New England Electric Grid Operator IDs Fatal Flaw in Renewables
The Independent System Operator-New England (ISO-NE) is warning “blue states” in the northeast (states controlled by Democrats with an iron fist) that their strategy of pushing 100% renewables and eliminating fossil fuel energy has a fatal flaw. At the federal and state levels, elected Democrats are pushing hard to phase out fossil fuel-fired power infrastructure and replace it with sources of so-called “green” energy like wind and solar. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont — the states that are served by ISO-NE — all have green energy mandates. And they are all in imminent danger of blackouts.
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OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Enstor seeks to double capacity of Miss. Hub natgas storage; Debate over natural gas bill heating up in Albany; NATIONAL: Specialist buyout firms cash in on shale consolidation; Manchin says lawmakers close to a permitting reform deal; M&A activity furthers consolidation of U.S. oil and natgas firms; U.S. propane exports grow faster than production.
The latest monthly U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) Drilling Productivity Report (DPR) for March, issued yesterday (below), shows EIA believes shale gas production across the seven major plays tracked in the monthly DPR for April will decrease production from the prior month of March. This is the ninth month in a row that EIA has predicted shale gas production will decrease for the combined seven plays. However, it won’t decrease everywhere. Gas-focused plays like the Marcellus/Utica and the Haynesville will see the biggest drop in production. In contrast, the oily Permian play will boost the production of “associated” natural gas — the gas that comes out of the ground along with oil. The Permian is also boosting oil production in April.
For years, we have watched natural gas production in oil-focused plays like the Permian (in Texas and New Mexico) steadily rise. It was an annoyance, a curiosity, mostly an afterthought because production in the Marcellus/Utica, where we concentrate our attention, was also rising and quite dominant. But the M-U hit a plateau in December 2019 and in January 2020 began a long-term trend of staying about even (see 
In an embarrassing act of ignorance, seven Virginia state delegates and two state senators (all of them Democrats) who represent the greater Richmond, VA area signed a statement last Wednesday opposing Dominion Energy’s plan to build four small “peaker” electric generating plants in Chesterfield County, VA, a Richmond suburb (see 
In February, MDN brought you the news that utility giant Duke Energy plans to build a gigantic natural gas-fired power plant next to another planned gas-fired plant at the existing coal-fired Roxboro Plant on Hyco Lake, in Person County, NC (see 
The highly functional and responsible Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC), unlike its completely dysfunctional and irresponsible cousin, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), continues to support the shale energy industry by approving water withdrawals for responsible and safe shale drilling. Last Thursday, the SRBC approved 23 new water withdrawal requests within the basin, eight of them for water used in drilling and fracking shale wells in Pennsylvania. The Marcellus/Utica shale drillers receiving a green light from SRBC included Beech Resources, Chesapeake Energy, Greylock Energy, Seneca Resources, and Southwestern Energy.
Some fairly big news broke last week just as MDN editor Jim Willis was taking a two-day break. So let’s get caught up. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program. Same end result: It would kill Marcellus-fired power plants in the state, driving them to close and relocate to West Virginia and Ohio, states that don’t engage in the lunacy of taxing carbon emissions from power plants.
This one is too funny. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a leftist liberal Democrat and the chosen candidate of the environmental left, appeared at a Philadelphia union hall for a speech last week to tout a hydrogen hub that is supposedly coming to the area, called the Mid-Atlantic Clean Hydrogen Hub (MACH2). The MACH2 project is actually centered in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware but will give a few economic table scraps to the Philly area, which excites and titillates PA politicians. Early in Shapiro’s “ain’t hydrogen just great” speech, Maya van Rossum, THE Delaware Riverkeeper (that’s what she calls herself), got up and began to shout down Shapiro. That’s right! The guy SHE voted for and helped elect! You see, Miss Maya (hereinafter to be called Mouthy Maya) doesn’t like hydrogen hubs, even “clean” hubs like the MACH2 project.
A three-judge panel from the federal D.C. Circuit spent two hours on Friday hearing arguments for and against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) approval of Williams’ Regional Energy Access Expansion (REAE) project. REAE is an expansion of the mighty Transco pipeline in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to deliver an extra 829 MMcf/d of Marcellus gas to PA, NJ, and Maryland. Part of the project was done and went online last year (see 
In April 2022, MDN reported that the top brass at Kinder Morgan, the owner and operator of the Elba Island LNG export facility (also known as Southern LNG), was considering an expansion of its modestly-sized facility (see 
CNX Resources was slapped with a “notice of violation” (NOV) by the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) for withdrawing over 1.8 million gallons of water in Washington County, PA (for use in shale gas fracking) without first seeking the proper “Mother, May I?” approvals. The withdrawals happened over a 22-day period in the summer of 2023. Yes, it takes the DEP a looooong time to respond to so-called violations. When CNX realized it didn’t have express permission to withdraw the water, the company immediately reported the situation and corrected it. Still, DEP wants a new plan to prevent it from happening again. The plan is due today.
There were 19 new permits issued to drill in the Marcellus/Utica during the week of Mar. 4 – 10, up 2 from 17 permits issued the prior week. Pennsylvania issued 11 new permits. Ohio issued 5 new permits. And West Virginia issued 3 new permits. Range Resources and Ascent Resources tied for most new permits with 5 each. Range received 5 permits to drill in two PA counties: Lycoming and Washington. Ascent received 5 permits to drill in Belmont County, OH. Chesapeake Energy got 3 permits to drill in Bradford County, PA, and Seneca Resource also received 3 permits for Tioga County, PA. Southwestern Energy scored 2 permits for Ohio County, WV, and CNX Resources received a single permit for Marshall County, WV.