Anti-Pipeliners Meet with PA DEP Sec. McDonnell, Get No Satisfaction
Acting Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) Secretary Patrick McDonnell held a “hastily arranged” meeting on Monday with several antis who are opposed to Sunoco Logistics Partners’ Mariner East 2 pipeline project. You may recall these same antis predicted the DEP would grant the final permits needed for Mariner East 2 last Friday (see Mariner East 2 Permits May Come Today – Antis Foment Civil Unrest). But as they so often are, they were wrong yet again. The permits did not appear on the appointed day. However, the permits are expected soon, and no doubt McDonnell held the meeting to help prepare them for that eventuality. (Snowflake antis have delicate sensibilities, dontcha know.) The meeting went on for some 70 minutes. The antis tried to get the DEP to further delay the project with another useless public comment period. The DEP has already received over 29,000 public comments–what’s left to be said? At the end of the meeting, the antis got (our words, their sentiment)–“no satisfaction”…
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Anti-fossil fuel protesters (some of them paid) will go on a camp-out in Amish country (Lancaster County, PA) beginning this Friday to protest the imminent start of construction for the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline project. The same group built themselves a magic tree house along the planned route of the pipeline (see 
In December the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) unveiled new regulations to clamp down on methane emissions and other other air pollution that allegedly comes from shale drilling sites (see 
The Baker Hughes rig count continued its rocket ride in January. The international rig count (worldwide) was 933, up 4 from the 929 counted in December. However, in the U.S., the January rig count was 683, up a huge 49 rigs from the 634 in December. The Marcellus/Utica displayed equally good news. The combined rig counts for PA-OH-WV was 61, up by 3 rigs from December’s 58. Both PA and OH gained 2 rigs while WV lost 1 rig in January. Here’s the full set of numbers (and a pretty chart)…
In 2014 MDN reported that MAX Environmental, operator of the Bulger hazardous waste landfill in Smith Township (Washington County), PA since 1958, planned to expand the landfill by 21 acres in order to handle an increase of drill cuttings and even liquid waste (which they will turn to solid waste) coming from Marcellus Shale drilling (see 
If you have an interest in the Shell (and PTT, and Braskem and other) ethane cracker plants–listen up. There is a conference coming in Pittsburgh in June you may want to consider attending. 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Group files lawsuit against Virginia compressor station; Univ of Cincinnati groundwater fracking study still not published, a year later; pipeline brings jobs to Tyler County, WV; New England will need more gas for power; US Army gives Dakota Access Pipeline green light; Seattle, WA cuts ties with Wells Fargo Bank over pipeline funding; EPA employees protest Trump’s pick to run the agency; and more!
Marathon Petroleum subsidiary MarkWest Energy and Antero Resources’ midstream subsidiary Antero Midstream have announced a 50/50 joint venture focused on gathering and processing natural gas and natural gas liquids in northern West Virginia (Tyler, Wetzel and Richie counties). Antero Midstream will contribute its gathering operations for 195,000 acres in WV, boosting MarkWest’s total WV Marcellus gathering operation to a huge 360,000 acres. In addition, the JV will add three new processing plants to MarkWest’s Sherwood Complex in Doddridge County, WV. And get this: the JV contemplates building another eight (!) processing plants at Sherwood and a new/second location. Antero expects to invest “up to $800 million” through 2020, and has already made an initial $155 million investment. We think it’s no coincidence that on the same day Antero Midstream announced the deal (yesterday), they also announced a new round of units (i.e. shares of stock) they hope to pedal to raise $198 million. Here’s the details on the JV deal between Antero and MarkWest…
In January 2016, Invenergy announced their intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County (see 
When reporting on the flurry of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approvals from last Friday, before Commissioner Norman Bay resigned in a huff over losing the chairmanship of the agency (and leaving the Commission with only two Commissioners, not enough to vote on more projects), we noticed there was one major Marcellus/Utica pipeline project that didn’t receive a final approval: the NEXUS Pipeline project. NEXUS is a $2 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that will run from Ohio through Michigan and eventually to the Dawn Hub in Ontario, Canada. It is a critically needed pipeline to move Utica and Marcellus Shale gas from an over-saturated market in the northeast to markets in the Midwest and Canada. It is a joint venture between DTE Energy and Spectra Energy. In December FERC issued a positive final Environmental Impact Statement (see 
A bright and enterprising graduate student at Penn State University cooked up an interesting research project for her graduate thesis. With all this talk about “fracked gas” having boatloads of radon in it, would using such radon-laden gas as the source fuel for a gas-fired electric plant pose a risk to those who live near it? In particular, could the gas-fired plants on Penn State’s own campus be posing a danger to students, faculty and staff that live and work on campus? Alison Stidworthy, a former graduate student in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State (and now employed as a site manager for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection), led the research effort, which was the topic of her master’s degree thesis (copy below). What did Alison find? High levels of radon do not leak from the plants and pose no health issues to those living and working nearby. Which makes perfect sense. How do you get rid of radon in your basement when it’s present? You vent it to the outside, where it quickly dissipates and becomes inert. Alison, along with several of her professors, recently published her work as a study in the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association...
