Eco-Nuts File FERC Rehearing Request for Pipe Under Potomac
Anti-fossil fuel nutters are on a holy mission to stop a 3.5-mile, 8-inch pipeline from being built under the Potomac River by Columbia Gas, from Maryland to West Virginia (see Maryland Antis Oppose 13th Pipeline Under Potomac as “Dangerous”). The pipeline will be built to feed a larger pipeline project from Mountaineer Gas called the Eastern Panhandle Expansion–a pipeline to deliver Marcellus/Utica natural gas via local distribution channels to a new industrial facility in Berkeley County, WV, and to provide gas to other local businesses and residents in the Tri-State area. Mountaineer began building their project in March (see Mountaineer Gas Begins Work on Morgan County, WV Pipeline). Phase one of the Mountaineer project is done and they’re now working phase two. In July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Columbia’s pipeline-under-the-Potomac project to feed the Mountaineer project (see FERC Approves Pipeline Under the Potomac River from Md. to WV). Antis were enraged. Here’s the inconvenient truth that mainstream news organizations fail to report: This tiny 3.5-mile pipeline will be Columbia’s 13th pipeline under the Potomac! Yet antis insist THIS is the one pipeline that will explode and contaminate the Potomac and make the water flowing down the muddy Potomac undrinkable for millions. Total BS. Antis have just filed a request with FERC to “rehear” (i.e. reconsider) the decision to approve the pipeline under the river. Once FERC officially denies that request (as they surely will), antis are then free to file a lawsuit challenging the project with the U.S. Court of Appeals…
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The Utica Shale, which underlies much of the Marcellus Shale, also underlies part of Canada’s Quebec province. From time to time we highlight news concerning the Utica in Canada. There hasn’t been much news to highlight over the years since Quebec has had a moratorium on fracking since 2012. But as we reported in December 2016, something of a minor miracle happened–the Quebec National Assembly voted to pass Bill 106, ostensibly to support Quebec’s “clean power plan” (see 
In some liberal-dominated cities and states in the U.S., sleazy politicians have pushed their public pension funds to divest from fossil fuel companies. Dump the stock they own in those companies. Why? Who knows why. There’s no explaining insanity. Supposedly fossil fuels are evil and so-called renewables are righteous, so these sleazy politicians (like NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo) are forcing municipalities and entire states to divest. We told you last week that Gov. Andrew “tinhorn dictator” Cuomo is forcing the state public employee pension fund to divest–and it will cost pensioners a staggering $1 trillion out of their own pockets as a result (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has had a change of heart–sort of–with respect to their stop-work order issued to Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP). We previously told you that on August 3, FERC told MVP to stop all construction prompted by an order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacating permits issued for the project as it crosses 3.5 miles of Jefferson National Forest in West Virginia and Virginia (see 
Work on the Mariner East 2 and 2x pipelines in West Whiteland Township, Chester County (near Philadelphia) stopped in May following a Public Utility Commission (PUC) administrative law judge’s highly questionable ruling (see 
The U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing yesterday to consider the Water Quality Certification Improvement Act of 2018 (S. 3303). Two weeks ago we told you about S. 3303, a bill that will “fix” the issue of states like New York using Section 401 of the Clean Water Act, which allows states to have a say in where interstate pipeline routes can pass through a state, from abusing that authority to block pipeline projects (see 
Caithness Energy, a privately held company that specializes in buying or building (and operating) renewable energy and natural gas-fired power plants, owns a 350 megawatt natgas-fired power plant in Yaphank, NY–on Long Island. For more than four years Caithness has had a plan to build a second natgas-fired plant next to their first plant. The original plan was for a 750 MW plant, later scaled back to 600 MW. Local leaders in Brookhaven Town in which the existing and proposed power plant projects sit have been against the plan for a new power plant, passing restrictions in 2015 that tied the hands of Caithness, making the project impossible to build. But in July, the board reversed course and voted to repeal the 2015 restriction that limits the type of equipment Caithness can use in building the plant, clearing the way for the project (see 
It took Vermont Gas Systems three years to build a 41-mile, $165 million natural gas transmission pipeline from Colchester to Middlebury. The pipeline went into service in April. Vermont Gas is now working to complete several local distribution spurs–short, small pipelines to deliver the gas to homes and businesses. One of those spurs goes to Bristol, VT. A handful of Bristol residents are suing the town board for approving the local distribution pipeline without first holding a townwide vote. When you read the objections of those against the project, they don’t talk about exploding pipelines and safety issues, or running pipelines through pristine areas. How can they object on that basis? There are literally tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of miles of this very same kind of pipeline in every major and most minor cities and towns across the country. When you read the comments of those in Bristol objecting, they talk about natural gas as “a big, dirty fossil fuel” and fracking as an abject evil, contaminating water, filled with chemicals, yada yada yada. In other words, they are clinically insane. They irrationally hate fossil fuels, even though their very lives and existence depend on those fossil fuels every minute of every day. We’ve run out of words to describe such lunacy…
A new hope has emerged for Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Valley Energy Center, a $900 million, 680-megawatt natural gas-fired electric generating plant in Orange County, NY. Last week MDN told you that at the last minute, four days before the plant was set to start up, the Andrew Cuomo-corrupted Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) pulled the ultimate dirty trick and refused to renew an air permit for the plant they previously issued five years earlier (see 
Borrowing a chapter from EQT and their Mountain Valley Pipeline project, Dominion Energy has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to lift a stop-work order for its 600+ mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) project. On Tuesday MVP sent a letter to FERC requesting the agency lift it’s stop-work order for them (see 
We find the latest “bash fracking” so-called study just published by Duke University to be, well, rather amusing. This is not Duke “researcher” Avner Vengosh’s first bash fracking study (see 
A bill under active consideration in the Pennsylvania Senate would remove the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) prohibition against using brine from conventional oil and gas wells on PA’s roadways (see 
The world of LNG (liquefied natural gas) is a strange world for us. We’re still learning about it. LNG is important for the Marcellus/Utica region as our molecules increasingly get shipped to other countries. Our molecules get shipped directly from the Dominion Cove Point LNG export facility in Lusby, Maryland, and by Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG export facility in Louisiana. Yes, some of our gas makes it to Louisiana and is liquefied and shipped out. However, the Cove Point facility is the focus of this post. Since early 2013, all of the LNG export capacity from Cove Point has been spoken for, by India and Japan, signing 20-year contracts (see