FERC Grants Atlantic Bridge Pipe OK to Begin CT Construction
In January the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) gave its final stamp of approval for Spectra Energy’s Atlantic Bridge project (see FERC Approves Atlantic Bridge Project for New England/Canada). Atlantic Bridge will beef up capacity on the Algonquin Gas Transmission and Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline systems–to move more Marcellus/Utica gas to New England and Canada. Even though FERC has “approved” Atlantic Bridge, Spectra Energy must still ask for “Mother May I?” permission to begin construction on specific, individual portions of the project. “Mother FERC, may I begin the bulldozers in Danbury, CT at the Danbury meter station?” And, “Mother FERC, may I begin construction at the Mill Plain Road Contractor Yard?” You get the picture. Spectra asked permission to begin construction at a variety of projects in Connecticut on March 14th (see Anti-Pipeline Jihadists Pressure FERC re Atlantic Bridge Project). Earlier this week FERC granted Spectra Energy permission to begin construction on all of their requests from the 14th…
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In March 2015, Williams announced that its Transco pipeline subsidiary had filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for its Dalton Expansion Project, which will expand the Transco and flow more Marcellus Shale gas from New Jersey all the way to Mississippi, primarily for electric generation plants, but also for local natural gas distribution by utilities (see 
Those who oppose fossil fuels try various arguments to convince the general public that extracting oil and gas is bad for the environment. They claim (without facts or proof) that drilling pollutes the water, it pollutes the air, it does permanent damage to the environment. When faced with lack of evidence, antis slip-slide into other arguments against drilling and pipelines. An undeniable benefit from the shale industry is jobs. That includes jobs building pipelines. You need an army of bulldozers, backhoes, truckers, welders and construction workers to lay a pipeline (see today’s lead story and the awesome video of the Rover Pipeline getting built in Richland County). Antis say, “But jobs building pipelines and power plants and processing plants are temporary. They’re illusory. No long-term benefit.” We’ll never forget the powerful statement given at a hearing about the proposed Constitution Pipeline from Francis Cooney, a 28-year member of the plumber and pipe-fitters union. He said this in response to the “those jobs are temporary” meme offered by antis that evening: “For 28 years every job I’ve had has been a temporary job! My temporary jobs have put two kids through Syracuse University” (see 
The nation’s electric grid is a complex system. You don’t ever think twice about–you flip a switch and the electricity flows, powering lights, appliances, etc. But ensuring the power is always there, always on when you need it, keeps a lot of people awake at night. The U.S. “grid” is actually a bunch of smaller grids. In the northeast there are several such organizations. One of them is called the PJM, a regional transmission organization (RTO) coordinating the movement of wholesale electricity in all or parts of 13 states and the District of Columbia (including PA, OH and WV). PJM, like other RTOs, faces challenges with ensuring there will always be enough electricity produced to meet demand. Over the past several years coal-fired electric generating plants have been closing. Natural gas, and in a much smaller sense renewables (wind and solar) have taken up the slack. Wind and solar are notoriously unreliable. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Natural gas needs pipelines to get where it’s going. There has been a concern that with coal disappearing from the generation mix, that an “over-reliance” on natgas and renewables will make electricity supplies problematic and unreliable. In an effort to address questions of reliability, PJM just completed and published a 44-page study titled, “PJM’s Evolving Resource Mix and System Reliability” (full copy below). What does the study find? Even with fewer coal plants producing electricity, PJM’s electric supplies, using more and more natgas and renewables, will be just fine…
We don’t use the word “jihadist” lightly or flippantly. A jihad is, according to Websters, “a crusade for a principle or belief.” Most of the time the media uses the term in reference to radical Muslims who perpetrate acts of terror and crime in a holy war to convert the world to Islam. We think there’s a close parallel to some (not all) extreme environmentalists. It is irrefutable that many in the environmental movement view their cause as a kind of holy war–against those they believe are harming Mom Earth. Against those who don’t or won’t “convert” to their philosophy on how best to protect the environment (i.e. dump the use of fossil fuels). Some of these extremists tip over into criminal and even terrorist activities. We saw it in the protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) project in North Dakota, when so-called protesters vandalized millions of dollars of equipment, set tires on fire, illegally blocked roads, and (one) even shot at police officers (see 
