NY Nuke Power Plant Closing, Blames Fracked Marcellus Gas
The Indian Point Energy Center nuclear power plant near New York City will close down by 2021–after safely powering New York City and Westchester County for more than 40 years. Our man-child governor, Andy Cuomo, has made it one of his missions in life to screw the Indian facility (does he have something against Indians?), because, he says, it’s too close to NYC and too decrepit and dangerous. Our out-of-control Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, has been hassling the facility with legal actions. And our friends at Riverkeeper have been suing the pants off the facility for years. New York State is so “business friendly” as the advertisements say, dontcha think? Anyway, Entergy, the owner of the facility, says all of those reasons are not why the facility is closing. Instead, it was cheap fracked Marcellus gas, says Entergy, that is closing the facility. The nuke plant just can’t produce electricity as cheaply as Marcellus-powered electric plants can…
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SWEPI, formerly known as Shell Western E&P Inc., is the North American land-based drilling arm of giant Royal Dutch Shell. SWEPI has an active drilling program in the Marcellus/Utica region. Some of that active program has traditionally been in shallow, or conventional (not shale) drilling. Using a broker, SWEPI has put up a mammoth 189,000 acres of its conventional/shallow leases and wells for sale by auction. The leases and some 1,500 active oil and gas wells are located in Forest, Elk, McKean, and Warren counties in Pennsylvania, and Cattaraugus County in New York. The sale includes shallow rights (not shale rights) only. SWEPI claims there are another 10,000 potential well locations. Here’s the details…
In November 2015, MDN told you about Pilgrim Pipeline Holdings, developing an East Coast pipeline to carry refined petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and jet and aviation fuel northbound from Linden, New Jersey to Albany, New York (178 miles). In addition, a second Pilgrim pipeline will carry crude oil from Albany south to NJ and other locations. Two pipelines, side by side, liquids flowing through them in different directions (see 
It’s really kind of sad. Two washed-up, thoroughly discredited (indeed humiliated) Cornell professors who are on the payroll of Big Green organizations like the Park Foundation, Robert Howarth and Anthony Ingraffea, are still appearing in public to proclaim their junk science “study” from 2011 that says natural gas is worse for Mom Earth than burning coal (see 
It’s now apparent that the fix has been in from the beginning–that New York’s corrupt Gov. Andrew Cuomo, colluding with New York’s corrupt Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, were on a mission to block the construction of the federally approved Constitution Pipeline, due to run from Susquehanna County, PA into Upstate New York (to Schoharie County). Before Cuomo decided to take the breathlessly lawsless act of blocking the pipeline by denying stream-crossing permits (being challenged in court), the Constitution asked for permission to begin clearing trees along the pipeline’s path. In January 2016, Schneiderman immediately objected (see 
It’s about time! A U.S. District Court Judge in Texas recently granted Exxon the right to examine “internal phone records, other communications and depositions” of far-left Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, related to her involvement in attempting to persecute Exxon Mobil for daring to say man-made global warming may not be all it’s cracked up to be (see 
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a 7.8 mile off-shoot pipeline from the mighty Millennium Pipeline in Orange County, NY that will feed a new natgas-fired electric plant being built in Wawayanda. The pipeline will supply 130 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of Marcellus gas to feed the new power plant. This is the Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) $900 million plant being opposed by rich Hollywood actor James Cromwell, who lives near the plant site (see 
You may recall that in April, New York’s anti-drilling governor, Andrew Cuomo, decided he would cave to pressure from radical environmentalists once again and block the building of the federally-approved Constitution Pipeline (see 
The rogue and out-of-control federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues its bullying ways when it comes to the oil and gas industry. Just coming to light (for us) is an action last week by the EPA to fine Crestwood Midstream’s Finger Lakes LPG Storage subsidiary $312,000–for not filing the right paperwork for their facility in upstate New York. Note that the fines are NOT for leaking methane or propane, NOT for endangering the public, NOT for actually doing ANY kind of environmental harm. The fines are for not filing the proper paperwork. The EPA is behaving like the mob running a protection money racket. Crestwood has to pay the EPA $154,000 in fines, and then pay $158,000 for new equipment for three local fire departments located near the facility. The antis are already using this paperwork violation as yet another reason to bleat and blat about Crestwood’s proposed underground propane storage facility along the shores of Seneca Lake. The paperwork violation is for a Crestwood/Finger Lakes LPG Storage facility in the next county–nowhere near Seneca Lake where the proposed propane facility is located. Makes no difference. Antis say it’s yet more evidence that Crestwood can’t be trusted to safely operate the propane storage facility…
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, like many liberal Democrats, loves to pick winners and losers. Recently Cuomo launched an “ambitious” new Clean Energy Standard in which he puts his bets on nuclear energy. That is, he’s willing to transfer billions of New Yorker’s hard-earned taxpayer dollars out of their pockets and into the pockets of nuclear power companies. Why? In order to prop them up, make them “competitive” with much cheaper natural gas-powered electric plants. That is, Cuomo cheats. He wants to stack the deck. And New York’s natgas power generators are not having it. They’ve sued the state, challenging the Clean Energy Standard that steals money out of our pockets in order to prop up nuclear companies, all using the excuse of “global warming”…
Spectra Energy’s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) pipeline project is an $876 million expansion of the existing Algonquin pipeline system that will carry 342 million cubic feet (MMcf) of natural gas per day to New England states that badly need the gas. On March 3, 2015 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued their final approval for the project, allowing it to go forward. Construction began last year and continues now. Two weeks ago FERC issued an order allowing part of the AIM project–in Putnam County, NY, and Fairfield County, CT–to power up and begin service. However, not all of the project is yet built. Four nutjob protesters criminally locked themselves inside a piece of pipeline in Verplanck (Westchester County), NY last week (see 
