Western NY Bitcoin Plant Considers Swapping Clean Gas for Nuke Power
In early 2023, Digihost Technology, a Canadian crypto mining company, bought the Fortistar gas-fired power plant in North Tonawanda, NY, a town close to Niagara Falls, in order to use it to power Digihost’s Bitcoin computers (see Canadian Bitcoin Operator Completes Purchase of WNY Gas-Fired Plant). Big Green kicked up a fuss, with lawyers from Earthjustice, representing two other radical groups—the Sierra Club and Clean Air Coalition of Western New York—suing to block the sale (see Green Radicals Sue NYS for Approving Niagara Falls Bitcoin Plant). As of November, the matter is still playing out in court (see Court Rescinds Approval of WNY Gas-Fired Plant Sale to Bitcoin Co.). Meanwhile, Digihost continues to operate the plant. However, Digihost is planning to change the plant from using natural gas to using nuclear power. Read More “Western NY Bitcoin Plant Considers Swapping Clean Gas for Nuke Power”
As we told you on Friday, it was looking like Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG export facility (Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana) would start to liquefy natural gas as early as Friday (see 
WhiteHawk Energy is smitten with PHX Minerals. For the last 16 months, WhiteHawk has been trying to get PHX down the marriage aisle in any way it can. PHX has repeatedly given WhiteHawk the cold shoulder. WhiteHawk’s latest attempt, which we told you about in November, was an appeal to PHX shareholders to pressure the board to sell at $4 per share (see 
Yesterday, Northern Oil and Gas, Inc. (NOG) announced it had entered a Joint Development Program with an unnamed Marcellus/Utica driller to invest $160 million in 2025 for new well drilling. In return, NOG will receive a 15% working interest (i.e., ownership) in the assets. NOG did not identify the driller but called it “one of Appalachia’s most capital efficient operators.” 
We spotted an interesting article in the Steubenville, Ohio, Herald-Star newspaper that tackles the issue of using eminent domain in the state for various kinds of pipelines. It provides an excellent history of eminent domain used not only for oil and natural gas pipelines but also how the Mariner East pipeline project led to “expanding” eminent domain to include NGLs like ethane and butane. Now, a couple of new types of pipelines are being contemplated in the Buckeye State—hydrogen pipelines and carbon dioxide (CO2) pipelines. Will eminent domain laws expand again to include the new kids on the block? 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. Yesterday, the SRBC board approved 14 new (or renewed) water withdrawal requests within the basin, four for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. Coterra Energy received two water request approvals, and Expand Energy (Chesapeake Energy & Southwestern Energy) received the other two. 
We’ve discussed shale wastewater, sometimes called brine or “produced water,” many times over the years. When drilling an oil or gas well deep in the earth, the hole releases naturally occurring water from the depths (far, far below the surface water table) for years after the well is drilled. The water coming out has a LOT of minerals, sometimes mildly radioactive, and is usually called either brine (meaning salty) or produced water. Traditionally, there are two ways to handle all of that water coming out of the ground: (1) recycle it and reuse it for more oil and gas drilling, or (2) pump it back down into the ground from whence it came via an injection well. Ohio University (in Athens, OH) has just won a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how produced water can be cleaned up and used outside the oil and gas sector. 
Earlier this week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. As part of our coverage, we highlighted the news that the EIA is predicting natural gas prices this winter and for all of 2025 will be roughly 40% higher than the Henry Hub price for gas in November (see 
In something of a surprise (for us), the Ohio State Senate passed House Bill (HB) 308 yesterday, a bill that extends the standard lease terms for drillers who want to drill under (not on) state-owned land from three years to five years. The bill also extends the total amount of time fracking operations can last from six years to eight years. Sensible increases in both cases. The Ohio House previously passed the bill. The Senate version is slightly different from the House version, so it heads back to the House to reconcile the two versions, and then it heads to the desk of RINO Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature. No telling whether he will sign it or not. 
For those unlucky enough to live in New York City and its sprawling suburbs, get ready for blackouts due to the lack of electricity. The state of New York and developers of the 175-mile Clean Path NY transmission line have “mutually agreed to terminate” contracts underpinning the project, which was planned to come online in 2027. Clean Path was supposed to bring 5 gigawatts (GW) of electricity from windmills and solar farms in Upstate New York to liberal elites living in and around NYC. The project was billed as “critical” to achieving New York’s climate goals, including 70% renewable electricity consumption by 2030 and developing a zero-emission electric grid by 2040. That’s all down the toilet now. Get ready to sit in the dark. 
In July, U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (West Virginia), the Democrat chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Senator John Barrasso (from Wyoming), the ranking Republican member of the same committee, drafted and released the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024 (see 
You can’t fix stupid. You can only vote it out of office. From the outskirts of New York to the Delaware River shoreline across from Philadelphia, New Jersey is home to numerous oil and natural gas facilities. A New Jersey Senate committee is seriously discussing (planning) an insane new tax on those facilities as a way of creating a slush fund supposedly to help the state fight the effects of climate change. It would be just another pile of money for corrupt politicians to line their own (and friends’) pockets with. Hello, Tony Soprano! 
Yesterday, the analysts at S&P Global Commodity Insights, the leading independent provider of information, data, analysis, benchmark prices, and workflow solutions for the commodities and energy markets, released their 2025 energy outlook. S&P published the top 10 “key themes” from the report. Key theme #2 was this: “Total energy demand growth to outstrip clean energy supply growth.” The concomitant conclusion is that *something* has to meet that new energy demand, and since unreliable renewables can’t and won’t, fossil fuels will ride in to save the day—as they always have. 
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could fundamentally change how the federal government conducts environmental reviews. We first told you about the case last week (see 