Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel

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    Anti-Drillers Oppose Converting 2 NY Electric Plants to NatGas

    This is the tale of two electrical generating power plants. Both are located in New York State–on opposite sides of the state. One is in Tompkins County (near Ithaca, NY), the other in Chautauqua County (Dunkirk, near Buffalo, NY). Both are powered by coal and both will either need to convert to natural gas or close down.

    Something else both have in common: anti-drilling nutters want them closed rather than converted  from burning coal to burning natural gas–even though closure means school and property taxes in both areas will go through the roof–higher than the nosebleed rates they already are. In both cases the power plants are the single largest taxpayer in their respective municipalities. Makes no difference to the nutters because most of them don’t live there and could care less. An update for both the Cayuga Power Plant and the Dunkirk Power Plant…
    Read More “Anti-Drillers Oppose Converting 2 NY Electric Plants to NatGas”

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    Inergy: Boycott NY Businesses that Support ‘Gas Free Seneca’

    boycottIt’s interesting to MDN that when anti-fracking protesters call for boycotts of businesses that either support or (gasp) are part of the shale drilling industry, such a boycott is considered brave and courageous and a-OK. But when someone on the pro-drilling side suggests those who support fracking and the natural gas industry may want to boycott the businesses donating money and time to fight the natural gas industry, that’s “bullying” and mean and evil. Anyone else smell a hypocritical rat? We’re referring to a recent brouhaha over Inergy Midstream’s (now part of Crestwood Midstream) plan to develop a liquid propane storage facility using depleted salt caverns along the edge of Seneca Lake near Watkins Glen, NY. MDN has long covered the fight by Inergy to bring the only new storage facility proposed in the northeast (badly needed), and the people who want to stop it (see NY Protesters Arrested for Blocking NatGas Storage Facility).

    In June, a VP for Inergy sent an email to 25 people suggesting they may want to boycott the businesses using their time and money to actively oppose the Inergy facility. Those businesses are part of the “Business Coalition” of the organization called Gas Free Seneca (GFS). The email sent by the Inergy VP–now six months old but but just coming to light–has GFS in a tizzy. GFS has responded with their own email that they are “extremely disturbed” by this “bullying” from Inergy. That is, GFS doesn’t like the shoe being on the other foot for a change (poor babies). We have the story of the email, and the list of the (current) 181 NY businesses that Inergy (and you) may want to consider boycotting…
    Read More “Inergy: Boycott NY Businesses that Support ‘Gas Free Seneca’”

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    PA Media Continues to Henpeck Corbett Admin on Warming Mythology

    The reliably anti-drilling StateImpact Pennsylvania (left-leaning NPR affiliate) continues to henpeck PA Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration over the fantasy of “global warming.” They’re trying to fabricate an issue out of the fact that some on the Corbett team don’t believe in global warming as strongly as they do. Some in the Corbett administration have the temerity (we’d say the guts) to challenge the notion that Planet Earth is about to fry to a crisp because of the carbon-producing activities of humans. The whole notion is so silly it’s beyond belief, but saying so out loud will earn you the badge of being a quack–a badge that MDN proudly wears.

    StateImpact PA tried to tar & feather Acting Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection Chris Abruzzo last week (see PA DEP Sec. Abruzzo Grilled by PA Senate on Global Warming). StateImpact PA thought they might as well do a 2-for-1 drive-by reporting special, so they also went after Corbett energy adviser Patrick Henderson. Here’s how that went…
    Read More “PA Media Continues to Henpeck Corbett Admin on Warming Mythology”

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    Erie County (Buffalo) NY to Vote on “Near-Ban” of Fracking

    The odious Food & Water Watch (FWW), a partisan anti-drilling organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., is behind a scare effort to get the Erie County (Buffalo), NY legislature to ban fracking on county-owned land, ban the treatment of frack wastewater, and ban the use of processed brine (sometimes erroneously called frack wastewater) as a deicer and dust suppressant throughout the county. Using processed brine–water from drilled gas wells with heavy minerals and anything harmful removed–as a deicer and dust suppressant has been happening safely across the country for years. Hey, if Erie residents want to double the price they pay for road salt (and they use a LOT of road salt for Buffalo winters), who are we to stop them?

