New England May Experience Electricity Shortage – This Summer
New England, with its opposition to new natural gas pipelines, is shooting itself in the head when it comes to electricity supplies. A recent announcement from ISO New England, charged with maintaining electric reliability for New England’s power grid, says everything should be fine this summer when it comes to electric generation–BUT “forecasts show possibility of occasional tight system conditions.” Rolling blackouts anyone? Some 700 megawatts (MW) of expected new resources “are delayed and may not be available this summer.” Natgas-fired electric generators in New England have been begging and pleading for pipelines to bring more natural gas to the region–to feed their plants. Yet the dopes in New England, like Sen. Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healy, keep shutting them out…
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Moody’s Investors Service issued a report earlier this week saying an abundance of cheap, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas threatens to “wreak havoc” in the electric generation market in the PJM area, which covers all or parts of DE, IL, IN, KY, MD, MI, NJ, NC, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, and Washington, DC. According to Moody’s researchers, a large influx of natural gas power plants entering PJM Interconnection, due to cheap gas supplies from the Marcellus Shale, will pose “severe challenges for generators operating in the region” in the next few years. Because of the Marcellus “glut,” new plants coming online will drive down power prices, which “could lead” to widespread closures of coal power plants, and pressure operating margins for all generators, including other gas-fired plants. The prediction is that a low-price Armageddon will result in widespread corporate casualties. What can be done to avoid this hideous future? Nothing. The only thing power plant operators can do is cut their debt load, which they are doing. In other words, good old American competition (coming from Marcellus Shale gas) is making the PJM electric industry get leaner and more efficient. Imagine that… 
Talen Energy was birthed in June 2015–a combination of PPL Energy Supply and certain assets of Riverstone Holdings. The company, headquartered in Allentown, PA, is one of the largest competitive energy and power generation companies in North America. Talen owns or controls 16,000 megawatts of generating capacity in wholesale power markets, primarily in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and Southwest regions of the U.S. Talen has gotten into converting and building natural gas-fired electric plants, stories we’ve covered over the past few years (
An important breakthrough in our long struggle to overthrow the odious and misnamed Obama Clean Power Plan–a plan that assassinates coal and mortally wounds natural gas (see 
In January, MDN highlighted a developing issue in Ohio that potentially impacts Utica/Marcellus shale in the region (see 
MDN is excited to partner with NGI to present a VERY important webinar on Thursday, May 4th: “
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?…