NY DEC Asks Court to Toss FERC Order re Millennium Pipe Project
Millennium Pipeline is building a tiny, 7.8 mile pipeline in Orange County, NY that will connect the main Millennium pipeline to the CPV Valley Energy Center gas-fired electric plant. Both projects are currently under construction. Millennium’s project, called the Valley Lateral Project, was opposed by the corrupt Andrew Cuomo Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC). The DEC refused to grant necessary permits for the federal project, so the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) voted to overrule DEC and allow it to be built anyway (see History Made! FERC Overrules NY DEC on Millennium Pipe Permit). The DEC took FERC to court, but in December, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the DEC’s request to block the beginning of construction (see Fed Court Denies NY DEC Bid to Block Power Plant Pipe Construction). Construction subsequently began immediately. The DEC, no doubt goosed on by the corrupt Cuomo, has just come back to the Second Circuit with a different request. This time the DEC wants the court toss out FERC’s approval of the project, saying if the FERC approval stands, any company could file a half-baked (i.e. “incomplete” according to DEC standards) application for a water crossing permit and that doesn’t give DEC enough time to chase in a completed application. In other words, companies would “run out the clock” by saying DEC took more than a year to approve an application. DEC calls it “sandbagging” by delaying important information. Somehow DEC’s protestations ring particularly hollow, since they themselves are famous for sandbagging…
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A new “research study” was recently published that, per the usual routine, is generating false headlines that leave a false impression. The study is called “Sustainability of UK shale gas in comparison with other electricity options: Current situation and future scenarios,” published in the so-called journal, Science of The Total Environment. Here’s an example of a headline it’s generating in fake mainstream news: “Shale gas is one of the least sustainable ways to produce electricity, research finds” (Phys.org). We’ve seen that headline or variations of it in a number of publications. The narrative being spun by anti-fossil fuelers in quoting the study is this: “You know how shale gas has taken over as king of producing electricity–well you should ignore all of its benefits (clean burning, less polluting, cheaper) and instead use renewables because shale gas isn’t really sustainable and all that great after all.” That’s the upshot of the study, and the stories about the study. Just one teeny, tiny problem: The “research” is fake. Fraudulent. A heaping pile of doo-doo. The so-called researcher concocted his own biased set of criteria on which to judge various forms of electricity generation sources, and then declared shale gas flunks the test. Once again, fake research based on a twisted, biased worldview that says all fossil fuels are evil…
We don’t know how many times we have to keep ringing the bell–this is a five-alarm situation! Wake up! A group of Democrats elected to the Jessup, PA Borough Council (Scranton suburb) are actively trying to block the completion of the state’s largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant–the first phase of which will be ready to go online in a little over a month. A bunch of ninny nanny antis didn’t like that they couldn’t stop the project, so they used money and help from Big Green groups last November to launch successful campaigns to defeat incumbent Council members who voted to authorize the Lackawanna Energy Center to be built by Invenergy (see 
Pennsylvania legislators (Democrats and RINOs) who were banking on the federal government to “fix” the problem of the free market are panicking after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected DOE Sec. Rick Perry’s so-called Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule that would tip the scales in favor coal and nuclear energy, keeping unprofitable electric generators in business longer (see 
On September 29, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) directing the agency to complete action on a “Grid Resiliency Pricing Rule”–ostensibly within 60 days. The proposed rule Perry proffered, sometimes referred to as the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR), would put in place regulations that favor electric generating plants powered by coal and nuclear. That is, it would allow unprofitable ventures to pass along new costs, making them profitable–in the name of protecting the electric grid. The theory Perry (and by extension President Trump) subscribe to is that if the free market drives out coal and nuke plants, the electric grid would be “vulnerable” to far fewer sources to power it. If coal and nukes are all but gone, and all of sudden there’s a natural gas shortage, or prices spike for natural gas, it would endanger the electric supply in this country. On one side of the argument are those who believe the free market sometimes needs a helping hand (via regulation), and on the other those who believe the free market will sort it all out and we are not vulnerable. The incoming/new chairman of FERC, Kevin McIntyre, asked for an extension so he and another new FERC member could take a little time to do a proper review (see 
