Even while maintaining social distancing due to the coronavirus pandemic, Bechtel has managed to complete a 1,100-megawatt (MW) combined-cycle natural gas-fired power plant in Dover (Dutchess County), New York. The new Cricket Valley Energy Center will generate enough electricity to power one million New York homes.
Read More “Bechtel Completes Gas-Fired Cricket Valley Energy Center in NY”
Eighteen Pennsylvania State Senators sent a letter to Gov. Tom Wolf on April 21 asking Wolf to direct the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to stop trying to ram through a new tax on carbon that will kill the state’s flourishing natural gas-fired electric generating plants.
Read More “18 PA Republican Senators Ask Gov. Wolf to Cancel Carbon Tax Plan”
Virginia Natural Gas (VNG), a company that serves customers in northeastern Virginia, wants to build new natural gas infrastructure in Prince William and Fauquier counties. VNG is seeking state approval to build 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 region. The Header Improvement Project, as it’s called, will help service VNG’s 300,000 natural gas customers and is needed to deliver natural gas to two proposed new gas-fired power plants.
Read More “Antis Worried Pandemic Means They Can’t Stop Va. Pipeline Project”
The number crunchers at our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), have analyzed recent additions to the national electric grid–the new power generating plants that have been added. As you know, electricity can be generated by coal, natural gas, water (hydro), nuclear and yes, so-called renewables. At first blush, the report issued by EIA yesterday looks to be a win for renewables. In 2019 onshore wind added 9,100 megawatts of new electricity and solar added 5,300 MW of new electricity (combined total of 14,400). In 2019 natural gas added 8,300 MW of new electricity to the grid. Yet when you look at the bigger picture, how much electricity is generated by any given single source, natgas produces far more electricity than any other source.
Read More “Natural Gas Clear Winner in Electric Generation 2010-2019 – EIA”
As cases of COVID-19 coronavirus began to climb in relatively rural Beaver County, PA, local politicians pressured Shell to stop work on the mighty ethane cracker plant facility they are building in Monaca. Shell quickly complied, sending nearly 8,000 workers home in mid-March for what was thought to be “a few days to a few weeks” (see Shell Shuts Down SWPA Cracker Plant Construction re COVID-19). The company kept about 300 workers active at the site “to disinfect common areas and perform emergency repairs.”
Read More “Another 200 Workers Returning to Work at Shell Cracker Site”
Economists at consulting powerhouse The Brattle Group have released an assessment/report on the impacts through early April 2020 of COVID-19 on the electric and natural gas industries. The report (full copy below) summarizes recent developments in energy commodity spot and forward pricing, electricity demand, and financial markets, and speculates on what will happen if the pandemic persists. One of the surprising findings (for us) is that weather is having far more effect on keeping natgas prices low than COVID-19. There’s plenty of charts and analysis–really good stuff to ponder. Battle Group has a lot of smart people thinking about this stuff.
Read More “Report: Dramatic Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Energy Industry”
Last September Longview Power filed an application with the West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) to build and operate a Marcellus gas-fired electric generating facility in Monongalia County, WV, near Morgantown (see 1200 MW Gas-Fired Power Plant Files to Build in Mon County, WV). The Longview Power Clean Energy Center will include a 1,200 megawatt combined cycle power plant AND a 70 megawatt solar farm–both built next to Longview’s existing state-of-the-art 710 megawatt coal-fired power plant. The PSC approved and issued permits for the project in early April. A week later Longview (the parent, not the gas-fired plant subsidiary project) filed for a “prepackaged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Read More “WV Gas-Fired Elec Plant Gets Approved, Parent Files for Bankruptcy”
A lot of things have changed over the past month since COVID-19 coronavirus lockdowns were instituted in many states, including New York and Pennsylvania. Some sleazy politicians, like Andrew Cuomo and the far-left Democrats in the New York State legislature, took advantage of the crisis to pass damaging legislation while no one paid attention (see Cuomo PERMANENTLY Bans NY Fracking in Now-Adopted Budget). NY is not the only state to make mischief during the crisis. It seems the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) is also making mischief, trying to advance Gov. Wolf’s illegal attempt to force the state to join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax on gas-fired power plants.
Read More “Rep. Metcalfe Tells PA DEP Stick to Knitting During COVID-19”
A recent column appearing in a Virginia newspaper shares what it believes is a revelation: When big energy/utility companies like Dominion Energy say they will achieve “net-zero carbon emissions,” they don’t mean they will stop using fossil fuels to create energy. Not by a long-shot. What “zero carbon” or “net-zero carbon” means is that all carbon dioxide (generated when burning natural gas to generate electricity, for example) is captured and used for something else. CO2 is not released into the atmosphere. Even though companies like Dominion are able to capture and reuse CO2, and prevent methane from leaking, it’s STILL not good enough for those who irrationally hate fossil fuels.
