EPA Continues to Delay Approval of Class VI CCS Injection Wells
To store carbon dioxide (CO2) underground, you need a Class VI CO2 injection well. Currently, the federal EPA is the primary regulator (has “primacy”) in regulating Class VI wells in all but two states (neither of which is a Marcellus/Utica state). PA and other oil and gas states are seeking to become the lead regulator for Class VI CO2 wells, which we explained in a post in March (see Understanding “Primacy” Issue for Class VI (CO2) Injection Wells). It’s critically important for individual states, like PA, to be the lead regulator–to have “primacy” in regulating Class VI wells. Yet the Biden EPA is slow-walking the process that would give individual states primacy.
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You’ve gotta give Pennsylvania State Senator Gene Yaw credit–he sure knows how to get under the skin of the wackadoodle left! Yaw is the Majority Chairman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. His committee oversees (among other things) the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), which is the state agency that oversees energy industries, including shale drilling. Yesterday Yaw tweaked the left by announcing he will soon introduce a bill to remove the word “Protection” from the DEP’s name, and replace it with…
Although the Bidenistas are now in control of the formerly objective U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and try to hide the truth about fossil energy, the truth has a way of coming out. In March, we told you about the latest edition of the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook for 2023 (see 
As we have said many times, if we could have anyone else’s brain but our own, it would be Tom Shepstone’s. He is brilliant. Tom wrote a post on his 
Air monitors at Shell’s ethane cracker plant detected elevated levels of benzene (which can cause cancer in humans) following an April 11 malfunction. However, an industrial hygienist told attendees at Tuesday night’s webinar session with local residents that the levels of benzene detected at the cracker’s community-adjacent fenceline during and after the release were too low to cause “even transient discomfort or irritation.” The highest concentrations found outside the fenceline were “in the parts per billion range.”
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says less natural gas was withdrawn from storage this past winter (Nov. 1 through Mar. 31) than in the past seven years. We entered the heating season with about 3% less natural gas in storage than the average, but because of mild temps during the winter, we used far less than is typical during the wintertime. Hence the low withdrawals.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced new proposed federal vehicle emissions standards that will force Americans to give up driving gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles and instead switch to electric vehicles (see 
When we saw the headline “Environmental Bootleggers and Baptists Fleece Consumers,” we just couldn’t resist. An article in RealClearEnergy written by Gordon Tomb, a Senior Fellow with the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank, compares an interesting time in our history with what is happening today. Once upon a time, Baptists advocated for a ban on alcohol sales Sundays. They were supported by…Bootleggers! Take about strange bedfellows! Today, the Baptists are environmentalists who insist we must dump fossil energy in order to save the planet (definite religious overtones in the environmental movement). And the Bootleggers are…
Despots and dictators the world over are the same, whether it’s Vladimir Putin relabeling his naked aggression of outright war against Ukraine as a “military operation,” or New York State’s so-called Climate Action Council relabeling natural gas as “fossil gas” (see 
On December 5, 2019, the PHMSA (Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration) granted a special permit to Energy Transport Solutions, LLC (i.e. New Fortress Energy) to transport LNG in DOT-113C120 rail tanker cars between Wyalusing, PA and Gibbstown, NJ (see 
Last night, Shell hosted a virtual community meeting to address air monitoring and recent problems experienced at the company’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County, PA. Executives answered questions about the plant’s environmental record over the past six months, including a recent odor event earlier this month (see 
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times–the claim that fracking causes earthquakes. We’ve talked about this issue almost from the beginning of writing the MDN blog site in 2009. A quick summary of our own observations is that frack wastewater disposed of via injection wells (not fracking itself) is the culprit in causing low-grade earthquakes in some areas. However, the wastewater doesn’t cause an earthquake unless the injection well is located on or near a natural underground fault in the rock layer. Rarely (we can count it on one hand) have we read of fracking itself causing an earthquake. Yet a researcher from Ohio’s University of Miami claims research shows fracking itself can cause an increase in earthquakes.
Disappointing news has been a constant this week–and it’s only Tuesday! Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court proved that sometimes it’s not so supreme. The high court breathed new life into a long-running lawsuit funded by Big Green groups using (abusing) a small group of uppity Virginia landowners who are arguing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had no right to delegate authority to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) to use eminent domain to cross land, including the land owned by the small group of uppity landowners in Virginia.