Last May, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced plans to construct a new “state-of-the-art, locally-sourced mini-power grid” that will connect to the statewide electric grid but will also be able to operate independently, to power the Empire State Plaza in Albany–a complex of buildings in downtown Albany housing much of New York State government (see 
Just yesterday MDN warned you about a group of antis who had seized political control in the Pennsylvania borough of Jessup, where Invenergy is nearing completion of the state’s largest natural gas-fired electric generating plant (see 
It’s been a long road, but we’re finally close to startup for the first phase of what will be Pennsylvania’s largest gas-fired electric generating plant near Scranton, PA. The Invenergy plant, dubbed the Lackawanna Energy Center (located in the community of Jessup), will produce 1,480 megawatts of electricity when it’s fully built and running. Construction crews are hard at work in frigid temperatures, working to complete the first of three combined-cycle generator units. The work is 80% done on the first unit and on track to be completed by February. The plant is certainly having an impact on locals–both good and bad. On the bad side, we previously reported that antis in the Jessup community exacted their revenge on local political leaders for approving the plant by removing them from office (see 
The Lansing, Michigan Board of Water & Light (BWL) announced yesterday it will build a brand new $500 million natural gas-fired power plant. The new plant will generate 250 megawatts of electricity, create 1,200 construction jobs, and go online in 2021. The plant will be located at the Erickson Power Station facility in Delta Township as part of its Lansing Energy Tomorrow plan, replacing (and retiring) BWL’s coal-fired Eckert plant at that location. Out with old, in with the new. Why report about a new gas-fired power plant in Michigan here on MDN? Because the mighty Rover Pipeline, which is due to be completed and online by the end of March 2018, terminates very close to Lansing (see the map below). While we’ve not spotted any stories indicating where the gas will come from to feed the new Lansing plant, we’d wager a lot of money that at least some–perhaps most/all–of the gas to feed the plant will come from the Utica/Marcellus, gas hitching a ride along the Rover Pipeline. The nuts from the Sierra Club are ecstatic that BWL will close the coal plant, but opposed to building a clean-burning natural gas plant. Some people are never happy…
In October the radical group Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) published a “report” that makes the preposterous claim that New England customers have overpaid utility bills by $3.6 billion due to collusion between the natural gas and electricity industries (see 
Yesterday the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the New York Dept. of Environmental Conservation’s request to slap an ongoing block of construction for Millennium Pipeline’s Valley Lateral Project. As a quick reminder, Valley Lateral is a tiny, 7.8 mile pipeline that will connect the main Millennium line to the CPV Valley Energy Center gas-fired electric plant, currently under construction, due to be completed in the first quarter of next year. The DEC doesn’t like the power plant project (approved by the State of New York), and is using the pipeline as a political football to try and keep the plant from opening–no doubt at the direction of our corrupt governor, Andrew Cuomo. The DEC arbitrarily, after more than one year of review, ruled against issuing a federal water crossing permit for the pipeline. In an historic decision, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) overruled the DEC in September (see 
In August, Ohio Gov. John Kasich officiated at a ceremony to launch a new Utica gas-fired electric generating plant in Oregon (Lucas County), near Toledo (see 
In early October MDN told you about a second Marcellus gas-fired electric generating plant being planned for Greene County, PA (see 
We spotted an article that intrigued us with the headline, “A radical startup has invented the world’s first zero-emissions fossil-fuel power plant.” Most of the article–the first two-thirds of it–is obsequious genuflecting before the man-causes-global-warming gods. Whatever. Believe in fairy stories if you want to. The final one-third of the article is the real meat, which we highlight below. It seems a group of smart people at a company called Net Power, located in Texas, have figured out a way to capture all, as in 100%, of the carbon dioxide that comes from burning natural gas to produce heat to turn a turbine. There are no CO2 emissions that escape into the atmosphere. We bring you details of this new technology because it’s neat and may one day change how electricity is generated in this country. What if (gasp!) natural gas became as “green” as solar or wind? That just doesn’t fit the narrow worldview of radical environmentalists…