    The full Erie County legislature will vote on the ill-advised proposed ban this week at its December 12th meeting:
    Read More “Erie County (Buffalo) NY to Vote on “Near-Ban” of Fracking”

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    Enviro America Sends 29K Form Letters Opposing Barged Frack Water

    Lookie here. A couple thousand members of Environment America (or maybe it’s just a couple hundred since they hide their enrollment numbers) have mass produced 29,000 form letters opposing the U.S. Coast Guard’s plan to allow safe shipping of frack wastewater on American rivers (see Coast Guard Green Lights Barge Transport of Frack Wastewater). Never hear of Environment America (EA)? Not many have. The organization was spawned from the “PIRG” (Public Interest Research Groups) in 2007. What you need to know is that EA is strongly anti-drilling.

    We’re sure the Coast Guard appreciates the considerateness of EA in providing form letters so once they’ve read one of the letters, they’re read all of them. Saves time that way–very thoughtful of EA–although a lot of trees were slaughtered (very un-green!) to produce all that paper. So really, the headline should say that EA has sent one letter from their members, not 29,000, because that about sums up this non-story. Here’s the press announcement from EA, laced with toxic terminology and filled with bogus claims:
    Read More “Enviro America Sends 29K Form Letters Opposing Barged Frack Water”

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    Must-See Video Sticks It to Hollywood Anti-Frackers

    Throwing their own words right back in their smug faces, a new video released on Tuesday by the Western Energy Alliance uses real people to tell the truth about fracking, and tells off the know-nothing Hollwood stars that appear in a recent anti-fracking video.

    A Washington Times story about the new video appears directly below, followed by the video itself. Please take time to give it a watch–it’s under one minute long and will put a smile on your face like it did ours…
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    More Global Warming Flummery – Latest Scare Report Issued

    A new report is out on the hazards of global warming…blah blah blah…fill in the blanks. If the warmers detect the general public doesn’t believe as fervently as they used to about global warming–if people are going a little bit squishy and starting to ask uncomfortable questions–it’s time to ratchet up the rhetoric and start talking about impending doom and a coming environmental holocaust. Trouble is, they keep doing it–decade after decade–and the environmental holocaust never seems to arrive. So they have to start blaming hurricanes and big winter storms–things we’ve had for, oh, millions of years–on global warming. Do they really think we’re that stupid?

    And so enters yet another shrill global warming flummery study from the left-leaning National Research Council–because the general population needs another good scare. The compliant New York Times does as good a job as any at trumpeting this latest false alarm. We learn that even though global warming hasn’t really caused any problems yet, when it does, baby it’s gonna happen “all at once” and be “really bad”…honest…
    Read More “More Global Warming Flummery – Latest Scare Report Issued”

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    Martin Sheen Pimps Himself for Anti-Frackers

    No one has ever mistaken actor Martin Sheen for someone who’s actually smart. He’s a good actor, but not that good! However, Sheen is pleasant enough to watch, especially as he ages. And he has a nice voice–perfect for voice over work. So Sheen supplements the long periods when the phone doesn’t ring by pimping himself out to liberal/loony causes. The latest “Martin for hire” work is playing now–an “expose” on fracking.

    Apparently the program airing the so-called expose is called Breakthroughs–a semi-regular series on PBS narrated by Sheen, who dutifully reads what is set before him–outright lies, big huge whopper lies, and smaller insidious lies–but all lies. Sheen doesn’t care he’s lying to you–he’s getting paid by whomever. For the fracking episode Sheen is being paid by the rabidly anti-drilling Environment America to pedal their pap to the snooty crowd that watches public television…
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    National Park Service Tosses Ingraffea Anti-Frack Comments Out

    Someone who used to work at the National Park Service (NPS) is probably in the unemployment line this week because he or she made the boss look bad. Last week the NPS had to retract negative comments inserted by an unnamed (and hopefully unemployed) NPS staffer about shale drilling in the official NPS position on fracking forwarded to the Bureau of Land Management. The BLM is formulating their own rules to regulate fracking on federal lands and wanted (intelligent) input from other agencies.

