NJ’s Largest Utility Becomes 5th Partner in PennEast Pipeline
Even though there has been small but shrill opposition to the recently announced PennEast Pipeline, likening it to violating a virgin (see Pavlovian Opposition Continues Against PennEast, Atlantic Sunrise), the project continues to gain momentum. The $1 billion pipeline project that would flow cheap, abundant and clean-burning Marcellus Shale gas from northeast Pennsylvania all the way to Trenton, New Jersey was announced a month ago (see 3rd New NEPA Marcellus Pipeline Proposed, Connects to Trenton, NJ). The project is a joint venture between four companies, including energy utility giant UGI. The new news is that the quartet of partners in the PennEast Pipeline project have just become a quintet–adding PSEG (Public Service Electric & Gas) Power, New Jersey’s largest utility…
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In March 2013, the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) burst onto the scene. It had been a closely guarded secret, the creation of a few hand-picked people from both industry and the environmental movement working together to see if there is any common ground on which both sides can agree that shale development would be safe, sustainable AND affordable. They worked hard for over a year and finally hammered out a set of 15 standards that if a driller (or midstream company or contractor) would meet, it would get a stamp of approval from both the industry and environmental groups as being a good goobie–a safe driller. We were somewhat skeptical from the start (see 
This is a very important story that MDN has been following for more than two years. In June 2012, MDN reported the launch “out of nowhere” of a study by U.S. Dept. of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to test whether or not faults, or large cracks that sometimes exist through multiple rock layers, can create a pathway for hydraulic fracturing fluids to migrate to aquifers (see