EIA Expects Renewable Electric Generation to Grow Tiny 2% in 2022
We spotted the following headline from EIA’s latest “Today in Energy” post: “EIA expects renewables to account for 22% of U.S. electricity generation in 2022.” Wow! Look at that renewable energy growing! Except when you dig into the numbers, you find the headline is VERY misleading. Renewables, which include not only wind and solar but hydropower and burning wood (causes CO2 emissions) together contributed 20% of all our electricity in 2021. EIA predicts that will rise 2% to 22% in 2022. Big whup. It’s a nothingburger.
Read More “EIA Expects Renewable Electric Generation to Grow Tiny 2% in 2022”
Gas Field Specialists, headquartered in Potter County, PA, is an oilfield services (OFS) company that works in the Marcellus Shale in northern Pennsylvania. The company also does OFS work in western New York State. According to a settlement reached with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Gas Field Specialists will pay a former employee (rig worker/mechanic) $184,000 after firing him because he had cancer.
Are Pioneer Natural Resources, Devon Energy, and ConocoPhillips out of their cotton-pickin’ minds?! Those three U.S.-based oil and gas majors have voluntarily given up control of the future of their companies to the United Nations by agreeing to participate in a U.N. program that tracks methane emissions. This is how it works: The U.N. sets the standard and then gets suckers to join it voluntarily. Later, when the standard has been accepted and most companies use it, the U.N. will then bring the hammer down, expanding the standard, making it so restrictive that oil and gas companies can’t follow it. At that point, those who are enrolled in the standard can’t do anything about it. If a company leaves the program, it will be ostracized and no one will buy its oil and gas. The smart thing to do is to tell the U.N., a non-U.S. entity, to get lost.
The 
A company called Strive, an Ohio-based asset management firm formed with the backing of two billionaires–Bill Ackman and Peter Thiel–is on a mission to educate and influence companies away from ESG obsession. In July, we told you about Strive and that the company, a counterweight to woke lefty funds like BlackRock, had already raised $20 million (see 
As of 2035, you won’t be able to buy a gasoline-powered vehicle in Massachusetts. Beginning soon (next year?), some 10 Massachusetts municipalities that have passed a ban on connecting new buildings to natural gas lines will implement those bans, as a test project. Both measures are part of a bill recently signed into law by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Democrat who pretends to be a Republican. What’s below a Republican-in-Name-Only (RINO)? Perhaps a Democrat-in-Practice-Without-Actual-Designation (DIPWAD)?
In March 2019, MDN told you about a new Williams plan to beef up the Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d (originally 1 billion cubic feet per day) of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland (see 
In early February, MDN told you about an industry-led group collaborating to attract one of four $2 billion hydrogen hubs to the Marcellus/Utica region provided for in the so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) two Republican members, Mark Christie and James Danly, sent a letter to Vanguard Group asking the company for detailed information about how it throws its weight around with the companies it invests in. Specifically, the two FERC commissioners want to know if Vanguard, with some $8.5 trillion (!) under management, is guilty of forcing local electric utility companies to avoid using or buying electricity that comes from natural gas power plants, under the excuse of lowering so-called greenhouse gas emissions.
Oil and gas companies have fallen into line over the past few years, bowing to pressure to play the silly games the left sets up, including generating reports on how much greenhouse gases (GHG) a company produces. The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an extremely arrogant organization, declares itself to be the arbiter of what is and is not acceptable for carbon dioxide and methane emissions. When oil and gas companies begin to play the game a little too well (winning the game), the left gets torqued off and attacks. Attack of the Big Green clones. Here’s an example from the Marcellus/Utica, involving Range Resources, of how Big Green attacks when companies begin to win the game…
The second-largest LNG export terminal in the U.S., Freeport LNG, located near Galveston, Texas, experienced an explosion and fire in early June (see 
While some companies (ExxonMobil, Occidental Petroleum, Diversified Energy) have sold out in return for corporate favoritism in the Manchin-Schumer so-called Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which is really just a Big Green giveaway that slaps a huge new methane tax on oil and gas companies, there are some (many) bold and brave companies that are telling Manchin and those who have caved that the “Emperor has no clothes.” This bill is terrible. Among the groups pushing back are (surprisingly) the American Petroleum Institute (API). Also among the bold and the brave are the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association (PIOGA) and the Ohio Oil & Gas Association (OOGA). In fact, 58 major oil and gas associations and groups representing thousands of companies sent a letter yesterday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy outlining their strong opposition to Manchin-Schumer.
Global research firm Wood Mackenzie recently published an analysis of where investors are putting their money in the energy sector. Unsurprisingly (for us), WoodMac found investors are plowing money like crazy into “pure play” (meaning single focus) oil and natural gas companies instead of into companies that dabble in “low-carbon diversification” (i.e. renewables). Fossil energy companies that stick to their knitting (stay focused on fossil energy) are outperforming renewable-focused companies big time.