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NERC Warns of “Urgent Need” for More Electric Power Next 10 Years

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) released its 2024 Long-Term Reliability Assessment? (LTRA) yesterday. The LTRA highlights *critical* reliability challenges that the power industry is facing over the next 10 years, including satisfying escalating energy growth, managing generator retirements, and removing barriers to resource and transmission development. The LTRA concludes that well over half of the continent is at elevated or high risk of energy shortfalls over the next 5 to 10 years. Read More “NERC Warns of “Urgent Need” for More Electric Power Next 10 Years”

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Va. Democrat Study Says Natural Gas Needed to Power Data Centers

The left can no longer hide the truth, as they have tried to do for years. The truth is, with the advent of data centers and artificial intelligence and their enormous demand for new electricity, there is only one solution that will work, at least in the next 10-20 years: natural gas power. A Democrat-controlled panel from the Virginia legislature commissioned an independent study of how to power data centers. Northern Virginia has the highest concentration of data centers globally and remains the fastest-growing market for data centers in the country. The state must plan for how to get power to operate all of those installations. The independent study concluded that the only practical solution is to use natural gas-fired power plants. Read More “Va. Democrat Study Says Natural Gas Needed to Power Data Centers”

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Western NY Bitcoin Plant Considers Swapping Clean Gas for Nuke Power

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In early 2023, Digihost Technology, a Canadian crypto mining company, bought the Fortistar gas-fired power plant in North Tonawanda, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls, in order to use it to power Digihost’s Bitcoin computers (see Canadian Bitcoin Operator Completes Purchase of WNY Gas-Fired Plant). Big Green kicked up a fuss, with lawyers from Earthjustice, representing two other radical groups—the Sierra Club and Clean Air Coalition of Western New York—suing to block the sale (see Green Radicals Sue NYS for Approving Niagara Falls Bitcoin Plant). As of November, the matter is still playing out in court (see Court Rescinds Approval of WNY Gas-Fired Plant Sale to Bitcoin Co.). Meanwhile, Digihost continues to operate the plant. However, Digihost is planning to change the plant from using natural gas to using nuclear power. Read More “Western NY Bitcoin Plant Considers Swapping Clean Gas for Nuke Power”

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Trump Promises Expedited Enviro Permits for New Investments of $1B+

Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump posted an interesting message to his Truth Social account: “Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals. GET READY TO ROCK!!!” The implication is that the incoming Trumpsters will move heaven and earth to ensure more major manufacturing and infrastructure projects are built here in the U.S.A. Finally, someone who gets it! Read More “Trump Promises Expedited Enviro Permits for New Investments of $1B+”

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Huge Data Center Eyeing Site Near Harrisburg, Big Jobs & Tax Rev.

Middlesex Township, Cumberland County, PA

The Harrisburg Patriot-News is reporting a developer is seriously looking at a site in Cumberland County, PA, near the state capital of Harrisburg, to build a huge new “hyperscale data center complex” on 700 acres. Allow us to connect the dots for you. These data centers use an incredible amount of electricity. That electricity either comes from the local grid, most of it produced via natural gas-fired power, or (in some cases) the data centers produce their own electricity, most often by using gas-fired power plants. Either way, these facilities and their location in the Marcellus region mean more Marcellus gas will be needed to generate the electricity they use. And that’s a good thing for drillers and landowners who have leased their property for shale gas development. More customers mean higher prices for the gas produced. Read More “Huge Data Center Eyeing Site Near Harrisburg, Big Jobs & Tax Rev.”

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Green Energy Grifters Upset with PJM Plan to Favor Gas Power

Last week, MDN told you the country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, is making changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system first. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind (see New PJM Policy Favors Gas-Fired Power Over Solar & Wind). The change comes in response to the rapidly increasing demand for more electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence computing. PJM’s gas-favoring policy change has rankled the environmental left. According to green grifters, the PJM proposal unfairly allows gas-fired projects to “jump the queue” ahead of unreliable renewables. Read More “Green Energy Grifters Upset with PJM Plan to Favor Gas Power”

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New PJM Policy Favors Gas-Fired Power Over Solar & Wind

The country’s largest electric grid, PJM Interconnection, which covers all or parts of 13 states, including PA, OH, and WV, has made changes to how it decides which new power plants can connect to the system. The new policy *favors* adding natural gas-fired power over other types of power like unreliable solar and wind. The change comes in response to the rapidly increasing demand for more electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence computing. PJM’s gas-favoring policy change has rankled the environmental left. Read More “New PJM Policy Favors Gas-Fired Power Over Solar & Wind”

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Indiana, PA Converting Coal Power Plant to Massive New Gas Plant

We have some exciting news to share. What was Pennsylvania’s largest coal-fired power plant, the Homer City Generating Station, located in Center Township, Indiana County, PA, shut down operations in July 2023. In its heyday, the massive plant produced 1,888 megawatts of electricity (nearly 2 GW). Demolition of the old plant and construction of a new gas-fired power plant are about to begin. According to a former county commissioner who now works for the project, the new gas-fired plant will produce “at least double” the energy it produced with coal. That would make it as big (possibly bigger) than the current largest gas-fired power plant in the country! The West County Energy Center in Palm Beach County, Florida, produces 3,777 MW of electricity and is the country’s largest gas-fired plant. Homer City may well exceed it. Read More “Indiana, PA Converting Coal Power Plant to Massive New Gas Plant”

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Big Tech Switching from Solar & Wind to Natural Gas for Power

