NatGas Kept Lights & AC On During New England Summer Heat Wave
New England’s power grid would have gone offline this summer without natural gas. Electricity generation using fossil fuels increased in New England to meet the additional air-conditioning demand during heat waves in June and July. Natural gas-fired electricity generation made up 56% of New England’s generation mix during the week of the June 16 heat wave, peaking at 61% on June 22. Between July 6 and 13, natural gas-fired electricity averaged 58% of the generation mix. Solar and wind (aka renewables) made up a tiny fraction of New England’s power generation mix.
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PJM Interconnection is the largest U.S. power grid operator, serving 65 million people in 13 states plus the District of Columbia (including PA, OH, and WV). PJM supplies power to more than 20% of the U.S. economy. Most of the states in PJM are not energy self-sufficient. They don’t produce enough electricity to meet their own demand. Pennsylvania is the exception and has become THE main producer in the PJM region, exporting electricity to its neighbors. However, according to a chilling new report by Pittsburgh Works Together (PWT), PA Gov. Josh Shapiro’s electricity proposals will destabilize the PJM grid and potentially cause massive blackouts. 
EPA Administrator Michael Regan used a considerable amount of fossil energy and emitted tons of carbon dioxide to jet over to Dubai last December to participate in the COP28 confab, where he released a final rule that was “two years in the making” to force the U.S. oil and gas industry to cut methane emissions by using budget-busting new technologies and onerous (frequent) inspections (see 
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: PA Sen. Bob Casey dodges question about Harris’ fracking flip-flop; NATIONAL: U.S. natural gas futures extend losing streak; New methane conversion innovation could be huge for shale; Exxon Mobil’s winning strategy – staying true to oil; What energy transition?; INTERNATIONAL: Big banks in Canada lag in renewables investments, says “watchdog”; Natural gas bans hit a legal shut-off valve; Central Europe left fretting over 15bcm of piped Russian gas via Ukraine. 
MDN has an exclusive update on a lawsuit by several West Virginia surface landowners who are suing Diversified Energy over Diversified’s failure to plug their unproducing conventional wells. At the prompting of the Sierra Club, the landowners attempted to turn the lawsuit into a class action. Yesterday, a federal judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of WV struck down the class action request, meaning a couple of surface owners from the original lawsuit can proceed with their lawsuit. The outcome won’t affect anyone else. However, a second related case and a second request for a class action are still alive.
We spotted an article on the always-excellent NGI website (the 
Dominion Energy wants to build a liquified natural gas (LNG) storage facility in Person County, North Carolina, to enhance natural gas service reliability for residential and business customers in the growing region (see 
The United States has 13 courts of appeals, also known as U.S. Courts of Appeals, that sit below the U.S. Supreme Court. These courts are organized into 12 regional circuits, each with a court of appeals, that cover the 94 federal judicial districts. One of the 13 courts — for the District of Columbia — has jurisdiction over cases involving federal agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The judges of the D.C. Circuit have recently delivered a flurry of decisions that appear contradictory concerning (overturning) FERC actions.
ExxonMobil published its annual “The Global Outlook” yesterday, the company’s latest view of energy demand and supply through 2050. The document forms the basis for Exxon’s business planning and is “underpinned by a deep understanding of long-term market fundamentals.” Exxon is making short-term decisions based on this long-term document. And what does this document say? It says oil and natural gas in 2023 was 56% of all energy produced. In 2050, some 25 years from now, that number is virtually unchanged at 54% of all energy produced. Today, more than 100 million barrels per day (MMBpd) of oil is produced and used. In 2050, it will be the same.
On Monday, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, announced an agreement with a start-up called Sage Geosystems to develop up to 150 megawatts of an advanced type of geothermal energy to help power the tech giant’s expanding array of data centers. That is roughly enough electricity to power 70,000 homes. Sage will use (wait for it…) fracking. That’s right. Geothermal, as we’ve written about before, uses the same fracking that oil and gas drillers use in order to drill holes and create underground fractures where water is pumped and circulated, either heating or cooling, depending on the season (see 
We spotted a press release about a “wealthy Haitian-American businessman” buying “a vast 10,000-acre oil reserve in Bowling Green Kentucky.” What caught our eye was the location and the extra detail that the assets purchased included “150 oil and natural gas wells.” A few bells began to go off for us. Kentucky is not known as a hotbed of shale drilling activity. The Marcellus/Utica does not extend under the Bluegrass State. However, as we wrote back in 2017, Kentucky has the Berea Sandstone, which contains oil deposits (see 
The Fairmont Brine Processing plant, located at 168 AFR Drive in Fairmont (Marion County), West Virginia, was constructed between 2009 and 2010 by AOP Clearwater LLC. The plant was acquired by Fairmont Brine Processing (FBP) in 2012. FBP began pre-treatment operations at the site in 2013 and fully operated the plant beginning fall of 2014. In May 2017, MDN reported that FBP was not paying some of its vendors (see