Indiana U Research: Fracking Support Grows When Fees Stay Local
New research just published by Indiana University confirms what those with common sense already knew: If at least some of the fees paid by drillers go into the local township’s coffers instead of the county or state–people in that community are more accepting and favorable to drilling. IU questioned 453 PA residents in June 2014 (takes a long time to publish research) asking a variety of questions. The research shows that the public has more trust that revenues will be spent better by their local municipal government than by the county or state. Don’t you just love it when common sense breaks out? Of course PA’s far-left/liberal governor, Tom Wolf, is tone deaf when it comes to taxing the Marcellus industry. He wants to grab all the money he can and give it to teachers unions. PA has an impact fee which keeps 60% of fees raised local–a plan that works. Wolf wants to add a severance tax on top of the impact fee, which would create the nation’s highest severance tax rate (see IFO: PA Gov. Wolf Proposes Highest Severance Tax in Nation). Here’s a summary of the IU research, a wake-up call to politicians at all levels…
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Yesterday MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report–the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. Our first interesting observation from the May report: The EIA projects that in June (the report is a forecast looking forward) that once again the Utica Shale will be the only play out of the seven major plays that will continue to produce more natural gas than it did the month before. In April the EIA said the Utica would produce 1 million cubic feet per day (Mmcf/d) of natural gas above what it did the month before, and this report says the Utica will produce 4 Mmcf/d more than it did last month. Second interesting observation: Production in the Marcellus Shale, while it continues to produce each month than it did the month before, is slowing down. That is, the rate of decline is slowing, which means we may be getting close to the point when Marcellus production begins to pick up again. Keep a close eye on Marcellus production, because it’s the largest producing shale play in the country…
We’ve heard of microwaving popcorn (one of our favorite things to microwave), but we’ve never heard of microwaving “nanoribbons.” We suspect you haven’t either. All’s it takes is a 30-watt microwave to nuke nanoribbons and voila–drillers have a new, cheap and better way to seal up tiny fractures in wellbores. Researchers at Rice University have discovered wellbores drilled to extract oil and gas can be “dramatically reinforced” with a small amount of modified graphene nanoribbons–added to a polymer and microwaved. Think of it as nuking a tiny bit of plastic over a rock and the plastic melts into and firms up the rock. It’s quite possible there will be a microwave coming to a well pad near you!…
You may recall a few months back when President Barack Hussein Obama signed the Paris climate treaty, referred to as COP21. As we wrote at the time, the treaty is not binding on the U.S. because it’s not been ratified by the Senate (see 
The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) selected Penn State University to lead a consortium of nine universities in all that will study fossil fuel technologies for the next six years. NETL is giving Penn State $20 million of your money (i.e. taxpayer’s money) “to accelerate the development and deployment of fossil fuel-based technologies.” We can certainly think of worse uses for the money. Penn State will lead the Lucky University CoalItion for Fossil Energy Research (LUCiFER). Uh no! That’s not right! Let’s try it again: Penn State will lead the University Coalition for Fossil Energy Research (UCFER). There, that’s it! Here’s what the feds said, and what Penn State said, about the new grant and the new UCFER coalition…
It’s good to know that “research” can still be purchased at the once-great Duke University. For years now the radical Park Park Foundation has been buying its research from a few select professors at a few select universities. One of the scientists for sale is Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment (see 
If you happen to believe in the fairy tale of man-made global warming, you no doubt know all about CO2–carbon dioxide. CO2 is the stuff you exhale with every breathe you take, as every mammal does on God’s green earth. Somehow CO2 has been twisted into becoming a dreaded “greenhouse gas”. Go figure. At any rate, aside from breathing, when we burn fossil fuels it creates CO2–which is at the core of the neurosis of anti-drillers. Their kindergartenish solution to “solving” the “problem” of “global warming” is to stop burning fossil fuels. But the thing is, not all fossil fuels are created equal. Natural gas burns relatively clean and produces far less CO2 than other fossil fuels. You might think people who really care about the planet would welcome more natgas–but you would be wrong. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has just published an analysis of the biggest non-breathing cause of CO2 generation–burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. The EIA says in 2015 CO2 emissions were down 12% from baseline levels in 2005. With more population and more electricity being generated, how can that possibly be? Because of the shale revolution–that’s how. So-called renewable forms of electric power generation are still minuscule compared to burning fossil fuels to generate electricity. Because we now use more natgas instead of coal to generate electricity, the amount of CO2 being produced has dropped dramatically. Thanks to the miracle of fracking…
The rig count–both internationally and domestically here in the U.S.–continues its historic slide. Last Friday Baker Hughes announced the average rig count numbers for April. Rigs operating outside the U.S. slide another 39, from 985 in March to 946 in April. In the U.S., the count slide 41 from 478 in March to 437 in April. In the Marcellus/Utica, the count was down another 2–both rigs lost came in Pennsylvania, which now has the lowest count in decades: just 16 rigs operating in the state. Ohio and West Virginia held constant month over month with 11 rigs operating in the Buckeye State and 12 rigs operating in the Mountain State. Here’s the sad news of the continuing decline in rig counts…
MDN noticed an announcement for the publication of a new dissertation by a student in the masters degree program at the University of Vermont. The title of the student’s dissertation is, “Influence of Mission, Audience, and Policy Context on Issue Framing: A Case Study of Mobilization Against Hydraulic Fracturing in the Marcellus Shale.” When you dig into the abstract (i.e. summary) of the dissertation, it appears the student did research on a number of anti-drilling Big Green groups in the Marcellus/Utica and the techniques they use to manipulate public opinion. Sort of a look at how the Joseph Goebbels of our day do propaganda. We thought, “Hey, this is great! Somebody will finally lay bare how these incestuously-funded Big Green groups lie to and manipulate public opinion!” We tried to download the paper and promptly found that it won’t be available to the public for download until April 2018–two years from now. What’s up with that?…
Everybody knows, anecdotally, that the shale revolution has been great for U.S. manufacturers. Empty plants have roared back to life and new plants have been built, bringing back millions of jobs, due to the huge quantities of natural gas being extracted from shale in the U.S. Now we have a research study to prove what we already knew anecdotally. Yesterday the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) released a new research report from IHS titled “Energizing Manufacturing: Natural Gas and Economic Growth” (full copy below). The research finds that shale gas has put an extra $1,337 back in the pockets of the average hard-working American family. Wow! Shale gas has also contributed to the creation of 1.9 million jobs throughout the economy. Double wow! Just building natural gas transmission lines has meant more than 347,000 jobs with 60,000 of those jobs in manufacturing. Here’s the best part: All of it is without a government program or taxpayer expense. Read on for more good news about how the shale revolution and the miracle of fracking has benefited every single American…
In February the natural gas industry in the Lower 48 States made history by hitting record high production (see 
Radical fractivism brooks no dissent. You either agree with them that fracking is evil and from the devil himself, or they WILL attack you–politically, professionally, personally–anyway they can. In other words, fractivists are bullies and not interested in free speech. If you have an opposing viewpoint or try to support your views with science and facts, you’re immediately shut down. That’s how it works with these vicious fossil fuel opponents. We’ve been tracking and telling you about an issue that first began in June 2015. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, after four years of study, concluded that fracking does not contaminate groundwater supplies (see