It’s funny how Big Tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and others—all of them virtue-signalers—are willing to dump their virtue signaling (dump their insistence on using “green” energy) when it begins to affect the bottom line. We’re seeing it now with AI (artificial intelligence) and data centers. Big Tech needs power to run AI, and it needs it NOW (over the next several years). Big Tech is coming to the realization that hillsides full of ugly solar panels and windmills are not the solution but the problem. Solar and wind energy are intermittent (i.e., unreliable), and the existing power grid is about at maximum right now. So what is Big Tech now doing after trashing fossil energy for most of the last decade? Big Tech is looking at gas-fired power plants once again as the solution to meet their power needs. Welcome back to sanity and reality, Big Tech. Read More “Big Tech Switching from Solar & Wind to Natural Gas for Power”

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CNX New Tech Exec Says M-U has Lowest Carbon/Emissions Intensity

Ravi Srivastava

The hits continue to roll in from Hart Energy’s DUG Appalachia event held in Pittsburgh earlier this month (two days after the election). Jordan Blum, editorial director for Hart, did a sit-down interview with Ravi Srivastava, president of new technologies for CNX Resources. The conversation was ostensibly about the important role of data centers and AI (artificial intelligence) for the upstream sector. As part of that conversation, Srivastava pointed out that CNX is high on the M-U and that a number of studies have shown that the lowest carbon intensity or emission intensity gas is produced in the M-U. Read More “CNX New Tech Exec Says M-U has Lowest Carbon/Emissions Intensity”

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Biden EPA Takes Final Swipe at Gas-Fired Power with New NOx Reg

In the spirit of doing the maximum amount of damage to the fossil fuel industry before being pried out of their cushy offices in the D.C. swamp, the Biden EPA last week proposed yet another onerous new regulation aimed at strangling natural gas-fired power plants. This latest attack ups the limits on emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from most new, modified, and reconstructed gas-fired power plants. It’s a safe bet that the incoming Trump EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, will withdraw the proposed regulation before it can be implemented. So, at least there’s that. However, the new reg comes from a “sue-and-settle” court case with the odious Sierra Club in 2022 that requires a new reg to be in place by Nov. 2025. Read More “Biden EPA Takes Final Swipe at Gas-Fired Power with New NOx Reg”

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Natural Gas Power Plants the Big Winner Under Trump Presidency

There’s no shortage of articles about the incoming Trump administration and what it will mean for the energy space. We’re trying not to bury you with such speculation. However, when we notice items that pique our curiosity and interest, things that make us sit up and take notice, we will bring you those items. This is one such article. Writing on the OilPrice.com website, a pair of economist/financial analysts write that gas-fired power plants will be the big winner in the coming Trump administration. They explain their reasoning, which we find cogent… Read More “Natural Gas Power Plants the Big Winner Under Trump Presidency”

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TC Energy Experiments with sCO2 Clean Power at WV NatGas Compressor

We spotted a press release that fascinates us but will take some explaining. Yesterday, Hanwha Power Systems Co. (headquartered in South Korea) announced that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with pipeline giant TC Energy to develop a sCO2 WHR (super-critical carbon dioxide waste heat recovery) project which will use the heat stream at a TC natural gas pipeline compressor station in West Virginia. Read More “TC Energy Experiments with sCO2 Clean Power at WV NatGas Compressor”

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NY Whistling Past the Graveyard by Blocking New Gas-Fired Plants

Living in New York State, as MDN editor Jim Willis does, is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. You can see it coming; you warn those nearby to get off the tracks and leave the area, but no one is listening. We’re talking about the coming brownouts and blackouts across the state (especially in New York City) due to the state’s climate policies blocking new natural gas-fired power plants. This past summer, Danskammer Energy, which operates a gas-fired peaker power plant along the Hudson River in Newburgh, NY, withdrew its request to expand the plant (see Danskammer Energy Gives Up Trying to Expand Gas-Fired Peaker in NY). Everyone—environmentalists and pro-gas advocates alike—is asking, Has New York built its last fossil fuel plant? It appears the answer is YES. Read More “NY Whistling Past the Graveyard by Blocking New Gas-Fired Plants”

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UGI Sells Marcellus Gas-Fired Power Plant in NE Pa. to Castleton

UGI Corporation, a diversified energy company with midstream (pipeline) operations in the Marcellus and one of Pennsylvania’s largest utility companies, is selling its 169-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant near Wilkes-Barre, PA, to Castleton Commodities International for an undisclosed amount. The plant’s owner/seller is actually a wholly-owned subsidiary of UGI Corp. called UGI Energy Services. Read More “UGI Sells Marcellus Gas-Fired Power Plant in NE Pa. to Castleton”

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Anti-Fossil Fuelers File Appeal Against Chesterfield Power Plant

Dominion Energy plans to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, near Richmond (see Dominion Plans to Build 1,000-MW Gas Peaker Plant Near Richmond, VA). The Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) calls for building four 250-megawatt gas-fired power plants (1,000 MW total) that can jump into action during the coldest and hottest days of the year to help supply enough electricity for 250,000 homes—to keep the lights on because solar and wind are not up to the task. Even though these clean gas-fired plants will replace dirty coal-fired plants, anti-fossil fuelers, flying under the banner of Friends of Chesterfield, oppose the project. The group filed an appeal on Monday to the Chesterfield County Board of Zoning Appeals, challenging what they say is the county’s “inaction” to block the project. Read More “Anti-Fossil Fuelers File Appeal Against Chesterfield Power Plant”