Clinton County | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Pennsylvania | Regulation
PA DEP Extends Renovo Gas-Fired Plant Permit, Radicals Appeal
The same three radicalized environmental groups that previously attacked the Renovo Energy Center (REC), a Marcellus gas-fired power plant planned for Clinton County, PA, are at it again. On November 22, the Clean Air Council, PennFuture, and the Center for Biological Diversity (all completely radicalized fossil fuel bigots) announced they had appealed an extension of time for an air pollution permit granted to REC by the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP).
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Last week the Pennsylvania Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC) voted to approve the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) and its Environmental Quality Board’s (EQB) rammed-through (in a rush) regulation to control volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and by extension methane, for conventional drilling sites throughout the state (see 
While tracking the active rig count week by week can give you a little sugar high, we think tracking the count month by month is more illustrative of where the count (and drilling activity) is heading. Baker Hughes is the grandaddy of rig counts, having tracked rigs since 1944. You need a rig to drill a new well, so counting active rigs gives you an idea of overall drilling activity. What do the rig counts look like for Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia over the past two years? Is drilling activity going up, or down, in our region? We have the answer.
From time to time, it’s helpful to revisit our longstanding relationship with Canada with respect to natural gas flowing across the border–both ways. It sounds strange on the surface to say that there are dozens of pipelines that cross our joint border–some flowing gas to Canada (exports), others flowing gas from our neighbors to the north (imports). Why don’t we both just keep our own gas to ourselves instead of swapping? Because in some areas, it makes sense for Canada to produce the gas and ship it to us, and in other areas, the reverse makes sense. Truth be told, Canada’s flows of gas to the U.S. help us maintain supply reliability during the winter months. So says the EIA.
Last week (Nov. 14-20) saw a total of 31 new shale permits issued across the Marcellus/Utica, up slightly from 26 permits the week before. Pennsylvania received the most permits, with 26 new permits issued. Ohio received five new permits, and West Virginia got skunked with no new permits last week.
Happy Thanksgiving! MDN is taking both Thanksgiving Thursday and Black Friday off. While you’re taking time to be thankful for your friends, family, food, drinks, and other luxuries, take a moment to say THANK YOU to the resources that make this holiday so wonderful: fossil fuels! Below is a video from our friends at Clear Energy Alliance. Watch it (under 4 minutes) to learn just how much oil, natural gas, and coal bring to the table during the holiday season–and every other day of the year.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Sempra announces partnership with ConocoPhillips for Port Arthur LNG; NATIONAL: Proposals for a windfall profits tax are damaging even if never enacted; Looming rail strike complicates Biden options to avoid diesel supply crisis; INTERNATIONAL: Nearly 60% of German chems need to cut output to reduce natgas use.
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) released a notice of intent to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) that will focus on the construction of a 32-inch buried pipeline under 3.5 miles of forest service land in the Jefferson National Forest. This is the third time around for the same permit. The first two EIS/permits were rejected by the clown judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. There’s no reason to believe the clowns will not reject it a third time, but Equitrans (the builder) and the USFS must go through the motions anyway.
Here in the real world (not the pretend world of leftist radicals who seek to shut down all fossil energy), the Shell ethane cracker finally went online, officially, last week (see 
MDN previously reported that in October, Joe Nolan, the CEO of New England’s largest utility company, Eversource, sent a letter to President Biden urging him to assemble a panel and figure out how to ensure natgas flows to New England (via LNG) this winter–because if it doesn’t, this IS the year rolling blackouts become reality (see 
In his first two days in office, Joe Biden declared war on the oil and gas industry. One of the first things he did was to revive an interagency working group on the “social cost” of greenhouse gas emissions and directed the issuance of an “interim” cost (see 
The country of Japan is perenially either the #1 or #2 top LNG importer in the world. The country has virtually no domestic supplies of oil and gas and, therefore, must import what it uses. It’s no secret that Japan and its traders are some of the best in the world. So when Japan says supplies of LNG are getting tighter and that “Procurement [of LNG] can also be said to be in a state of war,” that’s alarming. And sobering. Japan says not enough money is being invested in LNG export projects, and although this year most countries can muddle through, beginning next year, it’s going to be a problem.
On Friday, MDN reported that one of the ten natural gas storage wells at the Equitrans Rager Mountain Gas Storage Area in Jackson Township, Cambria County (in Pennsylvania) that was leaking roughly 100 MMcf/d of gas had finally been plugged (see