Hydrogen Hub Winners Announced – WV Takes Prize in M-U Region
As predicted by Reuters, on Friday, the Bidenistas announced the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games winners. There were seven projects selected from 33 finalists. Among them was the West Virginia-led Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub (ARCH2), which is a project that will use Marcellus/Utica natural gas as the feedstock to produce “blue” hydrogen, which is hydrogen made from natgas where carbon dioxide from the process is captured and either used or stored underground. While there is no doubt the big winner is West Virginia, other neighboring states, including Ohio and (yes) even Pennsylvania, will benefit with several locations that will be part of the larger hub project. We’ll explain below.
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Joe Biden traveled to Pennsylvania (campaign rally) on Friday to make the official announcement of the seven lucky winners of the Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games (see today’s lead story). Joe pitched Pennsylvania as the big winner, which is a joke. PA scored small pieces of two approved projects. The one big, main hydrogen hub project pitched by PA to the Bidenistas — the Decarbonization Network of Appalachia (DNA H2Hub) — didn’t make the cut. Joe needs to win PA in the next election, or he’s toast, hence his visit to Philly on Friday (with a complicit media) to try and paint PA as the big winner. It was not.
The U.S. rig count actually rose last week, adding a piddly four rigs to 622 active rigs (regaining the four it lost the week before). We remain near the lowest point since February 2022. The count in the Marcellus/Utica, after falling by one three weeks ago and holding steady two weeks ago, gained one rig (in Pennsylvania) and now stands at 39 active rigs. The national rig count is down 147, or 19%, below this time last year. We’d classify it as limping along, but we’re happy to see this slight reversal.
Explosive news from the Pittsburgh Business Times about the ill-fated plan by Pennsylvania to try and attract one of 6-10 regional hydrogen hubs to the state. As we told you yesterday, according to Reuters, PA’s application to score a government grant for a hydrogen hub, called the Decarbonization Network of Appalachia (DNA H2Hub), was passed over in favor of West Virginia’s plan called the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, or ARCH2 (see 
The left always twists language in its attempt to push its ideology and agenda — even in Christianity. The Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), during its 15-year history, has supported every far-left environmental regulation proposed by the Democrat Party and has criticized every conservative, Republican energy plan that allows for fossil energy to flourish in the Keystone State. That’s been our observation. They call themselves “Evangelical,” which is supposed to mean sticking to the teachings of the Gospel of Christ. Somehow, they twist the word Evangelical into worshiping the mythology of man-made catastrophic global warming. They claim it is “creation care” to aggressively address global warming using anti-capitalist Marxist political ideology, like supporting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), an onerous carbon tax aimed at killing off gas-fired power plants.
We remember (years ago) hearing Rush Limbaugh postulate this observation about liberals: “Liberalism is spreading misery equally.” Instead of cutting taxes, which boosts economic prosperity for everyone, including those at the bottom of the economic ladder, liberals seek to make more people pay more taxes. Spread the misery. Instead of allowing people to choose their form of energy, force them to use only certain (very expensive) forms, or force them to cut back on the energy they use (Jimmy Carter’s “throw a sweater on in the winter” comment in the late 1970s). Spread the misery. We now see this truism playing out with liberal Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro concerning the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) — a clever name for an obscene carbon tax.
The U.S. rig count dropped again last week, for the third week in a row. The count shed another four active rigs, now down to 619 — the lowest point since February 2022. The count in the Marcellus/Utica, after falling by one two weeks ago, held steady last week at 38, which is the lowest it has been since the beginning of this year. The national rig count is down 143, or 19%, below this time last year. There’s no indicator the trend will reverse anytime soon.
Last November MDN told you about a research paper published by Penn State that says the state should look at repurposing old conventional oil and gas wells for use as geothermal energy sources (see 
In the fall of 2021, President Biden signed into law the so-called Infrastructure Bill, some $1.2 trillion in pork barrel spending, passed with the help of turncoat Republicans (see 
Natural gas development is fundamental to the health and strength of Pennsylvania’s economy, supporting well over 100,000 family-sustaining careers, boosting state tax revenues, and generating billions in economic benefits, according to a new economic impact analysis (full copy below) commissioned by the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC). The analysis, released at the kickoff of the 
Did the Democrats running the Pennsylvania Dept. of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) just receive a consolation prize from the Democrats who run the federal Dept. of Energy (DOE)? That’s the question swirling in our heads as we read about the PA DCNR receiving a $1 million grant from the DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) to do some CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration) work. Is the DOE about to bypass PA and award a $1 BILLION grand prize to West Virginia for a hydrogen hub (that includes CCUS), and is this $1 million grant the Biden way of preempting sore feelings in PA by throwing them a bone?
As far back as July 2021, MDN began to cover the issue of geothermal energy, which uses the same technology (drilling rigs, horizontal drilling) to drill holes in the ground to circulate and warm (or cool) water underground as a “green” energy source. Geothermal is an area of interest for Marcellus/Utica shale drillers as a potential new source of revenue (
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 week, the SRBC approved 22 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, eight of which are for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers receiving a green light from SRBC included BKV (Banpu), Coterra Energy, EQT, Inflection Energy, Repsol (2 requests), Seneca Resources, and S.T.L. Resources.
Less than a year ago, the Northeast experienced a major winter storm at Christmastime (Winter Storm Elliott). Do you remember it? On Dec. 23, temps in places like the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania hit 60 degrees! Within 12 hours, the bottom dropped out, with temps plunging into the single digits—a more than 50-degree change. Dec. 24’s high temp in the Lehigh Valley (Allentown) was 13 degrees. The massive temperature change caused problems with power generation by natural gas plants, some of which went offline due to freeze-ups in the pipelines that feed them. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) issued a final report yesterday on Winter Storm Elliott, complete with recommendations for sweeping new regulations to prevent future blackouts from storms like Elliott.