Brooke County, WV Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant Plan Advances
A month ago MDN brought you the big news that the father and son team building a $615 million, 549 megawatt electrical generating plant near Moundsville, WV that will be powered by Marcellus Shale gas are planning to build three more of them–all in West Virginia (see Big News: 3 More Marcellus-Powered Electric Plants Coming to WV). Two of the three new plants will, if built, be located in Brooke County, WV. Last month the Brooke County Commission signed two memorandums of understanding with Energy Solutions Consortium (father and son Andrew and Matthew Dorn) to agree to a plan to let the Dorns build the plants and then sell them to the county, leasing them back to run them–a plan called a PILOT plan, or “payment in lieu of taxes.” The plan allows the Dorns to avoid paying prohibitively high property taxes on the plants while still generating a big, fat payment to the county and local school district. Last week the local board of education and town council also signed on to the plan, an important next step in making the project a reality…
Read More “Brooke County, WV Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant Plan Advances”
Every now and again we revisit the manhunt for that vile villain and fugitive from justice–Fugitive Methane (FM for short). FM loves to escape into the atmosphere where, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, it is “a particularly powerful climate warmer – 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe.” Never mind that the biggest source of FM in the U.S. is cows burping (see 
MDN is taking today, Good Friday, off from the normal story writing routine. We have, however, assembled a list of the top 30 most-read MDN stories over the past 30 days. We thought you might find it useful to see which stories were most appealing to the majority of MDN readers. As you scan the list, did you read these stories? You might spot a story or two you didn’t read that maybe you want to read now–or re-read!
A court case decided earlier this week by New York’s Court of Appeals (NY’s highest court), will, in our opinion, have a profoundly negative effect on oil and gas development in the state, forever. Or until another court case overturns it (which seems very unlikely). The case, as its core, is about the question of whether or not state action or inaction constitutes an extraordinary action, in essence an Act of God outside of the control of parties who sign a contract. Years ago landowners signed leases to allow oil and gas drilling, often for a few bucks and acre, long before Marcellus and fracking were common, household words. Then came delay after delay in New York–from the governor–and eventually a more or less semi-permanent ban on fracking. Energy companies argued that the leases they had signed could be extended until the day they are allowed to drill in the Marcellus because of “force majeure”–the concept that due to circumstances beyond our control we could not drill as we intended during the original term of the lease, usually five years. The NY Court of Appeals on Tuesday decided that the state preventing drilling does not qualify as force majeure after the original five-year period of a lease (full copy of the decision below). If the original lease was extended for some reason and then the driller was prevented from drilling during the extended time due to state laws preventing it, it’s not force majeure in the eyes of the “wise” justices in Albany…