WVU Engineers Get $3M Grant to Microwave Flared M-U NatGas
Two researchers at West Virginia University (WVU) have received a $3 million grant to aid in their research to figure out how to use microwaves on flared natural gas to convert the flared gas into carbon nanomaterials and hydrogen–and do it all cheaply. Coincidentally, we spotted a second announcement from a company already using microwaves to convert flared gas into hydrogen and acetylene.
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In the first half of 2020, the U.S. exported 5.4 million barrels per day (bpd) of petroleum products, a slight increase of 48,000 bpd (1%) from the first half of 2019. Wait, what? Exports went UP and not down? Even though the entire world shut down and used far less fossil fuels during 1H? That’s right. The reason we exported slightly more petroleum products is because NGLs (natural gas liquids) are part of those numbers, and the world kept using NGLs, like propane and ethane, even during the COVID shutdown.
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: CNX Resources and CNX Midstream Partners announce completion of merger; Energy and Policy Institute a case of projection on steroids; Encino Energy partners with wildlife education center; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Kayakers paddle to Murphy’s backyard to protest gas pipeline, fossil fuel projects; NATIONAL: Devon Energy and WPX Energy to combine in merger of equals; U.S. ethane exports rise with international steam cracker demand; INTERNATIONAL: Wood Mackenzie: LNG demand doubling over the next 20 years.
Energy Transfer (ET), builder and operator of the Revolution Pipeline in southwestern Pennsylvania, last week received permission from the state Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) to reroute a section that “slipped” after record rainfall two years ago, resulting in an explosion in Beaver County.
Some fantastic news to share. Last Friday the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reissued the second of three necessary permits required to finally finish the 92% complete Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) project in Virginia and West Virginia. The Army Corps reissued a permit they previously issued (but got overturned by Big Green groups in court), a Nationwide Permit (NWP) 12, allowing the project to cross over or under some 1,000 or so creeks, rivers, and wetlands.
CNX Resources has applied for permits to drill up to seven new Utica shale gas wells on a single pad in Washington Township on the grounds of the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County. The reason it’s raising a few eyebrows is that the new pad is in the general vicinity of the company’s faulty Shaw 1G well.
Last week Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a racketeering lawsuit against FirstEnergy, former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder, and four of Householder’s associates, all related to an alleged $60 million bribery scandal in passing the hugely unpopular House Bill 6 (see 
Last Friday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced a “settlement” (with no admission of guilt) with MarkWest Energy, with MarkWest paying a $150,000 fine for failure to monitor for air emissions leaks at its Liberty Bluestone facility in Butler County, PA.
Last week the extremely unpopular Pennsylvania Governor, Tom Wolf, vetoed a bill that would have given all citizens in the Keystone State, via their elected representatives in the state legislature, a say in whether or not the state should join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). RGGI is a huge new $2.4 billion tax on coal and gas-fired power plants that will drive up the cost of electricity dramatically across the state.
Two days ago MDN brought you news that natural gas prices in the Marcellus/Utica region are about to get really ugly, at least for the next couple of months (see 
Last week Enbridge asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for permission to bring its Weymouth, Massachusetts compressor station online by Oct. 1 (see 
Unrepentant. That’s the best single word we can think of describing the attitude of “leaders” in Grant Township (Indiana County, PA) who illegally passed their own set of environmental laws, violating the PA state constitution, in a bid to prevent a safe saltwater injection well from being built in a rural location in the town. Grant continues to use radicalized lawyers in their lawbreaking bid to prevent the well.
In September 2018, MDN brought you the news that six men had been charged with conspiring to illegally alter emissions systems on 30+ trucks with heavy-duty diesel engines, trucks used to haul water and wastewater to and from Marcellus Shale wells (see 
Once upon a time, FTS International was the largest private (not publicly traded stock) well completion (fracking) company in North America. In 2017 the company went public (see 
Time for our weekly check of the rig count. We like to check the Enverus count because we believe it’s more accurate than the Baker Hughes count. According to S&P’s analysis, the Enverus rig count climbed by a big 15 for the week ending Sept. 23 to hit a nine-week high of 308 active rigs. That’s the biggest one-week gain since the current price war/coronavirus downturn.