Dominion Investing $10.1B, Creating 20K New Jobs in VA Next 5 Yrs
It’s a shame to have to prove to people what should be self-evident–that building new natural gas electric plants and natural gas pipelines will bring both new jobs and inject billions into a state’s economy–but that’s what you sometimes have to do. You have to prove it to counteract the negative drumbeat from radical anti-drillers and leftist mainstream media. So Dominion, a huge utility/pipeline company operating in 14 states including the Marcellus/Utica region, commissioned a study that looks at how many jobs and how much money will be pumped into the State of Virginia over the next five years if all of the pipeline and electric plant projects they have on the books happen. The study (full copy below) finds Dominion is set to invest $10.1 billion and create nearly 12,000 jobs over the next five years in the Old Dominion. A sizable portion of the new projects and jobs are tied to natural gas…
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In August 2014 the Marshall County, WV board of commissioners (a 3-person board) voted to approve a plan to build a Marcellus Shale-powered electric plant in the county (see 
More electricity is disappearing from the electrical grid thanks for Barack H. Obama’s war on coal. AES had considered converting a coal-powered electric plant is operates in Potter County, PA into burning natural gas–indeed had applied for and received permits to do it–but instead they reversed course and have now shuttered the plant they operate in Potter known as the Bear Valley plant…
Good old fracked Pennsylvania Marcellus Shale gas will begin powering passenger trains in Philadelphia starting in 2017, if all goes according to plan. SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) announced as part of its “sustainability” efforts they plan to build their own electric generating plant powered by Marcellus Shale gas. The $26.8 million plant will save them money, be better for the environment, and heat SEPTA’s largest bus garage (with excess heat from the plant) to boot. It’s a win/win/win all the way around…
In August our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, introduced his latest edict called the Clean Power Plan. The plan uses the federal Environmental Protection Agency to completely eliminate coal-fired electric plants, and greatly diminish natural gas-fired electric plants (see 
With President Obama’s war on coal in full swing, so-called renewable energy sources like wind and solar can’t possibly pick up the slack from coal-powered electric generating plants shutting down. Coal-fired electric plants are shutting down at an alarming rate–we’ve lost 11 million megawatts of coal-fired electric capacity in the past year alone. That situation spells opportunity for natural gas. One reason that natgas is making inroads in the electric generating space is because it’s a whole lot cheaper today than it was just a few short years ago to use clean-burning natural gas to power electric plants. In 2008 the price of natural gas sold for an average of $13 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf). Today? The price of gas has been bumping along at around $2.75/Mcf. In places like southwest Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio Marcellus and Utica gas sells for around $1.50-$1.75/Mcf. So it’s no wonder electric plants powered by natural gas are springing up all over the place. Below is a quick look at six such plants in eastern Ohio and West Virginia…
Canadian company TransCanada is perhaps best known for its Keystone XL Pipeline project, a 1,179-mile crude oil pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Nebraska–if it ever gets built. Lord Obama opposes the pipeline and as we all know when a dictator opposes something, it doesn’t happen. The Keystone XL Pipeline would flow Canadian crude oil as far south as Texas. However, moving Canadian oil isn’t the only thing TransCanada does. They’re also owners of electric generating plants, and one of the markets they have their eye on is the northeast with its access to abundant, clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas. Last week TransCanada announced a deal to buy the Ironwood natural gas-fired power plant located in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Ironwood produces up to 778 megawatts of electricity–enough electricity to power over half a million homes. TransCanada is paying $654 million to buy the plant…
We know, you think MDN loves to toss out hyperbole and verbal jabs just to get a rise out of people. You think we’re somehow not quite as “serious” (or accurate) as other news/blog sources because of our sometimes “outrageous” comments sprinkled in with the news. Like this comment: Without new natural gas pipelines to New England, like the Kinder Morgan Northeast Energy Direct project or Spectra Energy’s Access Northeast project, New Englanders will experience rolling blackouts for electricity in the future. “There you go again. Nobody believes that! Just another over-the-top comment.” Except–it’s true. It’s not hyperbole. It’s not over-the-top talk. Yesterday the operator of Massachusetts’ only operating nuclear power point, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth, MA, said they will shutter the plant no later than June 1, 2019. It’s just gotten too expensive to comply with increasingly onerous federal regulations. Not only will 600 jobs be lost, so too will electricity for 600,000 homes. Natural gas powering electric generating plants is the only practical/serious alternative that can be ready in time to take up the slack. Without natgas powering new electric plants, there simply won’t be enough electricity for everybody in New England, and that will lead to brownouts and rolling blackouts. Do you see just how dire the situation is for New Englanders? And yet, a small number of anti-fossil fuelers persist in the fiction that sticking up windmills and solar panels will somehow provide enough energy…
Advanced Power Services announced yesterday they will build a second mega-electric generating plant that taps into and uses Ohio’s Utica Shale. This new plant will generate a whopping 1,100 megawatts of electricity and be located in Columbiana County, OH. Advanced just broke ground in July on a 700-megawatt plant in Carroll County (see 
This is disappointing. For over a year utility and electric generating giant NRG had planned to convert a coal-fired electric generating plan in Avon Lake (Lorain County), OH to burn Utica Shale gas instead. NRG’s plan includes building a $40 million, 20-mile pipeline to feed the Avon plant. That pipeline was finally approved in June (see