Lunatics Set to Bash NatGas at FERC New England Forum Today
Perhaps it’s not polite to say so out loud, but anyone who says New England needs to end its reliance on natural gas used to produce electricity, with winter about to begin and unreliable renewables not capable of making up the shortfall, is a lunatic. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is holding a forum today in Burlington, Vermont, to discuss New England’s electric grid. ISO-New England, the region’s grid operator, will argue that natural gas supplies and grid reliability go hand-in-hand. A group of lunatics, including the Northeast Clean Energy Council, will argue that natgas should be cut off, forcing the region to adopt other sources of electricity. To which we say, why don’t they go first? The lunatics advocating to cut off natgas should unhook themselves from the electric grid in the dead of winter and see how that works out for them. Show us how it’s done.
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Located in Lusby, Maryland, Cove Point LNG is the first major LNG export facility to locate on the East Coast. It is recognized as one of the most technically advanced and environmentally sensitive LNG facilities in the world. The Cove Point LNG Terminal has a storage capacity of 14.6 billion cubic feet (Bcf) and a daily send-out capacity of 1.8 Bcf. The owners/managers of Cove Point recently filed a preliminary request with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to increase export capacity by an extra 20 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) by installing a small liquefaction unit to capture “boil off gas” the plant currently evaporates during normal operations.
U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, from West Virginia, traded away the future of the country by supporting the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (the remnants of the Green New Deal) in return for finishing the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline along with a few other concessions for the oil and gas industry (see 
Last week MDN told you that three radical environmental groups challenging an air permit issued by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the Renovo Energy Center, a Marcellus-fired power plant in Clinton County, PA, won a partial summary judgment lowering the amount of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) the new plant can emit (see 
The left finds the most devious ways to sink their claws into the fabric of American society and force it to conform to their twisted worldview–like using an obscure regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In February 2022, the EPA announced a “minor” change to a regulation governing gas-fired turbines under the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), a framework in place since 2004. At first glance, the EPA’s announcement seems to be a minor update to a highly technical rule. However, a careful examination of the list of impacted units reveals that the change in enforcement framework could have significant impacts on both supply and demand dynamics in natural gas markets in the U.S. and beyond, affecting LNG exports, gas-fired power plants, and gas transmission and processing infrastructure (pipelines) in particular.
It does our heart good to see people pushing back against the woke leftism that is called ESG (environmental, social, and governance) investing. We always feel a bit conflicted when discussing ESG. We are NOT talking about companies, many of them in the Marcellus/Utica, that have programs and efforts underway to become ever better corporate citizens. What we are talking about is leftists forcing investors to abandon investments in fossil energy companies by using arbitrary ESG standards (that they make up and enforce). Companies that force ESG investing include the largest investment firm on the planet–BlackRock. We spotted an excellent story in the Wall Street Journal that says it’s time to bust up big woke ESG companies like BlackRock by using existing anti-trust laws. Amen to that!
In September 2021, the Weirton (WV) Zoning Board of Appeals rejected a request by Southwestern Energy to build a well pad inside city limits (see 
We experienced déjà vu as we read about a hearing held Tuesday evening in Plum Boro (Allegheny County, PA) about a proposed shale wastewater injection well. Some 20 people made their way to the microphones to voice their objections to plans by Penneco Environmental Solutions to site a second injection well in the boro–right next to an existing injection well. We’ve heard it all before, almost four years ago, when some of the same people objected to Penneco’s plans to install the first injection well (see 
In May 2021, the radicals from PennFuture, the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, and the so-called Center for Biological Diversity (better named the Center for Leftwing Conformity) challenged an air permit issued by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the Renovo Energy Center, a Marcellus-fired power plant in Clinton County (northcentral), PA (see 
After the shocking news that U.S. Senator Joe Manchin had sold out his state and the entire country by agreeing to support the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) bill, the details began to come out about just how bad this bill really is for the oil and gas industry. First and foremost, it slaps a new tax on oil and gas activities (see 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Richard “Dick” Glick tried to pull a fast one earlier this year when he tried to permanently enshrine global warming considerations as a requirement to approve all new pipeline projects (see 
Olympus Energy (formerly Huntley & Huntley) drills in the Greater Pittsburgh region, in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties. Last year Olympus filed an application to build a new well pad in a rural part of Allegheny County, in West Deer Township. So-called “concerned citizens” (anti-fossil fuel zealots) got amped up to oppose the rural project (see 
In March, MDN told you that the Deputy Chief Administrative Law Judge of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued a ruling against the now completed Mariner East 2 pipeline project, assessing a $51,000 fine on the project for work done near an apartment complex (see 
The State of Florida has jumped on the divest-the-diverstors bandwagon. We have no doubt that Larry Fink, founder and CEO of the world’s largest investment firm, BlackRock, is now VERY concerned about the pushback he’s getting for pushing investors to divest from fossil energy companies. Two of the three largest states in the county (by population)–Texas and Florida–have decided to ban investments in funds that promote ESG–environmental, social, and governance. ESG is just another way of saying divest from fossil energy companies. And now the diverstors, like BlackRock and other Big Banks and Big Investment firms that divest, are themselves the targets for divestment. We love it!