BH Invests in Gas-Fired Power Plants with Zero CO2 Emissions
Here’s an interesting twist. Baker Hughes (BH), one of the biggest oilfield services companies on the planet, is investing in a company that designs and builds natural gas-fired electric power plants. But not just any gas-fired power plants. These plants use new technology so that when the natural gas is burned (to produce heat to spin a turbine), there is no, as in zero, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Technology to lower or eliminate CO2 emissions has been available for sometime, but typically has been too expensive. This new tech BH is backing promises to be much lower cost.
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The West Virginia Public Energy Authority is a seven-member board that aims to make the best use of WV’s abundant natural energy resources. State code gives the board power to buy, lease, and issue bonds to build electric power plants and natgas transmission projects. Gov. Jim Justice reactivated the board last summer after it had been dormant for upwards of a decade. The first meeting of the new board is next Wednesday.
MDN first told you about plans to build the Chickahominy Power Station, a 1,650 megawatt state-of-the-art natural gas-fired power plant in Charles City County, VA, in June 2018 (see 
According to numbers published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2020 Pennsylvania generated and sent more electricity to neighboring states than any other state in the union. More than 230 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity was generated in Pennsylvania during 2020, and nearly 78 million MWh of that electricity was delivered to neighboring states. If PA Gov. Wolf’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax scheme is adopted, much of that electric production will disappear. PA’s neighbors should be VERY concerned.
The Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has engaged in some questionable activities in the past, but this time they’ve stepped WAY across the line. Last Thursday the PA DEP filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court to force the state to adopt the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a blatant tax on carbon dioxide produced by gas- and coal-fired power plants. Thing is, it’s illegal for the state to adopt RGGI right now while the state legislature still has a window of time to vote on overriding Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of a resolution that would have stopped RGGI. Constitutionally, legally, statutorily, the legislature has a certain number of days to attempt an override. The DEP’s Secretary Pat McDonnell, Gov. Wolf’s patsy, is trying to circumvent the law by forcing RGGI through now.
New York State has become aggressively hostile to any business remotely connected to fossil fuels. NY is openly prejudiced and discriminates against oil and natural gas companies. Increasingly the state is rejecting “bitcoin miners” that use natural gas (or God forbid, coal) to produce electricity to power some serious computers (see 
According to ISO New England, the electric power grid manager for New England, short-term power demand forecasting shows projected peak load reaching 19,250 MW on Jan. 29, because of the coming winter storm. The grid’s expected winter power demand peak, or what they plan for at the maximum, is 19,710 MW. That’s really too close for comfort. Electric power and natural gas prices are currently spiking to insanely high levels because of the coming storm, and because there’s not more capacity to send natural gas to the region.
ISO New England–the independent, non-profit Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) that manages the electric grid for Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont–is once again fretting and warning that a prolonged cold spell in the northeast may trigger electric blackouts in New England. Not only are power plant owners nervous, so too are state regulators.
Two weeks ago MDN told you that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf swiftly vetoed a PA Senate resolution sent to him that would block the state from joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), nothing more than a carbon tax that won’t actually reduce carbon emissions (see 
Two days ago New England generated 24% (a quarter) of the electricity it needs by burning…fuel oil. Why? Low supplies of natural gas. How much electricity was generated by so-called renewables on the same day? According to ISO New England, only 8% of electricity on Jan. 16 was generated by renewables. However, if you take out burning garbage, burning wood, and burning natural gas from landfills (all included in the “renewables” number), just 2.5% of New England’s electricity came from solar and wind, what most people think of as renewable energy. Do you see the folly of dumping fossil energy anytime in the next 50-100 years?
Just coming to light for us now is an application to build a “data center” in Morgantown, WV. The application was filed last August, but the WV Dept. of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality held a hearing yesterday to accept public input on the facility. Marion Energy Partners wants to build the facility, yet its purpose is shrouded in mystery. The best guess is that this is another new cryptocurrency (bitcoin) mining operation. Our interest is that it will use four natural gas-fired turbines to generate the huge amounts of electricity needed to operate it–natural gas that will come from the Marcellus/Utica.