Bidenistas to Announce Hydrogen Hub Hunger Games Winners on Friday
“May the odds be ever in your favor.” – Hunger Games. For nearly two years, we have covered the topic of the Bidenistas’ Hunger Games contest to award $7 billion to some 6-10 “hydrogen hubs” across the country. Each winning hub will receive $500 million to $1 billion of government largesse to help build a hub in a given region. The money for the hub projects was allocated as part of the so-called Infrastructure Bill, passed in November 2021 (see Biden So-Called $1.2T Infrastructure Bill Passes Thanks to RINOs). Some 79 “concept papers,” which is a pre-application, were received by the Dept. of Energy. Of the 79, only 33 were given “encouragement” (i.e., permission) by the DOE to advance to the next stage of the Hydrogen Hunger Games (see 33 of 79 Hydrogen Hub Teams Encouraged to Submit Full Applications). According to super secret sources whispering to Reuters, the Bidenistas will announce the winners this Friday.
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Investors are voting with their money that unreliable renewables are not worth it. Investors dumped renewable energy funds from July through September at the fastest rate on record. Renewable shares “took a beating” from higher interest rates and soaring material costs, which are squeezing profit margins. In the six months from January through June, investors poured $3.36 billion into renewable shares. Investors took $1.4 billion (nearly half) out of renewables in the three months from July through September. That is the biggest-ever quarterly outflow. Investors are dropping renewables like a hot potato.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Natural gas prices will decrease in W.Va. for 2023-24; NATIONAL: Electric vehicles all queued up with nowhere to go; U.S. crude oil exports reached a record high in first half of 2023; Exxon to buy shale rival Pioneer for $59.5 billion in stock; INTERNATIONAL: Spot LNG prices languish ahead of seasonal demand uptick; OPEC will have a pavilion at COP climate summit for first time; Israel-Hamas conflict directly impacts oil and gas prices.
The U.S. rig count dropped again last week, for the third week in a row. The count shed another four active rigs, now down to 619 — the lowest point since February 2022. The count in the Marcellus/Utica, after falling by one two weeks ago, held steady last week at 38, which is the lowest it has been since the beginning of this year. The national rig count is down 143, or 19%, below this time last year. There’s no indicator the trend will reverse anytime soon.
Marcellus/Utica natural gas producers and marketers are adapting to a new status quo. We live in a world where new pipeline takeaway capacity out of the Northeast is hard (almost impossible) to come by and is more or less capped permanently. That’s the reality. Without pipeline expansions, drillers no longer drill with abandon in hopes that the capacity will eventually get built. Reality has sunk in. Instead, drillers practice restraint by (1) slowing drilling activity, (2) delaying completions, and (3) choking back producing wells to manage their inventory during periods of lower demand and prices.
Last November, MDN told you about a lawsuit filed by a family in Washington County, PA, against Chevron (now EQT) for drilling and fracking done in 2011-2012 near the family’s home (see 
Last November MDN told you about a research paper published by Penn State that says the state should look at repurposing old conventional oil and gas wells for use as geothermal energy sources (see 
It’s Columbus Day! MDN will not publish our regular list of stories today — but have no fear; we will be back tomorrow (Tuesday) with a full lineup. Take a moment today to celebrate the world’s most famous Italian, the guy who started it all, the guy who discovered the Americas, and what would one day become the greatest country on earth: The United States of America!
Equitrans Midstream, the builder of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project, wants to extend the pipeline by an extra 75 miles from the current terminus in Pittsylvania County, VA, to Alamance County, NC, to provide natural gas for heating and electric generation. The extension is called MVP Southgate. In typical fashion, Democrats oppose it (see 
In August 2022, MDN brought you the news that Hearthstone Utilities, a Naperville, Illinois-based company, was planning to move its corporate headquarters to Morgantown, West Virginia (see