A brief note to let our valued subscribers know that MDN will not be published from Thursday, May 1, to Friday, May 9. We will return with full-strength MDN on Monday, May 12. MDN editor Jim Willis and his wife are traveling to South Carolina to watch their youngest son graduate with a PhD! We are enormously proud of his achievements. Following graduation, the family will travel to Myrtle Beach for some R&R.
Last Thursday, West Virginia Governor Pat Morrisey signed Senate Bill (SB) 627 into law. SB 627 removes the previous ban on leasing “pore spaces” under state-owned parks. However, the bill explicitly prohibits any surface disturbance on state park land for drilling or injection. All lease revenues generated must be used exclusively for improvements and maintenance at the location where the leased pore space is situated. Read More “WV Gov. Morrisey Signs Law to Store CO2 Under State-Owned Parks”
In January, MDN reported that the PJM Interconnection electrical grid operator, covering Pennsylvania (along with all or parts of 12 other states and the District of Columbia), had caved to the political demands of PA Gov. Josh Shapiro to artificially cap the prices of the next capacity auction scheduled for July 2025 (see PJM Grid Caves to PA Gov. Shapiro Bullying, Blackout Risk Rises). The bad news is that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently gave its stamp of approval on the deal (see FERC OKs PJM Deal with Devil (Shapiro) for Higher Rates, Blackouts). This post outlines the reasons why this deal will (a) lead to blackouts and (b) eventually result in higher, not lower, prices for ratepayers. Read More “PA Gov. Shapiro’s PJM ‘Price Cap’ Will Hike Electricity Bills”
Massive growth in data center construction, and the jaw-dropping amount of power each center requires, bodes well for the natural gas industry in general and the Marcellus/Utica in particular. In the past, electric power would have been provided via the nation’s power grid. But regional transmission organizations, which coordinate, control, and monitor a multi-state piece of the grid, are not in the best of shape. Thus, if the power can’t reach the data centers, bring the data centers to the basin, according to Brent Bobsein, Vice President of Sustainable Development at CNX Resources Corporation. Read More “CNX Talks About the Importance of NatGas to AI Data Centers in M-U”
Houston, we have a problem. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the data centers (banks of hundreds or thousands of computers) that support AI are being planned right now. All those data centers need reliable power supplies. Unreliable solar and wind are not up to the task, so the companies building those data centers (like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and others) are turning to natural gas. Which we love! But here’s the problem: the turbines needed to generate the electricity (turbines that burn natural gas) are now on backorder… until 2028 or later. Read More “Gas-Fired Turbine Builders Largely Sold Out Through 2028”
Speaking of gas turbines and our current inability to produce them quickly enough, we came across a somewhat related story from Reuters. The reporters from Reuters are sounding the alarm that U.S. LNG export facilities may soon have to compete for natural gas supplies with power plants needed to power AI data centers. The result is that the price of natural gas will increase, and in some cases, it may not be available for exports. Of course, the free market (capitalism) will sort this out on its own, but in the meantime, there may be some tension. Read More “Will U.S. LNG Exports Lose Out to Demand for Gas from Power Plants?”
The Trump administration recently issued rules that require at least 1% of the natural gas shipped overseas to be carried on U.S.-built tankers, beginning in 2029. The U.S. is the world’s number one global exporter of LNG (liquefied natural gas). However, the U.S. does not build *any* of the specialized LNG cargo carriers used to send that fuel abroad. In a letter to the Trump administration last week, the American Petroleum Institute (API) stated that the oil and gas industry could not comply with the rule and urged Trump officials to reconsider it. Read More “Minor Quibble Between Trump Admin and O&G Over LNG Ships”
What have we been telling you for YEARS? That natural gas is not a “bridge” to an unreliable renewable energy nirvana, but is, instead, the destination (see Baker Hughes CEO Says NatGas is the Destination, Not Just a Bridge). That truth is now so obvious that even the Commies at Bloomberg can no longer deny it. In fact, Bloomberg says the “script has flipped,” with unreliable renewables seen as a bridge to the long-term use of natural gas! Read More “Bloomberg Admits NatGas No Longer a “Bridge” – Now the Destination”
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Woodside signs gas supply agreement for Louisiana LNG; Golden Pass LNG gets FERC commissioning permit; Commonwealth LNG requests FERC authorization by June; Plan to heat state buildings with natural gas system riles advocates; NATIONAL: Oxy taps A.I. to help inject old oilfields with carbon dioxide; First DC Climate Week underway; A mass exodus begins at the Energy Department; EPA official says agency plans to cancel nearly 800 environmental justice grants; INTERNATIONAL: Oil market is going through a critical phase; Oil slumps as consumer confidence sinks; China waives tariffs on US ethane imports, sources say; It takes a lot of jet fuel to throw a funeral for a climate alarmist Pope. Read More “MDN’s Energy Stories of Interest: Wed, Apr 30, 2025 [FREE ACCESS]”
