PA DEP Sec. Believes in Global Warming (Amidst Record-Cold Days)
By all accounts Pennsylvania’s Acting Secretary of the Dept. of Environmental Protection, Pat McDonnell, is doing a reasonably good job (see Gov. Wolf Nominates Pat McDonnell to Head PA DEP, Finally). He’s certainly much less confrontational than his predecessor (see Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). However, McDonnell professes to believe in man-made global warming. He recently said that addressing “climate change” remains a “top priority” for the Gov. Wolf administration. Whatever. What’s somewhat disturbing is that PA intends to go well beyond federal guidelines when it comes to restricting “carbon-causing” activity in the state. However, what we find amusing is that as McDonnell mouthed his words about global warming, we are in one of the coldest of cold snaps to hit the northeast in several years. Way below the average temp for this time of year. Ah, Mr. Secretary, tell us again how human activity is causing Mom Earth to toast…
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We’ve seen signs of increased drilling in the Marcellus/Utica. Just look at the Baker Hughes rig counts month by month. Ever so gradually, the number of rigs operating in our region is creeping back up. The smart analysts at 
Natural gas and wind are the lowest-cost technology options for new electricity generation across much of the U.S. when cost, public health impacts and environmental effects are considered. So says a new research paper released by The University of Texas at Austin. Researchers assessed multiple generation technologies including coal, natural gas, solar, wind and nuclear. Their findings, as depicted in a series of maps illustrating the cost of each generation technology on a county-by-county basis throughout the U.S., are featured in a new white paper titled “New U.S. Power Costs: by County, with Environmental Externalities” (full copy below). What’s interesting to us is who helped fund the research. Two organizations helping pay the bill were the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and the Environmental Defense Fund. That is, those with a bias against fossil fuels. We wonder if they’ll ask for their grant money back? Here’s a summary of the research, followed by the full report…
You hear a lot about wind these days, not so much about solar, as an alternative to nasty fossil fuels like natural gas. But is wind really “all that?” We spotted an Associated Press story bragging about “the nation’s first offshore wind farm” opening off the coast of Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind built five turbines producing 30 megawatts of electricity (enough electricity to power 17,000 homes) 3 miles off Block Island–at a cost of $300 million. That’s about $10 million per megawatt to construct the facility. Let’s compare that to building a natural gas-fired electric plant. Natgas plants cost about $1 million per megawatt (10x less). This past year the very first built-from-scratch natgas plant built to use Marcellus Shale gas, called Panda Liberty, went live (see 
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: Trump cheered in PA ‘thank you’ tour; supply chain co switches from coal to gas; estimating the econ benefits of the shale revolution; moving Midwest motor fuels East; exporting more LNG in the national interest; soil bacteria loves to eat methane; Chesapeake drills deeper for profit; and more!
The Potter Township Board of Supervisors convened a public hearing on Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm that ended up going until 1 am Wednesday. The intent was to approve Shell’s request for permits to begin construction on the multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant. That didn’t happen. Instead, the supervisors decided to hold another hearing Wednesday night. They did, and that hearing went for over an hour, in closed-door session. At the conclusion, the supervisors made a couple of requests from Shell, which Shell agreed to. However, the supervisors are still not ready to approve the permits and instead asked for more paperwork to be filed–by both Shell and the radical, anti-fossil fuel Big Green group Clean Air Council (from Philadelphia). It seems the antis are attempting to stop this project cold–which should have the good citizens of Beaver County (indeed the entire northeast) outraged. At any rate, we’re sure the permits will be forthcoming–but now it won’t happen until sometime in January…
Stone Energy, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (E&P) headquartered in Lafayette, Louisiana drills mainly in the Gulf of Mexico but also has (or rather had) a presence in the Marcellus/Utica Shale with 90,000 acres of leases. In October Stone announced (a) it is selling its Marcellus/Utica assets to Tug Hill for $350 million, and (b) the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy (see 
Keane Group is a Texas-based oilfield services company that provides fracking, wireline and top-hole air drilling services to oil and gas companies in the Marcellus/Utica as well as several other major basins. In January, Keane announced they were buying out Canadian-based Trican Well Service for $247 million (see 
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection is using an unspecified amount of grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy to fund a Penn State pilot project that combines a natural gas-fired electric plant with solar cell and battery energy storage systems in a hybrid system to power several office buildings, a sewage pump station and several Penn State training center facilities. The hope is to prove developing “microgrids” like this one can lead to a “low-carbon footprint.” Hey, at least they wised up and are using Marcellus natural gas (a hated fossil fuel) as part of their “low carbon” research. Here’s the details on the latest big money project, using taxpayer dollars, under way at Penn State…
Gulfport Energy is an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company (“driller”) with its main operations in the Utica Shale of eastern Ohio and along the Louisiana Gulf Coast. Gulfport is considered one of the Top 5 Utica drillers (see 
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), yesterday released their annual report of proved oil and natural gas reserves in the United States for 2015. The report, titled “U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Proved Reserves, Year-end 2015” (full copy embedded below) shows proved reserves for natural gas dropped by 64.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf), or 16.6%. U.S. crude oil and lease condensate proved reserves also decreased–from 39.9 billion barrels to 35.2 billion barrels (down 11.8%). The drop in proved reserves for gas and oil comes after last year’s record high proved reserves (see 
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