second article from the NYT in one day! The article (below) does its best to shred the reputation and credibility of Joe Manchin, senior U.S. Senator from West Virginia. We have to confess we’re a bit wary of Manchin given his tendency to cave under pressure and vote with the Democrat Party line. But Manchin is all that currently stands in the way of Joe Biden and the Democrat Party’s plan to eliminate natural gas (and coal), phasing both out as energy sources to produce electricity, part of the $3.5 trillion so-called budget reconciliation bill.
Natural gas pipeline operators have some work to do to protect their pipelines (and consequently the public) from nefarious hackers who seek to shut them down. That was the upshot from a panel discussion at last week’s LDC Gas Forums Midcontinent conference in Chicago. One simple way pipelines and the customers who use them leave themselves open to attack: They don’t encrypt gas nominations.
Here we go again. Although we understand self-interest and wanting to protect one’s profit margin, we continue to be distressed that some of the biggest chemical companies in the world (meaning in the U.S.) are actively trying to block LNG exports. Why? They want the natural gas they buy (in very large quantities) to be as cheap as possible. In April 2017, Big Chemical–companies like Dow Corning, BASF, Eastman Chemical and others–via their trade association Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), launched an effort to try and persuade Energy Secretary Rick Perry and the Trump Administration to create barriers to exports of natural gas (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Tennessee Gas Pipeline incrementally adds infrastructure; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: How BP is counting on poultry litter for renewable natural gas; NATIONAL: US natural gas storage fields add more than market expects, prompting price slide; INTERNATIONAL: Biden urges world leaders to cut methane gas emissions; Gazprom denies European Parliament’s accusations of rigging gas prices.