FERC OKs Atlantic Bridge to Begin Service in Connecticut
In January 2017 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted final approval for the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project (see FERC Approves Atlantic Bridge Project for New England/Canada). The Spectra Energy/Enbridge project beefs up capacity along the Algonquin Pipeline, along with more capacity for Spectra Energy’s Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, to carry more Marcellus/Utica gas into New England and (eventually) all the way to Nova Scotia, Canada. Much of the project is now done–except in Massachusetts where a critical compressor station planned for Weymouth is stalled (see Massachusetts Blocking Atlantic Bridge Pipeline from Completion). Some good news to report on the project in neighboring Connecticut: FERC has given the green light for the Connecticut portion of the project to be placed into service…
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Marcellus/Utica gas is powering natural gas-fired plants in Southeast Florida?! Yep. How? Through a series of pipelines. First the gas goes south from our region by hitching a ride through the mighty Williams Transcontinental Gas Pipeline (Transco)–all the way to Alabama. Then, the Sabal Trail Pipeline, a 1.1 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) pipeline, runs more than 500 miles from an interconnect with Transco in west-central Alabama to the Orlando, FL-area gas hub. Finally, a pipeline related to Sabal Trail called the Florida Southeast Connection delivers gas from the Orlando hub into South Florida. It’s a beautiful thing to behold. Our gas going all the way to the Sunshine State. The experts at RBN Energy do a deep dive to connect the dots and identify the gas-fired plants using our gas…
What would happen if your faithful editor took to horseback to ride along the entire 600-mile route for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline as it travels from West Virginia through Virginia and into North Carolina–in a campaign to *promote* the project? We’ll tell you what would happen in the media: Crickets. Nothing. No mentions. But when a young anti sets off to do just that, it’s heralded as a quest. Something akin to the Lord of the Rings–Frodo Baggins leaving on a mission to vanquish an evil foe, against all odds. Such is the case with Sarah Murphy, who left on horseback this week from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Television cameras were there to document her departure. Murphy says she is trying to call attention to the Atlantic Coast project, to whip up protesters to oppose it. She says the project will “corrupt” the mountains through which it passes. Perhaps like the Blue Ridge Parkway “corrupts” those same mountains? Here’s the story of a young lady and her horsey, off to rally faithful environuts…
Sometimes the law, and justice, is mysterious to us. Last November we told you about an Ohio Supreme Court case with profound implications for both landmen and for the drillers who employ and use them (see 
Two weeks ago MDN told you that liberal Democrat State Rep. Glenn Holmes (from Girard, Trumbull County, OH) is attempting to use a hammer to kill a fly (see 
MDN previously told you about a new natural gas-fired plant planned for the socialist paradise of Rhode Island, home to old money and people who oppose change of any kind (see 
Last week we told you that the forces of good had overcome the forces of evil–evil being the Sierra Club and the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and their mission to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) from getting built (see 
The price tag to build the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline is going up. When first announced, the project, which will run from Wetzel County, WV to the Transco Pipeline in Pittsylvania County, VA, was originally estimated to cost $3.5 billion. That number was tweaked this summer to $3.7 billion. Now MVP (i.e. EQT Midstream) says it will cost a whopping $4.6 billion–more than a billion dollars higher than the original estimate. Why the big hike? Two things, says MVP: (1) A work stoppage imposed by the courts and by FERC (thank you Sierra Club), and (2) heavy rain. The rise in cost is due more the former rather than the later. It was only yesterday we ran a story about how much it costs, per mile, to build a major pipeline in the northeast (see 
The Pennsylvania Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee yesterday heard testimony from several witnesses on the topic of foreign meddling meant to suppress or stop Marcellus Shale production in the Keystone State (and beyond). There were three witnesses, all of them stars (and all MDN friends). One of the three was MDN buddy Tom Shepstone, writer of the always-excellent 
Perhaps this is an overstatement and a tad too generalistic, but once again Republican lawmakers have shown they are the party of law and order, while Democrats have shown they are the party of lawlessness and disorder–at least in Pennsylvania. Yesterday the PA House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee tweaked and then passed (on a party line vote) Senate Bill (SB) 652 which makes trespassing on rights-of-way of “critical infrastructure” (pipelines, power lines, refineries, etc.) a felony instead of a misdemeanor. Democrats don’t like it, because their party’s members are typically the ones who engage in illegal trespass in order to slow down and block work on things like don’t like–like pipelines. Dems maintain they have a right to “free speech” to illegally block pipeline work, just because they don’t like it and can’t stop it using lawful means. The difference between the two sides could not be more clear…
Sometimes you can’t convey it all in a headline that should be 65 characters or less (in order to make the Google gods happy). In this case, the longer headline we would have used is this: “Lobbyists tell Pennsylvania lawmakers that nuclear powered electric plants are safer from cyber and physical attack than natural gas-fired plants (and therefore should be preferred to gas-fired plants).” That was the upshot of a hearing held yesterday by the PA House-Senate Nuclear Caucus, a hearing in which nuclear energy lobbyists claimed “no mandatory physical or cyber security standards exist for natural gas systems” in contrast to the nuclear energy industry that has to meet “demanding security requirements.” We should hope so! We hope that nuke facilities are more strictly regulated than natural gas facilities. If a nuke goes offline/has an accident/is overtaken in a physical attack, thousands of people die and it’s an environmental disaster. If a natgas-fired plant goes offline, the lights go out for a while. Big difference, we would say…