In January, MDN brought you the news that TECfusions, based in Tampa, Florida, had purchased 1,395 acres in Upper Burrell (Westmoreland County), PA, for a groundbreaking data center project called TECfusions Keystone Connect (see Massive 3 GW Gas-Fired AI/Data Center Coming to Southwest Pa.). The site is the old Alcoa R&D campus and the surrounding real estate in New Kensington. The project will transform the shuttered office and industrial site into a state-of-the-art data center campus, with plans to deploy 3 gigawatts (GW) of capacity over a six-year period. Put another way, some 3,000 megawatts of electricity will be required to power it! Where will all that electricity come from? Read More “Massive 3 GW Gas-Fired AI/Data Center in SWPA to Use Local Wells”
A power project we’ve been tracking since 2017 is a 620-megawatt (MW) Marcellus-fired electric plant in Greene County, PA, called the Hill Top Energy Center (see our stories here). In 2019, investment firm Ardian, based in Paris, France, announced that it had purchased a 41.9% stake in the project, becoming the majority owner (see SWPA Gas-fired Electric Plant Project Gets French Investment). Ardian just announced it has purchased the other 58.1% stake it did not already own. Read More “French Investment Firm Buys Out SW Pa. Gas-Fired Power Plant”
In December 2022, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) approved permission for New Jersey Natural Gas (NJNG) to build a pipeline regulator station in Holmdel, New Jersey. What does a regulator station do? It reduces pressure on the existing underground natural gas pipelines in the area, which run underneath Holmdel Township and throughout Monmouth County. Ultimately, a regulator station will ensure the reliability of the pipelines and the gas that flows in the area. The new station will replace a currently operating temporary regulator station. Yet the “leaders” of Holmdel voted in 2023 to appeal the BPU decision to court, allocating up to $20,000 of taxpayer money for legal fees, which turned out to be a fruitless attempt at overturning the BPU decision (see Antis Oppose Simple & Safe Gas Regulator Station in Holmdel, NJ). They lost the appeal and their money. Read More “Holmdel, NJ Loses Years-Long Fight to Block NJNG Gas Regulator Stn”
Dominion Energy and its operations in Chesterfield County, Virginia (near Richmond) are in the news again, but not for the same reason you may think. We previously told you about Dominion’s project to build a “peaker” electric generating plant in Chesterfield (see Dominion Plans to Build 1,000-MW Gas Peaker Plant Near Richmond, VA). The Chesterfield Energy Reliability Center (CERC) calls for building four 250-megawatt gas-fired power plants (1,000 MW total) that can jump into action during the coldest and hottest days of the year to help supply enough electricity for 250,000 homes—to keep the lights on because solar and wind are not up to the task. Dominion now wants to run several “seven-mile-long high voltage lines” in western Chesterfield County to serve a planned hyperscale data center. Read More “Dominion Seeks to Build Lines for Gas-Fired Power to Va. Data Center”
Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why people (and companies) choose to “bite the hand that feeds them.” Here’s a case in point. Last Friday, a group of electric and gas utilities urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to launch an inquiry to consider options for improving gas pipeline reliability. That is, utility companies, fed natural gas by pipeline companies, are asking FERC to tighten regulations on those pipeline companies in order to make it more expensive and harder to do their job. Why? Read More “Gas & Elec Utilities Pick a FERC Fight with Gas Transmission Pipes”
Local municipalities with radical political leaders, along with some “blue” states run by radical Democrats, have attempted to strip away the right of their citizens to freely choose which energy source they want to use. It’s about as anti-American as it gets, against the very founding of this country. Yet it happens. Berkeley, California’s “first-in-the-nation” natural gas ban was later overturned by a federal appeals court. Yet recently, two other appeals court cases have ruled in favor of gas-banning municipalities and states. Let’s consider the “shifting landscape” of local and state gas bans… Read More “Fed Courts Support Municipalities’ Right to Strip Away Energy Choice”
Isn’t it shameful how major Ivy League universities, like Cornell, Harvard, and now Dartmouth, sell out to the radicalized left? They offer up (sell) their prestigious names to be plastered on blatantly fake research studies that bash fossil energy. In a new study published in Nature, researchers from Dartmouth College have compromised their integrity, arguing that “attribution science” – the attempt to link a specific amount of greenhouse gas emissions to a particular energy company – should be used. The “researchers” advocate using attribution science not to develop a better understanding of the world, but as a blunt tool in the courtroom to bankrupt the very companies that provide the energy that powers this world. It’s completely insane. Read More “Dartmouth Sells Itself to Rockefeller Gang via Climate Study”