RGGI Carbon Tax on Track to Hit New All-Time High of $27/Allowance
In 2019, when then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf announced he would unilaterally force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax scheme aimed at forcing coal- and gas-fired plants out of business, he claimed the tax would only amount to a few dollars per allowance (or “short ton”) of CO2 (see Gov. Wolf Goes Bonkers: EO Destroying Gas-Fired Elec, Carbon Tax). That lie was exposed early on when, in March 2021, the price per allowance for CO2 under RGGI soared to $7.60 (see RGGI Carbon Tax Hits All-Time High – Gas-Fired Plants Close). Since then, it’s only continued to increase. S&P Global said the quarterly auction held yesterday was on track to clear $27 per allowance!! Read More “RGGI Carbon Tax on Track to Hit New All-Time High of $27/Allowance”
As you know, the Biden-Harris administration has been a big promoter of hydrogen energy, even though (a) it’s expensive to produce and (b) there are no customers (currently) who want more supplies of it. Because hydrogen is “clean” energy, the left is pushing it as energy nirvana. (Most leftists alive today don’t know what the 
Hats off to Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw, who is floating yet another bill that will benefit the state, electric ratepayers, and the Marcellus industry — all at the same time. Yesterday, Yaw announced his intention to float a new bill that would create the Pennsylvania Baseload Energy Development Fund. What is it? It’s a fund that would set up a revolving loan program at a low interest rate to encourage private companies to build more baseload electric power generation in the state. That is, build more gas-fired power plants.
Yesterday, MDN brought you the news that two dozen states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to place a temporary block on new EPA regulations that will put all coal plants out of business and block most (if not all) new gas-fired power plants from getting built (see 
Last week, MDN brought you an article from RBN Energy detailing how more electricity and natural gas will soon be needed in Virginia and the Carolinas for a plethora of new projects in the works (see 
New England’s power grid would have gone offline this summer without natural gas. Electricity generation using fossil fuels increased in New England to meet the additional air-conditioning demand during heat waves in June and July. Natural gas-fired electricity generation made up 56% of New England’s generation mix during the week of the June 16 heat wave, peaking at 61% on June 22. Between July 6 and 13, natural gas-fired electricity averaged 58% of the generation mix. Solar and wind (aka renewables) made up a tiny fraction of New England’s power generation mix.
PJM Interconnection is the largest U.S. power grid operator, serving 65 million people in 13 states plus the District of Columbia (including PA, OH, and WV). PJM supplies power to more than 20% of the U.S. economy. Most of the states in PJM are not energy self-sufficient. They don’t produce enough electricity to meet their own demand. Pennsylvania is the exception and has become THE main producer in the PJM region, exporting electricity to its neighbors. However, according to a chilling new report by Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT), PA Gov. Josh Shapiro’s electricity proposals will destabilize the PJM grid and potentially cause massive blackouts. 
New York State has become the North Korea of the United States. It is narrow and parochial and devoid of freedom. If you operate a business in New York and you are not in a protected or favored class, or if your business does not bribe someone in the Democrat Party, you are in danger of losing that business. New York is aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. A “bitcoin miner” operating in beautiful Upstate NY, near the shore of Seneca Lake, uses a clean-burning (very small) natural gas power plant to power its 15,300 computer servers. The radical Democrats running the state, including Gov. Kathy Hochul, want it shut down and gone. Last October, NY antis were close to achieving their objective. But what’s this? The bitcoin miner is hanging tough and challenging the state in court. The facility is still online!
We have news of a second southern gas-fired power plant to share today. This one is tiny, a 75-megawatt peaker plant in Madisonville, Kentucky. The Kentucky Municipal Energy Agency (KYMEA) and the City of Madisonville recently announced the development of the KYMEA Energy Center I, a natural gas electric generating facility. The new facility, with four reciprocating internal combustion engine (RICE) generators, will be able to start up at a moment’s notice. The raison d’etre for the facility? To supplement unreliable renewable energy that can’t meet sudden increases in demand for electricity. 
Recently, we’ve told you about the coming demand for natural gas to generate electricity that data centers and artificial intelligence will need (see 
For a leftist, the glass is always half empty, and the pie is always a fixed size. Conservatives, on the other hand, believe in human ingenuity and the American spirit of bigger and better and can-do and let’s get it done. It’s a stark contrast. Here’s the perfect example. Big pipeline companies and others are touting the coming rapid expansion in data centers due to artificial intelligence (AI). Instead of this being good news — the prospect of helping humans make new leaps in technology and breakthroughs in medicine and other sectors — leftists view AI expansion as a threat because it will use more electricity…electricity generated by dirty, evil fossil fuels.