Midstream and utility giant Dominion has ~26,400 megawatts of power generation, 14,600 miles of natural gas transmission/gathering/storage pipelines, and some 6,600 miles of electric-transmission lines. They are “a producer and transporter of energy.” Dominion, whose official name (on paper) is Dominion Resources, Inc., has decided to change its name. The new name will be Dominion Energy, Inc. Why? “In recognition of its focus on the evolving energy marketplace and to unify its brand following last year’s merger with Questar Corporation.” In addition to a new name comes (of course) a new logo…
We’ve caught a fair bit of criticism (kind, but firm criticism) from MDN subscribers about our views that global warming (a) doesn’t exist, and (b) if it does exist to any small degree, it’s certainly not something being caused by mankind and not something we can influence, even if we tried. Believing such things marks us as being radical, fringe, kooks, for many. Perhaps you’ll now reconsider. You might think if someone inside the epicenter of global warming science–the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) were to announce to the world he has evidence that other scientists at the agency had faked data to support the theory of man-made global warming, it would be the lead article in every newspaper and the lead story on every newscast. Such a thing has just happened–a whistle-blower has stepped forward. Unfortunately our country is plagued with fake/manufactured news–CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, ABC/NBC/CBS, etc. Not a single so-called mainstream news source has or will run the story that Dr. John Bates, the recently retired principal scientist at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, has admitted that others in the agency rushed the numbers and published unverified data in what is known as the Karl study, which was used “to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.” The Karl study was released to influence world leaders ahead of the Paris Climate Agreement last year. Once again, scientists with a left-leaning political agenda have been caught, red-handed, faking the numbers–and our media is SILENT…
Did you watch the Superbowl on Sunday? What’s that? You didn’t?! Admission: We did not watch. We decided to “take a knee” this year and skip the Superbowl. You know, take a knee–like loser Colin Kaepernick, backup quarterback for the San Franciso 49ers. Every time he plays in a game he kneels when the National Anthem is played–in an act of obscene disrespect for our country. The NFL needs to get its house in order and we won’t watch until it takes care of papered jerks like Kaepernick. At any rate, we’re guessing a great many MDN readers did, in fact, watch (we won’t hold it against you). If you watched, you may have seen a 30-second commercial from the American Petroleum Institute called Power Past Impossible–an effort to highlight how natural gas and oil provide enormous value to Americans’ everyday lives. If you didn’t see it, or want to watch it again, we have it below…
You know those sleazebag companies that sell their products to two opposing sides in a war–just to make a buck? Here’s a new twist on it. How about a sleazebag with a lot of money to invest who funds anti-fossil fuel groups (by paying protesters to destabilize our country), and at the same time invests money in the very fossil fuel companies whose projects the protesters are protesting? Such a loathsome creature has a name: George Soros…