Webinar: Will New Gas-Fired Power Plants Solve the M-U Gas Glut?
MDN is excited to partner with NGI to present a VERY important webinar on Thursday, May 4th: “Super Power: Will New Gas-Fired Plants Solve the Appalachian Gas Glut?” NGI has assembled an all-star cast of speakers to discuss where natural gas-fired plants fit into the “generation stack,” with specific emphasis on the PJM Interconnection markets in the Marcellus/Utica. PJM is a regional transmission organization (RTO) coordinating the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia (including PA, OH and WV). PJM, like other RTOs, faces challenges with ensuring there will always be enough electricity produced to meet demand. Over the past several years coal-fired electric generating plants have been closing. Natural gas, and in a much smaller sense renewables (wind and solar) have taken up the slack. Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. But natural gas needs pipelines to get it to the plants. So what’s the scoop with natgas electric generation in our neck of the woods? How important are new power plants to the capacity-constrained Marcellus/Utica? Jump on this free 1-hour webinar to find out…
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Last week the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) released a report by Pace Global about the “critical role” of natural gas in generating affordable (and clean) electricity in the U.S. The report, titled “Natural Gas: Essential to a lower carbon energy future” (full copy below), finds that whether or not the U.S. federal government adopts Obama’s disastrous so-called Clean Power Plan, the shift was already underway and will continue–from using sources like coal to using natural gas to generate electricity. It is the single, biggest factor in lowering carbon dioxide emissions–if you care about that sort of thing (which we don’t). Along with the Pace report the NGSA released four key policy recommendations that will encourage even more use of natgas in power generation, and increasingly important market for Marcellus/Utica gas…
In January 2016, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see 
Two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that Japanese company Sojitz Corporation had purchased a one-third (1/3) interest in the 488-megawatt Marcellus gas-fired electric plant being built in Birdsboro, near Philadelphia (see 
As MDN reported last week, the battle lines have been drawn and both sides have come out swinging in a battle over whether ratepayers should bail out economically failing nuclear power plants (see 
New York Gov. Cuomo has now blocked the Constitution Pipeline from getting built (see 
A bit of good news which is sure to drive insane snowflakes on the campus of Ohio State University in Columbus over the edge of the cliff. Engie, a multinational electric utility company headquartered in France, recently won a contract to provide energy to Ohio State University for the next 50 (!) years. On the heals of that announcement, Engie has announced a potential plan to build a 60-megawatt Utica gas-fired electric power plant right on the campus of OSU. It will be the first-ever electric plant located on campus. Talk about gall! Doesn’t Engie know that OSU’s precious snowflakes (lib kiddies that hate fossil fuels) will melt?! That their precious sensitivities will be mortally offended? We’re waiting for the storm that’s about to be unleashed with the news of the new plant. Grab some popcorn and enjoy the entertainment…
The main reason anti-drillers are hellbent on preventing any new drilling, and indeed the use of natural gas, is because it’s a “fossil fuel” and when burned, it creates carbon dioxide (CO2). However, what many non-thinking antis often overlook is that the use of natural gas instead of coal, oil and other fossil fuels leads to LESS carbon dioxide emissions. They blather on about limiting natural gas usage when it is because of natgas that CO2 emissions continue to go DOWN, year after year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has just published an article highlighting the fact that CO2 emissions in the U.S. went down again in 2016–mostly because of a change from using coal to generate electricity to using natural gas, much of it extracted from the Marcellus/Utica…
MDN first told you about IMG Midstream in August 2014 (see 
MDN has been highlighting Marcellus/Utica gas-fired electric plant projects from some time. Our lead story today is about IMG Midstream’s “tiny” power plants–a contrarian strategy of building small rather than large. We cover these projects because (a) they use a lot of natural gas, and therefore are an important new market/demand for our oversupply of natural gas here in the northeast, and (b) each of these projects results in millions (sometimes billions) of dollars of new investment in local communities where they get built. Electric generating plants are a feel good, good news story. However, we have to ask the question, Are we now overbuilding new power plants? On the surface it seems ludicrous to even ask the question. “Everyone knows” that coal generating plants are closing down and something (typically natgas) has to replace all of that generating capacity that’s closing down, right? Not so fast. The electricity market is complex. The market where most of the plants we cover are getting built is in the PJM grid, which covers all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia. Natural gas and coal are not the only two choices to generate power. In fact, did you know that the #1 power generating source in PA is nuclear? An article from Bloomberg discusses a “glut of supply” in PJM which has led to prices falling throughout the region. So once again, are we building too many electric plants too fast? Will there be enough demand for all of the electricity we generate from new natgas-fired plants?…
In March MDN brought you the news that APV Renaissance Partners (a subsidiary of American Power Ventures) will submit a permit to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) “within the next month” for a combined-cycle power plant at the old Hatfield’s Ferry site in Greene County, PA–to be powered with Marcellus Shale gas (see 
It’s hard to keep track of all the Marcellus and Utica Shale-fired electric plants being planned, built and going online. We recently highlighted a list of 11 such projects getting built in Ohio (see 
Pssst. Hey buddy. Got a spare power plant you want to sell? Consumers Energy is Michigan’s largest utility, providing natural gas and electricity to 6.7 million of the state’s 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties. Consumers is canceling an existing contract with Entergy’s Palisades nuclear plant in 2018 and needs to replace the electricity they were buying from the plant. So Consumers is going shopping–for a natural gas-fired power plant that can provide up to 800 megawatts of electricity. Who wants to lay odds that whichever plant they end up buying will be supplied, at least partially, but Utica/Marcellus gas…
A few weeks ago MDN reported on an upcoming meeting (to be held March 27) in Monroe County, OH to announce a new project to build a 485-megawatt Utica gas-fired electric plant (see