PA Gov. Shapiro Seeks to Require 35% Unreliable Renewables by 2035
In 2004, Pennsylvania implemented one of the most aggressive mandates to adopt wind and solar energy. At the time, less than 1% of net energy generation came from wind and solar in the Keystone State. In 2023, after the state had spent nearly $1.5 billion in subsidies, wind and solar generated less than 2%. And yet current Gov. Josh Shapiro (liberal Democrat) wants to double down by requiring 35% of electricity to come from politically favored sources, such as wind and solar, by 2035. The one energy source that has PROVEN to reduce carbon dioxide emissions? That would be natural gas, which is not on the politically favored sources list.
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Last week, MDN brought you a story about the rampant cost inflation for plugging old conventional abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells in the Keystone State (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) sent a letter to the Shell ethane cracker plant on Feb. 22 essentially saying, “You’re time is up.” The cracker plant facility has 120 days from Feb. 22 (until Jun. 21) to file for a federal Title V Operating Permit for air emissions. If the facility doesn’t at least file for the permit, it’s lights out until it does.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) is shopping for a public relations firm that can help the agency convince gullible New Yorkers that they’re better off paying more money for unreliable renewable energy than they are in using fossil fuels like natural gas. NYSERDA is offering $500,000 for a one-year contract to help the agency tout its wide-ranging push to phase out gas cars in favor of electric vehicles, dump gas-heated homes in favor of electric heat, and eliminate fossil-fuel power generation in favor of solar and wind. While they’re at it, maybe they can sell you a bridge in Brooklyn, too.
Earlier this month, MDN told you that President Joementia Biden has nominated three new candidates to become Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners (see 
It’s full speed ahead for the radical anti-Marcellus Democrats in the Pennsylvania State Legislature. Last week, PA Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to do a dog-and-pony show announcing his personalized version of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax that would apply only to PA (see 
Honestly, we can’t heap enough praise on the excellent work done by Pennsylvania shale drillers. It is unreasonable to expect there will be absolutely zero problems when engaging in something as complex as drilling a mile straight down and then one to four miles horizontally underground. Nothing in life is error-free. NOTHING. There’s always a problem. There’s always a slight error somewhere. Yet in PA drilling, only 54 shale wells out of 14,412 drilled since 2004 have resulted in the shale well “communicating with” (interfering with or leaking methane to) nearby water wells, conventional wells, abandoned wells, or other shale wells. That’s 0.0037 of the time, or 3.7 wells for every 1,000 drilled. Converting that number to a percentage, it’s 0.37% (about one-third of a single percentage point). Rounding further, it’s 0% of the time.
Where do business dreams go to die? New York State, of course. Yesterday, the New York State Senate passed a bill to ban the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) in any process to extract natural gas or oil in the so-called Empire State. The NY Assembly (our state’s lower chamber) voted to approve the same bill a week ago (see 
Plugging old abandoned (which means no longer producing) and orphaned (meaning the owner is not known) wells is not a simple thing to do. It’s estimated that Pennsylvania has perhaps 350,000 old abandoned and orphaned wells, many of them leftover from the early days of conventional oil drilling. The problem is finding them. Many are in out-of-the-way places. Plugging them cheaply is no simple matter. PA, OH, and WV have received millions from the federal government to help with their well plugging programs in an effort to control so-called fugitive methane. Over the past year, PA has plugged over 200 old wells (see 
Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to do a dog-and-pony show announcing his personalized version of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) carbon tax that would apply only to PA (see 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. Last Thursday, the SRBC approved 23 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, eight of them for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers receiving a green light from SRBC included Beech Resources, Chesapeake Energy, Greylock Energy, Seneca Resources, and Southwestern Energy.
A three-judge panel from the federal D.C. Circuit spent two hours on Friday hearing arguments for and against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Williams’ Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project. REAE is an expansion of the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. Part of the project was done and went online last year (see 
In April 2022, MDN reported that the top brass at Kinder Morgan, the owner and operator of the Elba Island LNG export facility (also known as Southern LNG), was considering an expansion of its modestly-sized facility (see 
CNX Resources was slapped with a “notice of violation” (NOV) by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for withdrawing over 1.8 million gallons of water in Washington County, PA (for use in shale gas fracking) without first seeking the proper “Mother, May I?” approvals. The withdrawals happened over a 22-day period in the summer of 2023. Yes, it takes the DEP a looooong time to respond to so-called violations. When CNX realized it didn’t have express permission to withdraw the water, the company immediately reported the situation and corrected it. Still, DEP wants a new plan to prevent it from happening again. The plan is due today.
CNX Resources filed a request with the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) in April 2023 to build two pipelines — two for natural gas — along a 13.9-mile route in Bell, Loyalhanna and Salem Townships in Westmoreland County. An additional 4-mile pipeline would be built for water. Called the Slickville Trunkline Project, the DEP told CNX last December (yes, it took the agency eight months to reply!) that the application was “incomplete” and that CNX had 60 days to provide the extra info.