Not content to rely on politicians alone like the weak-willed Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, radical anti-fossil fuel zealots recently visited a number of banks located in New Haven, CT, to pressure and bully bank management into divesting from energy projects that contribute to “greenhouse gas pollution.” In particular, the zealots want to defund a critically-needed gas-fired power plant in Killingly, CT.
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Utility giant Duke Energy Corp. is in the process of modifying eight of its biggest coal-fired electric generating plants in North Carolina to burn natural gas instead. The work will cost Duke roughly $283 million. Work is already complete on six of the eight plants, with the final two slated to be done later this year. There is a tie-in with the Marcellus/Utica.
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When you see the words “environmental justice,” that’s just another way of saying racist–or the new shorthand “woke.” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s plan to participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme assumes all fossil fuel-powered electric generating plants in the state are built in communities of color or in communities that are economically poor and therefore those communities can’t fight back against the injustice of being “polluted.” RGGI presumes fossil power plants are racist and sets out to correct the injustice by eliminating those power plants via taxing them out of existence.
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It should come as no surprise that a group of far-left “environmentalists” who belong to New York State’s Power Generation Advisory Panel is recommending to Lord Cuomo that the state simply ban and block any and all new natural gas-fired power generating plants from being built in the state. Why? Because they have a mental condition that causes them to irrationally hate fossil fuels, including natural gas. That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Why else would Americans (who supposedly love freedom) advocate for the unconstitutional action of blocking a legitimate and legal business?
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There is a cost associated with anti-fossil fuel philosophies and actions. Residents in Connecticut are paying that cost–and it’s no fun. CT residents pay *the highest* electric rates in the Lower 48 States. Big companies like Pratt & Whitney (manufactures jet engines, headquartered in CT) decided to build a new plant in cheaper North Carolina, due to the high price of electricity in CT. While there are a number of contributing factors as to why electric rates are so high in CT, the primary reason is lack of natural gas pipelines.
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MDN editor Jim Willis attended (remotely) yesterday’s Appalachian Hydrogen & Carbon Capture Conference. The keynote speaker kicking things off was Nicholas Stork, CEO of Archaea Energy, the company Dan Rice is betting $1 billion on (see today’s lead story). In some ways, the conference was disturbing, with talk of “green” hydrogen in which shale gas plays no role. However, a number of the speakers predicted hydrogen would not be the end of, but instead the next chapter for, shale natural gas. In fact, the next chapter has already begun.
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A project we’ve been tracking since 2017, a 625-megawatt Marcellus-fired electric plant in Greene County, PA called Hill Top Energy Center (see our stories here), is nearly complete. The developer of the project is Hill Top Energy LLC. The main financial sponsor is Ares Management. POWER Engineering magazine is reporting construction is nearly done and the plant will go online this summer.
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Last week, after months and months of dithering around, the Ohio legislature passed a bill that overturns and rescinds House Bill (HB) 6, legislation adopted in 2019 due to $61 million in bribes spread around by FirstEnergy (see Kicking & Screaming, OH Legislature Votes to Overturn HB 6 Nuke Bill). Gov. Mike DeWine signed the new bill overturning HB 6 into law last Wednesday. HB 6 created a new tax on all Ohio electric ratepayers to funnel $150 million per year (for seven years) into FirstEnergy’s coffers in order to prop up the company’s two economically failing nuclear power plants in the state. At least, that was the reason given. Last week FirstEnergy refunded $26 million in previously collected fees back to ratepayers.
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Some days it’s tough. You try to keep your head held high, but then you read of someone you (used to) highly respect, someone like former Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection, Mike Krancer, who now supports Pennsylvania being forced to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is nothing more than an obscene carbon tax that would force gas-fired power plants out of existence. Krancer bases his support on the flimsiest of excuses: That the tax revenues raised by RGGI (coming out of the pockets of ALL Pennsylvanians) will help plug a few more of the hundreds of thousands of old/abandoned conventional oil and gas wells throughout the state. Really Mike?
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The vicious, relentless attacks on our freedoms and liberties in New York State continue. We can’t even catch our breath with the assaults coming so fast and furious. The latest salvo is by NY State Sen. Jessica Ramos (Democrat, East Elmhurst) who has proposed the Clean Futures Act (S.5939) which would not only ban the permitting and building of new natural gas-fired power plants throughout the state, it would also ban “the permitting of all new major facilities that burn fossil fuels, not just those that sell power to the energy grid.” In other words, any large office building, factory, etc. that gets built would not be able to heat with natural gas or fuel oil. New York is already closed for business, can you imagine the wholesale flight from the state should this Communist law get passed?
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This is how stupid liberals are: They think banning fossil fuels, like natural gas, will lead to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It doesn’t. Citywide (and soon statewide) bans preventing the use of natural gas for cooking and home heating actually force the use of *more* natural gas, not less. We explain how and why below.
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For years Vermont has made millions of dollars selling Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) to other states–a scam that allows pretentious environmentalists to claim they’re helping out the environment when in fact they still burn the same fossil fuels and biomass (i.e. woodburning) as they always did by paying a fee, a REC, and absolving themselves of feeling bad about it. Think of modern-day RECs like the Catholic Church selling indulgences in the Middle Ages to absolve you of your sins, or at least lessen the punishment for your sins. RECs are the new indulgences of the post-everything era we live in now. Selling REC indulgences is about to go away for Vermonters, and it may lead to widespread blackouts.
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Finally! After months and months of dithering around, the Ohio legislature has passed a bill that will overturn and rescind House Bill (HB) 6, the legislation that got passed due to $61 million in bribes spread around by FirstEnergy in what has become Ohio’s biggest bribery scandal ever (see FirstEnergy Involved in Bribery Scheme to Pass $1B Nuke Bailout Law). HB 6 created a new tax on all Ohio electric ratepayers to funnel $150 million per year (for seven years) into FirstEnergy’s coffers in order to prop up the company’s economically failing nuclear power plants in the state.
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Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf continues his efforts to force his state, without approval by its citizens (via the legislature) to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a glorified carbon tax on coal- and gas-fired power plants. What Wolf and his lackey Pat McDonnell at the Dept. of Environmental Protection refuse to tell PA citizens is just how high the RGGI carbon tax has climbed. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports the most recent RGGI quarterly auction, held on March 3, 2021, resulted in the highest price (tax) per ton of CO2 yet.
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If you live in Pennsylvania, actually in just about any state, you couldn’t miss the big splash made yesterday when PA’s worst governor in the past 50 years, Tom Wolf, announced a massive taxpayer-funded initiative to build seven new solar energy facilities in six PA counties that will strip away some 2,000 acres of valuable PA farmland to produce enough electricity to power just half of PA’s state government. (Perhaps we can call it the half-baked solar project?) Leftists in mainstream media are falling over themselves to praise Wolf. We (as usual) have a different take.
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All the wheels have officially come off the cart for a proposed $346 million pipeline project in northeastern Virginia called the Header Improvement Project. Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) filed a plan last December to build the Header Improvement Project, 24 miles of new pipeline and two new compressor stations (expanding a third compressor) connecting to the mighty Transco pipeline system to flow Marcellus/Utica gas to the northeast Virginia region (see Va. Turns Down Anti Request to Delay Hearing on VNG Pipe Project). The plan has officially been filed in the trash can.
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