Neighbors of Almost Completed NY Gas-Fired Plant Want New Study
In October 2012, after a rigorous review by New York’s Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) during the State Environmental Quality Review, the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) submitted by Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dutchess County was accepted and approved. Construction of the 1,100 megawatt plant (to fed by PA Marcellus gas) began in July 2017 (see Second NY NatGas-Fired Elec Plant Breaks Ground in Hudson Valley) and is due to be completed early next year. As it gets close to completion, anti-fossil fuel neighbors from across the street are asking the DEC to perform a new study of the facility before allowing it to start operation. They’re making outrageous claims that gas-fired plants may cause autism.
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Here’s an interesting and fun fact: In just 12 years electricity generated by coal plants has gone from powering 87% of Ohio’s homes and businesses to just 47%. So-called renewables (solar and wind) make up a whopping 3% of Ohio’s electric generation. So what’s replacing coal? Natural gas, which now generates 34% of the state’s electricity. Gas still hasn’t beaten coal, but give it a few more years and it will.
On multiple occasions we have outlined the reasons why federal agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) exist–in order to prevent individual states from harming their neighbors economically. An individual state can’t block a new interstate highway, or the trucks and cars that travel it, from entering their state. It’s the same for power transmission lines and for pipelines. Yet New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is violating that law by rejecting interstate pipelines.
One of the few “green” advocates we respect is Michael Shellenberger, a Time Magazine “Hero of the Environment,” Green Book Award Winner, and president of Environmental Progress, a research and policy organization. His articles often appear on the Forbes website (we’ve linked to many of them in our “Best of the Rest” roundup). Shellenberger, one of the few environmentalists to endorse and defend fracking, recently penned an article that accuses the fracking/shale industry of a double standard when it comes to their opposition to bailing out nuclear plants with government subsidies.
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just fined EQT $330,775 for erosion and sedimentation violations at two well sites in Forward Township, Allegheny County, PA. Water with sediment in it leaked from the well sites in early 2018, which sometimes happens. The reason for the stiff fine is that EQT failed to notify the DEP when it happened. If the DEP finds out via its own inspections first, the cost goes way up.
In October 2017, MDN told you a second Marcellus gas-fired electric generating plant is planned for Greene County, PA (see 
We have news of a new, small pipeline project with the potential to carry more PA Marcellus natural gas to several locations in Delaware and Maryland. Eastern Shore Natural Gas Company (ESNG), a subsidiary company of Chesapeake Utilities Corporation, filed a request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Sept. 2018 to build 19+ miles of new pipeline and new meter and delivery stations in Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware, and Wicomico and Somerset counties in Maryland. FERC has just issued a positive environmental assessment (EA) for the project.
The battle to buy Anadarko Petroleum by Chevron and Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) has taken an interesting turn. Over the weekend Oxy revised its offer. It will still pay Anadarko shareholders $57 billion (as before), but the offer was revised to dial up the amount of cash and dial down the amount of stock swaps. Never hurts to use cash as a sweetener. The new offer did the trick. Although Anadarko previously signed an agreement to sell itself to Chevron, Anadarko announced yesterday they are leaving Chevron at the altar and riding off into the sunset to elope with Oxy.
Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final approval for Williams’ Northeast Supply Enhancement (NESE) pipeline project by a vote of 3-1 (full copy below). The only remaining regulatory hurdles are for both New York State and New Jersey to issue federal Clean Water Act 401 certificates to allow the project to cross bodies of water in their respective territorial waters. All eyes are now on NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and what he will do. Will he approve the project, benefiting New York City and Long Island with much-needed gas? Or will he veto the project, harming millions of NY residents, simply to placate a small group of very vocal radical leftists who pretend to care about the environment? He has until May 16 to decide.
Dominion Energy, a huge (one of the biggest) gas and electric utilities (and power generator) in the U.S., as well as a major pipeline company, issued its first quarter 2019 update last week. Our main concern and focus with the update is what Dominion said about the 600-mile, $7-$7.5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project. Given the ongoing lawsuits by radical green groups that have delayed the project and skyrocketed costs, Dominion CEO Tom Farrell said “it’s been a very frustrating process,” but “we are winding our way through it…and we’re making progress.” Farrell still plans to restart construction of ACP (currently stopped thanks to lawsuits) in the third quarter of this year.
This is a glittering example of how people who fancy themselves as “smart” are actually quite stupid. The so-called political leaders of Philadelphia are commissioning a study (paid for by Mike Bloomberg) on how the city can convert Philadelphia Gas Works, the nation’s largest municipal-owned utility company, into dumping natgas. Because, ya know, global warming. It’s bizarre (and breath-taking) to watch just how stupid people can get.
We’re sometimes criticized by MDN readers for too much “green bashing.” Yet how should we handle news like this: The Sierra Club is launching yet another attack on the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), which runs from Wetzel County, WV to Pittsylvania County, VA, by bastardizing the endangered species act in an attempt to bully the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service into blocking construction. Should we pretend to remain aloof and report that a respectable “environmental organization” is launching “new opposition” to a gas pipeline? Or tell you what we really think: That this evil, disgusting left-of-Attila-the-Hun group of thugs is once again organizing, using money from lefty billionaires like George Soros and Tom Steyer, to try and destroy a company and the people whose jobs depend on that company?
