Do Gas Drillers Know Anti Groups are Funding ESG Certifications?
Last week MDN brought you the news that MiQ, one of three major certification authorities that put its stamp of approval on “responsible gas” production (i.e. low methane leakage), announced that MiQ’s Digital Registry of Independently Certified Gas currently has 350 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of “responsibly produced gas” ready for buying and selling. MiQ also announced it has launched a new certification service called the Certified Supply Chain (see MiQ Says 350 Bcf Responsible Gas Ready to Buy via Digital Registry). However, did you know that a number of big money, anti-fossil fuel nonprofits are funding MiQ?
The post below was updated with a response from MiQ on April 14, 2022.
Read More “Do Gas Drillers Know Anti Groups are Funding ESG Certifications?”
We didn’t see this one coming! Must be the intense pressure from U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had the intended effect (see 
Last Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s obscene carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), will not go into effect until “pending further order of the court” (see 
The main reason Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf wants to force his state (against the will of a majority of residents) to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon tax, is that it will supposedly cut down the state’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which is supposedly causing Mom Earth to toast (see 
Anti-fossil fuel zealots who irrationally hate all fossil energy, including natural gas, are beside themselves that three new electric power plants are planned for New Jersey. Two would use natural gas as their fuel source, while the third plant plans to use renewables of some kind. Yet antis are freaking out. Two of the planned plants would be for emergency/backup use only and will sit idle 99% of the time. Doesn’t matter: freak out. The remaining plant would produce 630 megawatts of electricity using Marcellus natgas, a relatively small plant (sitting next to an existing plant). Doesn’t matter: freak out. The solution proposed by the naysayers? Just go without electricity. Sit in the dark. Freeze in the winter and boil in the summer.
Europe wants to buy more American natural gas in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What does it mean for Pennsylvania? The Philadelphia Inquirer tackled that question in an article on Saturday. The answer to the question of what Europe’s desire for more U.S. natgas means for PA (and by extension West Virginia and Ohio) is, “not much.” Why? Because we don’t have enough pipelines built to carry our molecules to the Gulf Coast which is where most of the LNG export plants are either already pumping out LNG, or in the process of getting built to do so. Lack of pipelines constrains our gas and holds our region back. Lack of pipelines is a big problem for both the M-U and (now) for Europe.
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia are all scrambling to form intrastate working groups or other alliances in an attempt to be THE state chosen for one of four regional hydrogen hubs funded by the recently passed so-called Biden infrastructure bill (see 
Every now and again we find it helpful to raise our heads, take a step back, and look at the big energy picture. We in the Marcellus/Utica don’t live in a bubble, although sometimes it seems that way. What happens in other countries does, to some extent, have the ability to influence what happens in energy markets here in the northeast. The question is how much of an influence do world energy markets have on us? We spotted an article appearing in Abu Dhabi that got us thinking. We found the ideas in the article interesting. The thesis is that the world is currently in the beginning of a worldwide global natural gas crisis–and that the crisis is going to get “much worse” before it gets better. If that’s true, it has implications for us here in the M-U.
The Barack Hussein Obama administration went crazy with over-regulation in many areas. One of them was to redefine “waters of the United States” (or WOTUS) as everything down to, no exaggeration, mud puddles (see 
Last week the Energy Workforce & Technology Council, a national trade association for the energy technology and services sector representing those who work in the technology-driven energy value chain, released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that show March employment in the U.S. oilfield services and equipment sector rose by an estimated 2,698 jobs to 608,702. We’re still almost 100,000 jobs down from a pre-pandemic high of 706,528, but the numbers are moving in the right direction.
Two weeks ago MDN brought you the news that New Fortress Energy (NFE) has withdrawn a request to extend a previously-issued permit required to build an onshore LNG liquefaction plant in Wyalusing, PA (see 
On Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court ruled that Gov. Tom Wolf’s obscene carbon tax, called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), will not go into effect until “pending further order of the court.” What further action from the court is necessary was not disclosed. What is obvious is that Wolf’s attempt to force the state to join RGGI is now on a very long pause, until more court cases are filed. The end game (for Republicans) is to run out the clock until a new governor is elected in November (hopefully a Republican). Either that, or convince the 5-2 liberal majority of the PA Supreme Court (which is likely where this will end up) to rule against Wolf’s unilateral attempt to force the state into the RGGI compact.
We recently received a couple of recent issues of a monthly news/analysis newsletter from