Shakeup at Rice-Backed Net Power; President and CFO Both Out
Net Power, backed by the Rice brothers (of Rice Energy and EQT fame), is on a mission to develop and deploy revolutionary new technology to capture every last molecule of carbon dioxide from natural gas-fired power plants (see Dan Rice Buys Co. that Builds Zero-Carbon Gas-Fired Electric Plants). In March, MDN brought you Net Power’s 4Q24 and full-year update (see Net Power Makes Progress with Tech, High Costs a Challenge). There’s been a major shakeup at the company. Two days ago, Net Power issued a press release stating that the company’s President and the CFO have both been “relieved of their day-to-day responsibilities and will officially depart the Company on May 1, 2025.” Read More “Shakeup at Rice-Backed Net Power; President and CFO Both Out”
It seems our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), was populated by a lot of swamp creatures. Multiple sources are whispering to Reuters that 100 or more of the agency’s 350 employees (somewhere between 25% and 40%) either already have or soon will leave their jobs at the agency. They have opted to accept President Trump’s offer to government workers to leave with generous benefits now or risk being fired later. Reuters, which is typically an unbiased news source (one of the few), is throwing shade that important reports produced by EIA will no longer be produced, given the lack of manpower. 
This is shameful. A Pennsylvania government agency, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), has aligned itself with an extreme leftwing organization to attack the PJM Interconnection electric grid in a bid to paper over the failed policies of PA Governor Josh Shapiro. In particular, so-called “Acting” Secretary of the DEP, Jessica Shirley, has proven she is no longer fit to lead the agency. The PA Senate should refuse to confirm her and bounce her out immediately. Shirley aligned herself with the radical left-wing organization called Evergreen Action to promote a sham/fake “report” by a well-known Democrat organization called Synapse Energy Economics (that works exclusively for left-wing groups) attacking PJM with false claims that it has a “broken” electric generation project approval process. 
In what appears to be a coordinated effort, the PJM Interconnect electric grid is under attack by leftists. As we point out in our lead story today, the Pennsylvania DEP has prostituted itself politically and joined with extremist left-wing organizations to attack PJM. At the same time, three deeply blue (economically failed) states, New Jersey, Maryland, and Illinois, filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) asking the agency to force PJM to rerun an electric capacity auction, claiming such a move would save ratepayers $5 billion. These states’ failed policies in FORCING unreliable solar and wind on the public caused the high-priced electricity problem in the first place. So now, the perpetrators are blaming the victim—PJM. 
Energy Transfer’s (ET) Lake Charles LNG project is in the news again. Last week we told you that ET had landed a new partner to help pay for the project, MidOcean Energy, which will cover 30% of the cost of building the plant (see 
The on again, off again, on again, off again plan to build a massive data center in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, with a 3,500-megawatt gas-fired power plant is now off again, permanently. Last October, Balico applied to rezone more than 2,200 acres for a proposed campus in Pittsylvania County, Va., that would include its own massive on-site gas-fired power plant complex using Marcellus/Utica molecules from the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see 
After liquefying and exporting over 400 cargoes of LNG from March 1, 2022, through this month, Venture Global says its Calcasieu Pass (CP) LNG export facility in Louisiana is now officially open for business—three years after it began shipping LNG. Venture Global claimed the CP facility was not commercially ready until now. Venture Global has been selling cargo after cargo of LNG on the open “spot” market, making two, three, or four times the money it could make by selling the cargoes to its legally contracted customers at a predetermined price. At last count, Venture Global has made over $20 billion by selling cargoes on the open spot market. 
The name Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) pretty much says it all. PGW is a natural gas utility serving the Philly region. It’s not an electric company; it’s a natural gas company. So, it will probably come as no surprise that PGW belongs to a trade organization called the American Public Gas Association (APGA). Indeed, PGW is the largest member of the APGA. And it would probably not surprise you to learn that the APGA supports President Trump’s efforts to pause and defund much of the money not already distributed from the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was Biden’s Green New Deal aimed at using billions of OUR taxpayer dollars to try to destroy fossil energy, including natural gas. The swampy left, including its apologists in the media (i.e., PBS), are trying to shame PGW into dropping its membership in the APGA, implying PGW is (via APGA) opposed to having its business destroyed using $700 million from the IRA earmarked for Philly. Imagine that! 
Capital Power Corporation, based in Edmonton (Alberta), Canada, a power producer with approximately 10 gigawatts (GW) of power generation at 30 facilities across North America, announced it is buying two gas-fired power plants from LS Power. One facility is the 1,124 megawatt (MW) Hummel Station, a combined-cycle natural gas facility in Shamokin Dam, PA, fed by Marcellus molecules. The other is the 1,023 MW Rolling Hills plant, a combustion turbine natural gas facility in Wilkesville, OH, fed by Utica molecules. We welcome Capital Power to the M-U! 
ArcLight Capital Partners, an infrastructure investment firm focused on energy and related infrastructure, announced it is buying out the ownership interests of Osaka Gas USA Corporation and Kyuden International Americas Inc. (both Japanese companies) in Kleen Energy Systems, LLC. Kleen Energy owns Kleen Power, a 620 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant in Middletown, Connecticut. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. 
Cayuga Station, owned by Duke Energy, is a three-unit coal-fired power plant built between 1970 and 1993 in Vermillion County, Indiana. The existing plant produces as much as 1,040 megawatts (MW) of electricity. Duke recently filed a request with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) for permission to build two new gas-fired plants at the Cayuga site to replace the coal-fired units. The combined output of the new gas-fired plants will be 1,510 MW. The plan is to build and commission the gas-fired plants first and then shut down the coal-fired plants. 
An interesting report from BTU Analytics connects many of the dots that (for us) have been missing with respect to hydrogen production from natural gas that captures carbon dioxide in the process—called “blue hydrogen.” As you know, we’ve been skeptical of the big push to produce hydrogen as a magic replacement for other forms of energy, particularly natural gas. Environmentalists pay lip service to loving hydrogen because it burns “clean” with no CO2 emissions. Why not just burn natural gas (and capture the CO2) instead of going through the time and expense of converting natural gas into hydrogen? Please, don’t ask such common-sense questions. It marks you as a MAGA extremist. 
The Baker Hughes U.S. national rig count cratered last week, losing seven rigs. The U.S. count is now 583 active rigs, the biggest weekly decline since June 2024. As for the Marcellus/Utica, the rig count was a combined 35 last week, losing one rig it had gained the week before. The Marcellus lost one of the two rigs it had gained two weeks ago and now sports 24 rigs across the three M-U states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. Rigs focused on the Utica remained unchanged at a combined 11. However, there were shifts among two of the three M-U states. PA picked up one rig and now operates 16 rigs. The last time PA operated 16 rigs was last December. The biggest news is that WV, which had operated 10 or more rigs for most of the past year (34 weeks in a row), broke its streak and lost two rigs. WV now operates nine rigs. 
EQT Corporation wants to build three miles of gathering pipeline to a well pad in Cascade Township, Lycoming County, PA. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a notice in Saturday’s Pennsylvania Bulletin inviting comments on a Chapter 105 Encroachment permit for a three-mile-long, 8-inch natural gas gathering pipeline being constructed on a 50-foot-wide right-of-way.