    As part of the official comments/views on fracking from NPS, some idiot unnamed staffer at NPS actually quoted the goofy Cornell professor Tony Ingraffea and his wild ideas (published in the compliant New York Times) about fracking being “a gangplank to more global warming.” Whatever Tony. NPS now says they don’t agree with those crackpot comments…
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    Some Icebergs are Flammable! Does Josh Fox Know?

    Hey Josh, this one is sure to land you an Emmy… head on up to the North Pole and light an entire iceberg on fire! Quit faffing around with a little water tap and go for the thing that’s sure to put your fading name in lights forever. Just one problem Josh, you don’t have to frack the ice in order to get the methane out. Bummer, dude.

    We’re referring, tongue-in-cheek, to the serious news that methane is hiding–it’s hiding inside ice crystals at the bottom of the ocean and under the Arctic permafrost. And wonder of wonders, in the next 5-10 years the technology will be available to retrieve that ice-bound methane–enough methane to make shale supplies look like a thimbleful. It likely will not be economically feasible for the U.S. to go after these “methane hydrates” in ice since we have cheap, abundant natural gas all around us that can be safely fracked, but for countries like Japan and India without their own sources of natural gas, this may be the answer to their energy prayers–especially since we seem to be reluctant to export any of our shale gas to them…
    Read More “Some Icebergs are Flammable! Does Josh Fox Know?”

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    2 Anti-Drillers Arrested at Youngstown Injection Well

    Two anti-drilling protesters were arrested Sunday for blocking trucks trying to enter an injection well facility in Niles (Trumbull County), Ohio–near Youngstown. Film at eleven.

    Oh! You want more details? There isn’t much in the way of information, but here’s what we know about who was arrested, and why:
    Read More “2 Anti-Drillers Arrested at Youngstown Injection Well”

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    Eco Group Schisms & The Heart of the Fracking Debate

    An article in the National Journal does a good job of capturing the growing rift among so-called environmentalists on the issue of fracking–or hydraulic fracturing. Every now and again it’s helpful to review the basics here on MDN because we constantly have new readers/subscribers to our service. For years MDN has said the true movement people who oppose fracking (i.e. shale drilling)–people like Josh Fox with his Gasland fictions and the odious Food & Water Watch, and lately even the Sierra Club–oppose fracking not because the practice actually pollutes, but because it frees up large volumes of natural gas, which is a fossil fuel, and they HATE all fossil fuels. Yes, it’s an irrational hatred–but that is what is truly at the heart of this debate: fossil fuel phobia. Movement environmentalists believe humans should stop using fossil fuels now. Bring back the horse and buggy.

    Of course anti-frackers are rankly hypocritical as they jet around the world and drive around the country using fossil fuels to spread their anti-fossil fuel message. They go home at night and turn up the furnace–a furnace that burns fossil fuels–to heat their homes. They turn on their stoves that burn natural gas to cook their food. They use electricity which (coming as a shocking surprise to their parochial worldview) is created by big power plants that burn coal or natural gas. But “do as I say not as I do” has always been the credo for anti-frackers. The article in National Journal is about the “fight” over fracking in Colorado among environmentalists, but the story could easily take place in NY, PA, WV, or OH. The arguments, the lies and deceptions by extremist “environmental” groups, are the same wherever you go…
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    The One Issue on Which Anti- and Pro-Drillers Agree

    why can't we all just get alongIs there an issue on which both anti- and pro-drillers can agree? Is there ever a time both sides can sit at the same table and discuss a potential problem, and do so without hyperbole and snarky comments? Is there an issue over which both sides can talk and not have it end in shouting? Indeed there is–and it is the issue of air pollution. MDN realizes we’re on shaky ground with our industry friends by writing this, but on several occasions we’ve pointed out there is a growing body of evidence that shows a marked increase in air pollution in heavily drilled areas–mostly from compressor plants, but also from drilling rigs, truck traffic, etc. (see PA DEP Report: Counties with Fracking Have More Air Pollution). The issue of air pollution is enough to unite two neighbors from Dimock, PA who were formerly on opposite sides of the drilling debate.