Read More “Dominion’s Net-Zero Emissions in Va. Does NOT Mean Fossil-Free”
Competitive Power Ventures’ (CPV) Fairview Energy Center, a 1,050-megawatt natural gas AND ethane-fueled combined-cycle electric generating plant in Cambria County, PA, went online ahead of schedule back in December (see CPV Marcellus-Fired Electric Plant in Cambria Goes Online Early). The plant went online using Marcellus gas (methane). However, the plant is designed to mix ethane in with methane and burn the mix. CPV announced yesterday tests for blending in ethane are now complete and the plant is operating at a 75/25 ratio of methane to ethane. According to CPV, Fairview Energy Center is “the first and only facility of its scale in the world to possess high content ethane blending with natural gas capabilities.”
Read More “‘First of Its Kind’ Methane/Ethane PA Power Plant Now Online”
Advanced Power Services is building a 1,100-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generation facility in Wellsville, Columbiana County. Dominion Energy is building 5 miles of new pipeline, called the West Loop Project, from western PA into Ohio to feed the Wellsville plant (see Dominion Pipeline to Feed Western PA NatGas to OH Power Plant). The new electric plant will need a lot of water. The Buckeye Water District in Wellsville voted last Thursday to move forward with bids to construct an 18-million gallon reservoir to supply water for the electric plant.
Read More “OH Town Building Reservoir to Feed NatGas-Powered Electric Plant”
Electric power generator FirstEnergy (now called Energy Harbor Corp.) pulled off what we consider the biggest case of deception in the history of Ohio by pressuring Ohio legislators and a RINO governor to sign into law a bill to force Ohio residents to pay the company $1 billion so it can keep open two uneconomic/failing nuclear power plants (see Legal Effort to Overturn FirstEnergy $1B Ohio Nuke Bailout Dead). FirstEnergy/Energy Harbor also operates an economically failing nuke plant in Beaver County, PA. The company had planned to close it, but now says the power plant will remain open because PA Gov. Tom Wolf is attempting to illegally force the state to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative–a group that slaps high carbon taxes on coal and gas-fired electric plants.
3/18/20 UPDATE: We’ve included a statement by the group Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts in response to FirstEnergy’s deception.
Read More “Uneconomic PA Nuke Plant Staying Open Thx to Illegal Wolf Plan”
One of our favorite Energy in Depth writers, Nicole Jacobs, has just published a great post that outlines the huge impact new natural gas-fired (mostly Utica Shale gas) power plants have had and will have in Ohio. She includes a list of 10 projects either already built and running, under construction, or on the books to get built. When you add up the total capacity for all 10 plants, they will generate an amazing 9,215 megawatts of electricity, enough to power upward of 9 million homes! The companies building those 10 plants are investing $15.9 billion. This is huge for Ohio’s economy.
Read More “List of 10 Large Gas-Fired Power Plants Built or Coming in Ohio”
We’ll be right upfront and say this article is a hard one for us to wrap our brains around. In order to explain something in simple terms, you must first understand it. We don’t fully understand the concepts discussed below, but feel it’s important to pass along anyway. In September 2018 MDN brought you an article about a concept called blockchain, and to some degree, bitcoin (see Blockchain: Explaining a Complex New Tech + Impact on O&G). Put simply, blockchain is an ironclad “way of tracking things.” Those things can be money (like bitcoin, the earliest adopter of the technology), but also other things, like legal documents. We’ve come across an article about a natural gas-fired electric plant operating in Upstate New York that uses extra electricity it produces but can’t sell onto the local power grid to instead power something called a bitcoin mining operation. Stick with us.
Read More “Upstate NY NatGas Power Plant Makes Money with Bitcoin Mining”
NETL (National Energy Technology Laboratory), one of our country’s treasured national lab facilities, recently released a report and case study that shows if we as a country want reliability in our electric grid (no blackouts), we need to build more natural gas pipelines to feed natgas-fired power plants. “As the electric power system relies more heavily on natural gas power generation, the reliability and resiliency of the Nation’s electrical system will become increasingly linked to the performance and capabilities of the natural gas delivery system.” How much more in the way of new pipelines are needed? “Conservatively, an investment of $470 million to $1.1 billion over that already entrained in the long-haul natural gas transmission system is identified to avoid even worse outcomes.” Start the backhoes!
Read More “NETL: U.S. Needs More NatGas Pipelines to Power Electric Plants”
Remember the term “affluenza“? The term describes people ashamed of their wealth, their privilege, of who they are. It describes people ashamed that daddy or mommy made the money and they don’t *really* deserve it. So what is it called when a fossil fuel company like British Petroleum (BP) is ashamed of what they do (produce carbon)? Maybe C-O-2-enza? Carbenza? Whatever it’s called, BP has a serious case of it. What a shame that the company that produces and sells/resells (via natural gas trading) more CO2 energy than any other company on planet earth, believes they must atone for their carbon “sins” by lobbying in favor of a tax on the very thing they produce. It’s asinine, and it’s happening in Pennsylvania.
Read More “BP’s U.S. Boss Goes Political, Supports Wolf Carbon Tax in PA”