PA Radical Enviros Blame Democrat Senator for Quigley Firing
Jan Jarrett, former head of the radical Big Green group PennFuture and one of the people disgraced and fired John Quigley, former Secretary of the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), colludes with to target Democrats who deign to disagree with his radical policies, is (surprise!) attacking Democrats who disagree with Quigley’s radical policies. Jarrett is accusing Democrat Sen. John Yudichak from Luzerne County, PA of “orchestrating…a vicious, successful smear campaign” against her “dear friend” John Quigley. What utter crap. Quigley and Jarrett are the ones who targeted people with a smear campaign. Quigley told Jarrett’s former employer PennFuture (and other Big Green groups) to get off their rear-ends (dropping the “f” bomb) and to do something about so-called “apostates” in the Democrat Party who are not supporting his wild and radical regulatory proposals (read the email here – Smoking Gun: Copy of the Email that Got John Quigley Fired). No doubt Sen. Yudichak had something to do with exposing the email sent by Quigley–FROM A PRIVATE ACCOUNT which is unethical in the extreme, perhaps illegal–to the light of day for all to see. But for Jarrett and others to blame Yudichak and target him for helping to expose Quigley’s unethical behavior is like a criminal blaming the victim for telling the truth about what happened…
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As MDN has previously pointed out, even during the downturn in the oil and gas market, there is at least one sub-sector that’s expanding: wastewater. Long after a well is drilled and fracked, once it begins producing, that well will continue to produce not only natural gas and/or oil and other hydrocarbons–it will also produce water from the depths. We’re not talking about groundwater or aquifers that sit several hundred feet down. Those water sources are well-protected by well casing. There is also abundant supplies of mineral-laden water deep in the earth that comes out of the borehole for years after a well is drilled. When drillers were sinking holes as fast as they could–and fracking them–that salty/minerally water from the depths (often called brine or saltwater) would be recycled and used for more drilling. But when there’s little or no drilling–what do you do with all that brine/wastewater? You still have to get rid of it. So the wastewater hauling/recycling/disposal industry is actually expanding. BlueJack Energy Solutions is one such new company, begun to service several shale plays including the Marcellus/Utica. Yesterday BlueJack announced it has received $100 million in investment capital from Energy Spectrum Partners–to help get the company launched quickly and into a full gallop…
In April MDN brought you the news that Mountaineer NGL Storage launched a non-binding open season for drillers who want to reserve storage capacity in a new underground storage facility to be built in Monroe County, Ohio, near Clarington, along the Ohio River (see 
Last week MDN told you that the board at EXCO Resources, a company in financial trouble, is considering “restructuring”–coded language for bankruptcy (see 
Each year the Ben Franklin Shale Gas Innovation and Commercialization Center (SGICC) hosts an annual Shale Gas Innovation Contest. Last week the SGICC hosted their fifth annual contest and announced four winners that split an $80,000 prize purse. The four winners this year include: Aridea Solutions, valve manufacturer; Compass Natural Gas, a CNG (compressed natural gas) station supplier; Epiphany Water Solutions, a wastewater recycler; and someone we personally know and like a great deal–Donny Beaver with HalenHardy, who won for yet another superb product (from an ingenious and serial entrepreneur). Donny’s new product is called SPILLTRATION™–a product engineered to absorb and contain oil-based leaks and spills while allowing clean water to be filter through. Read on for a description of the products/services that won. A huge congrats to our friend Donny!…
In December MDN called attention to a newly published study by researchers at Dartmouth College (see 
You know what magical thinking is? It’s when an analyst/consultant repeatedly predicted that the world had reached “peak oil” production and that oil production was/will soon decline, leading to insanely high prices for oil. Then the shale revolution happened. Oops. So much for the discredited “peak oil” theory. But the same analyst, for a long time, kept repeating his discredited theory. We call that magical thinking. That same analyst then predicted “peak natural gas”–that the shale revolution was a bubble and would soon end because shale wells peter out so quickly, dontcha know. The analyst never factored new technology, and new shale layers, would be discovered. Oops. More magical thinking. Now that same analyst says cheap shale gas will end soon–the price is about to go insanely high. Yet more magical thinking…
The “best of the rest” – stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: NED really is dead – KM pulls the plug; 2016 northeast natgas trends; hypocrisy of OH fractivists calling for another public hearing; the Hulk goes after Tom Wolf; KM’s canceled pipeline is bad news for Vermont economy; the madness of fighting global warming; and more!
In the end, it was John Quigley’s own hubris that resulted in his demise as Secretary of the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection. As we reported yesterday, last Friday Sec. Quigley suddenly resigned his position (see 
The United States remained the world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons in 2015, according to our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). U.S. petroleum and natural gas production first surpassed Russia in 2012. The U.S. has been the world’s top producer of natural gas since 2011 and the world’s top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013. We’re not only the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, we’re the Saudi Arabia of oil too! We love gloating about the fact that we’re #1 in the world! Energy = freedom. Fossil fuels = energy. Therefore, fossil fuels = freedom. If there’s a single word that still (for now) describes the good old U.S. of A.–it’s freedom. Tell the anti-American, anti-drillers to put that in their bongs and smoke it! Here’s the great news from EIA that we’re still the one…
Forget about a cracker plant in West Virginia. Well, not really–just put it on the back burner for the moment. A researcher from West Virginia University says what the Mountain State and indeed all of Appalachia really needs is ethane storage. Specifically, an ethane storage hub. According to Brian Anderson, director of West Virginia University’s Energy Institute, without ethane storage (and pipelines) the Marcellus/Utica region risks seeing its abundant ethane leave the area, mostly heading to the Gulf Coast. Why is that bad? Because if we can keep ethane in the area, we will attract manufacturers to the region who want to use the results of that ethane–ethylene, the raw material in plastics. Our region can realize a bonanza in manufacturing jobs and investments–if we can store and use the ethane here, at home…
