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We Now Know Why Pitt, DOH Pulled Out of Fracking/Cancer Update
On Monday, MDN told you that the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Graduate School of Public Health and the Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) had “suddenly” pulled out of an event scheduled for yesterday to update the public on Pitt’s research on the potential health effects of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania (see First Signs Appear that Cancer/Fracking in Kids Study in Trouble). The update session was organized by virulent anti-fossil energy groups, which prey on the emotions of parents who have lost their precious children to cancer, blaming it on fracking. Until recently, Pitt and the DOH were scheduled to participate, but then they disappeared. Why?
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Each month the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes a huge report called Natural Gas Monthly. Last Friday, EIA issued the latest (September 2022) edition of the report. There is a LOT of information in the report–statistics, data, charts, you name it. And the report covers not just the U.S., but natural gas flows for all countries around the world. One aspect of the report deals with prices. The analysts at EIA excerpted some of that information into a post on the agency’s Today in Energy website, comparing the price of natural gas for both residential and commercial customers this year with the five-year rolling average. In real terms, the 2021 annual residential price was the highest since 2014, and the commercial price was the highest since 2015. It looks like we will fly by those statistics in 2022.
MDN Editor Jim Willis had the honor of presenting today at the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Landowner Alliance (
Nearly two years ago, Gov. Tom Wolf announced a $2.5 million contract had been awarded to the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health to “conduct research on the potential health effects of hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania” (see 
According to a column by a Reuters analyst, U.S. natural gas production will need to increase significantly to continue growing LNG exports while ensuring natgas remains affordable for domestic electric power producers, households, and industrial users. This is the first article (we’ve seen) that puts numbers to the claim that LNG exports are beginning to drive the price of domestic natgas to higher levels.
Americans, indeed just about every human on the planet alive today, have been so thoroughly brainwashed that burning fossil fuels is causing catastrophic global warming and is “bad” or “evil,” that when someone comes along to say, “Wait a minute, what if more carbon dioxide is a good thing,” that person is considered a crackpot. Let us ask that question. What if more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is actually helping Mom Earth, not hurting Mom Earth? Is it possible?
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Anti-fossil fuelers at Penn State are trying their hardest to spin the results of a recent study by university researchers to say it shows a link between “elevated levels of chloride in groundwater” and fracking in Pennsylvania. As we read a summary of the study appearing on Penn State News, it was obvious the study proves just the opposite–that THERE IS NO LINK between the two!
A major psychological milestone was hit this month for the first time. Natural gas production in the Lower 48 States passed 100 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). According to RBN Energy, Lower 48 dry gas production hit a record 100.1 Bcf/d on September 6. The experts at RBN delve into why this is such a remarkable event, and what it means. The short version is that demand for natural gas *here at home* (in the U.S.) is at record highs and shows no signs of diminishing.
According to data compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), U.S. natural gas producers are operating more drilling rigs now than they did when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Before the pandemic, the number of rigs operating in the United States had generally been declining. In Jan. 2020, the gas-focused rig count stood at 112. That number took a nose dive and hit a low of 68 rigs on July 24, 2020 (the lowest since 1987). But as of Sept. 9 of this year, Baker Hughes reports that 166 natural gas-focused rigs were operating in the U.S.
You’ve heard mainstream media and the Democrat Party’s attempt to brainwash you by renaming the millions of illegal, invading aliens crossing our southern border as “undocumented immigrants” or other laughable labels. The name change seems to have worked so well, it’s now being used by the government’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) with oil and gas wells. Ever hear of an “undocumented” oil/gas well? For most of us, they’re known as orphaned or abandoned wells. NETL is calling them undocumented because, well, there’s no official documentation that shows where they are located. NETL is hitting the road–to western New York State–to “find and characterize undocumented orphaned oil and gas wells.”
What if we gave the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) a $2.5 million grant to study a link between peanut butter and childhood cancer? Researchers could only use the money to study any potential link between peanut butter and kids getting rare cancers. Sounds absurd, right? What if there is NO link between peanut butter and cancer in kids? What if there IS a link to some other environmental factor like, say, an old uranium dumpsite nearby? But the remit is to ONLY research peanut butter. Sound silly? Sound stupid? Substitute “shale drilling” for “peanut butter,” and you can see how absurd it is for Pitt to study a single potential cause for rare childhood cancers in southwestern PA. Yet they are. Pitt is studying a link solely between fracking and cancer in kids. They are now trying to recruit local families to participate in this sham they call science.
This one is a “learn from your enemies” lesson. It has long been known that heating shale rock can free up oil and gas–something called in situ upgrading (ISU). But such a practice has not been economic, at least that was the thinking. A new study published by researchers from (get this) Northeast Petroleum University in China (no way an American university would ever name itself after fossil energy!) looked at the different techniques that can be used to heat shale rock–the most economical ways–and published their findings in a paper for the world to read. It is just Chinese Communist propaganda? We don’t think so. The Chicoms know the West is so thoroughly brainwashed against using fossil energy that our own scientists and citizens won’t even pay attention to this important new study that discusses how to get more mileage from existing shale deposits.