We found this story kind of funny. Apparently the word has gone out at the Trump Dept. of Energy that staffers, when preparing reports for the public, should avoid using the phrase “climate change.” Which is an asinine phrase, let’s admit it. By definition the climate changes. It changes every day and has since there’s been a climate. Anti fossil fuel zealots have tried to co-opt the phrase to mean “man-made global warming.” Because Mom Earth isn’t actually warming, it’s kind of hard to keep calling it “global warming.” So they invented the euphemism “climate change” instead. Team Trump has had enough of that kind of verbal dissembling. No more. Say what you mean and mean what you say. And so the egghead prima donnas who think they’re SO much smarter than everyone else are in full, fake outrage mode. They’re making fun of the adults in the room who have told them to straighten up and quit acting like petulant children…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Lawmaker wonders about impact of court ruling on strippers; Rostraver Twp (Westmoreland County) drafts Marcellus ordinance; manufacturers share game plan for SWPA at shale summit; Maine PUC rejects all LNG storage proposals; supply/demand scenarios for natgas injection season; President Trump’s exec order about more than just coal; don’t DIvest, INvest in fossil-fuel America; House votes to limit EPA to use real science; Mad Vlad Putin says Russia will become world’s top LNG producer; and more!
In 2014 MDN brought you the interesting story of strippers in the Marcellus–stripper wells, that is (see 
Earlier this week MDN reported that West Virginia Senate Bill (SB) 576, which addresses the issues of co-tenancy and joint development, was a freight train on a fast track to approval (see 
Last week the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) auctioned off a second round of properties located in Wayne National Forest (WNF), in Ohio (see 
Oilfield services company (OFS) Mammoth Energy Services, headquartered in Oklahoma City, OK, operates in both the Utica Shale and Permian Basin. Last week MDN reported that Mammoth, a new company formed in 2014 (but growing rapidly), had bought itself a sand mine/processing plant (Taylor Frac) in an effort to keep Mammoth’s fracking crews stocked with frack sand (see 
The same old (very small) cast of environmental radicals is claiming victory in Maryland over the recently passed bill to ban fracking statewide–a bill that now sits on traitor Gov. Larry Hogan’s desk (he’s promised to sign it). Radicals from the Chesapeake Climate Action Network (and Food & Water Watch, and the Sierra Club, et al), who are waging a holy war against fossil fuels, say this momentous occasion is evidence of new “bipartisan” support sweeping the nation–that Maryland’s vote has “national implications.” It’s nothing of the sort. Anti-fossil fuel nutters are still by and large Democrats (and Socialists) and confined to a few far-left states (Maryland, New York, Vermont). Larry Hogan is an anomaly–a Republican who ran on a platform of support for fracking who suddenly, without warning and for inexplicable reasons, flipped and promised to sign a ban bill should one be proffered. We wonder, who paid who? There is corruption at work in this situation, of that we have no doubt. All of the so-called “leaders” of the ban frack movement in the Maryland legislature come from either the Washington, D.C. suburbs, or the Baltimore area. They are located on the opposite side of the state from where fracking would, theoretically, take place. These enviro radicals have hijacked the property rights of landowners in Allegany County and Garrett County, the only two Maryland counties with commercially viable shale deposits that could be fracked. It will be a sad day when Hogan turns his back on the people of Maryland and signs the law…
As MDN reported, last week U.S. District Judge Robert Mariani ruled against a Wayne County landowner in a lawsuit that challenged the right of the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to stop fracking in the Delaware River Basin (see 
For years anti-fossil fuel agitators have been making noise about so-called fugitive methane. According to antis, methane (CH4) is a zillion times more “potent” than carbon dioxide (CO2) in making Mom Earth toast (i.e. global warming, which isn’t happening). If only we could capture every last molecule of methane so it couldn’t escape, life would be better, according to antis. We’ve written countless stories dealing with fugitive methane, because both the federal and state governments try to regulate it from time to time (see