    One of those neighbors starred in Josh Fox’s Gasland II fiction–Victoria Switzer (see More on “Pro-Drilling” Conversion of Gasland II Star from Dimock). We wouldn’t say Vickie is exactly pro-drilling these days, but she’s decided to be realistic and constructive, instead of obstructive, and that’s a positive change. She’s once again on speaking terms with her Dimock neighbor Ron Teel, a pro-drilling landowner. Ron and Vickie both belong to the local advocacy group Breathe Easy Susquehanna County…
    Read More “The One Issue on Which Anti- and Pro-Drillers Agree”

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    Anti-Drilling Cabal Issues Biased Report on Marcellus/Utica Jobs

    A collection of highly partisan anti-drillers (people who abjectly hate fossil fuels) get together and issue a “report” that claims to be backed by “research” (a few interviews with a few people in a few counties), and it’s instantly news. The officious sounding and never before heard from Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative has just issued a report saying, “Nah, the Marcellus and Utica Shale industry doesn’t create all that many jobs after all.” Er, right. Who is the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative? A group of five anti-drilling groups who use the word “nonpartisan” so many times if we had a nickle for every time it appears on their websites…you get the idea. This new league of anti-drillers (“cabal” about pegs it) attempts to appear nonpartisan and above it all. They are not. They are completely partisan on the issue of drilling. How do we know? Look at who funds them and their so-called research on employment: The Heinz Endowments, Hillsdale Fund, Park Foundation, and Stoneman Family Foundation. Need we say more?

    Below are the press release and the full report issued by the cabal. It’s not really worth anyone’s time to read it–we present it to you so you are informed of the latest coordinated and scripted attack against shale drilling–so when you see Reuters/Bloomberg/AP/Gannett et all pick it up and breathlessly report it as real news, you’ll know what you’re looking at. Just more propaganda from the usual suspects…
    Read More “Anti-Drilling Cabal Issues Biased Report on Marcellus/Utica Jobs”

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    NJ Antis Say Delaware River May See Barged Frack Wastewater

    This was predictable. The radical Sierra Club (of New Jersey) and other anti-drilling organizations including the New Jersey Environmental Federation, Environment New Jersey and the always rabidly anti-drilling Delaware Riverkeeper have joined forces in a coordinated attack against the U.S. Coast Guard’s proposal to allow barges to carry frack wastewater on America’s waterways–including the mighty Delaware River.

    Never mind that barges containing chemicals far more deadly than frack wastewater make their way up and down our rivers every day (including the Delaware)–right now. Anti-drillers conveniently don’t mention that little fact. They just want fracking wastewater to be banned, because they want fracking banned, because fracking leads to more drilling and use of that awful, nasty, horrible fossil fuel, natural gas…
    Read More “NJ Antis Say Delaware River May See Barged Frack Wastewater”

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    Scranton Area TU Chapter Hears about New Tactic to End Drilling

    As MDN pointed out a few days ago, anti-drilling members of the anti-drilling Trout Unlimited (TU) have changed tactics (see TU: If You Can’t Beat Shale Drillers, Try a New Lie). Instead of calling for an outright ban on Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania, they’ve decided to call for over-regulation–attempting to make their requests sound reasonable and fair. The intent is still the same: stop drilling any way you can.

    TU community agitator organizer Paula Piatt traveled from Mifflin County (central PA) to Lackawanna County (northeast PA) to spread the “let’s regulate them to death” message yesterday…
    Read More “Scranton Area TU Chapter Hears about New Tactic to End Drilling”