Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Electrical Generation | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania
Proposed Gas-Fired Plant Near Pittsburgh has Neighbors “Fired Up”
In January 2016, Invenergy announced its intention to build a natgas-powered electric plant in Elizabeth Township, in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh (see Invenergy Eyes SWPA for Second Marcellus-Powered Electric Plant). It took a few years, a lawsuit, and a new location, but eventually, Elizabeth commissioners approved Invenergy’s plan for the Allegheny Energy Center power plant in December 2018 (see Elizabeth Twp in Allegheny Co. OKs Invenergy Gas-Fired Plant). The Allegheny County Health Department held a public hearing on the proposed plant yesterday, on a request for an air permit. Some area residents were “fired up” about the project.
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It would be laughable if it were not so tragic…Democrats like Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm (worst Sec Energy in a generation) think throwing $5 million to West Virginia University for “research” to develop “low-carbon power plant technology” is some big deal. It’s generous. Magnanimous. Beneficent. Granholm visited WV last week to bestow $5 million in largesse from Uncle Joe on the good people of the Mountain State. A $5 million research grant is NOTHING. It’s a rounding error of a rounding error in the Dept. of Energy’s budget. By comparison, a single natural gas-fired power plant in WV would attract $500-$800 million of investment! And that’s all private money, not taxpayer’s hard-earned money.
Each month our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issues a Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) report. The STEO covers all of the major energy sources produced and consumed in the country. The latest edition, issued yesterday, finds the analysts at EIA revising up the expected marketed production and consumption of natural gas in 3Q21. Also up is the expected average price for natural gas at the benchmark Henry Hub–now up to a predicted $3.07/MMBtu for all of 2021. However, EIA says natural gas consumption for all of 2021 will sink by half of one percent from 2020. Why?
It’s getting far more expensive to drill a shale well of any kind according to analysts at Citigroup. Inflation overall is on the increase. You can’t keep throwing trillions of printed, made-up money into the economy (a la “stimulus checks”) without the inevitable inflation happening. Too much money chasing too few goods and services equal higher prices, i.e. inflation. Citigroup says the inflation rate for the shale industry could reach 12% by the end of this year. That’s massive.
Two of three Marcellus/Utica states received permits to drill new shale wells last week. Pennsylvania issued 13 new permits, almost all of them in the dry gas northeastern part of the state. Ohio issued 11 new permits, in the center of the Utica play. West Virginia’s shale industry got skunked last week–no new permits. It’s been quite a while since that’s happened in WV.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Energy production important to Pennsylvania’s environmental future; NATIONAL: Light crude settles above $70 a barrel; US natural gas exports necessary to fight climate change; What you need to know about energy markets in one place – absolutely no charge!; Ovintiv CEO Doug Suttles announces retirement; Only 33% of US adults surveyed support complete phase-out of fossil fuels.
Leftists in states like California, Washington, and New York either already have, or are attempting to, outlaw the use of natural gas by homes and businesses. The first step they take is to disallow any new buildings to be connected to natural gas delivery lines. Eventually, they will force existing customers to stop using natural gas and force them to use electricity instead for heating and cooking. Or simply go without heat and cooking (they really don’t care). Leftists are drunk with their own power to force other people to do what they want them to do. Meanwhile, other states, like Texas, Florida, and many others are blocking efforts to block natural gas. The pro-gas states are actually winning the gas-ban war.
Yesterday the U.S. Dept. of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) submitted an advisory bulletin to the Federal Register. The notice is for pipeline operators. It reminds them that PHMSA has a very big stick that the agency intends to use to force pipeline owners to clamp down on fugitive methane emissions. PHMSA is using the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety (PIPES) Act of 2020, passed and signed during the waning days of the Trump administration, as a big stick to force expensive upgrades to capture every last molecule of CH4, supposedly to cut down on man-made global warming.
It’s been too long (months!) since we’ve last updated our calendar of events page. We updated it as of today. Below is the list of events we are aware of that will be of interest to those with an interest in the Marcellus/Utica shale region for the balance of 2021. Some events are in the region (PA, OH, WV). Some are not (TX, MA, other states). And some are virtual/online. All of them are of potential interest to the MDN audience.
Two and a half years after Energy Transfer’s (ET) 24-inch Revolution Pipeline entered service in western Pennsylvania and exploded following a landslide (in September 2018), the pipeline finally returned to service in March of this year (see 