PA Shale Fracking Becomes Major Issue in Presidential Campaign
Most political analysts believe this year’s presidential election may come down to one or two states–namely Pennsylvania and Ohio. If Biden can win in those two states, he stands a good chance of winning the election (an absolute nightmare!). But here’s what you don’t hear from mainstream media: the election may well turn on the issue of shale fracking. Counties in PA and OH, like Washington County in southwestern PA, are likely where the race will be won or lost. It’s not looking good for old ban-fracking Joe.
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Enbridge’s Weymouth compressor station project, the final piece of the $452 million Atlantic Bridge expansion project, has begun testing in preparation to go online. As part of the testing, the station will, on occasion, release a small amount of (gasp!) natural gas into the air. Run for the hills! Get out while you can!
Justice (with a small “j”) has prevailed in West Virginia. We’ve covered the issue of a proposed new shale gas-fired power plant planned for Brooke County, WV for years. We are down to the wire on some of the final bits needed for this project to advance. One of those bits, the last major hurdle, is a loan guarantee for $5.5 million, covering a tiny part of the financing required to build this nearly $1 billion project. Yesterday the WV Economic Development Authority unanimously approved the loan guarantee.
Yesterday the full Pennsylvania Senate passed House Bill (HB) 2025, a bill already passed by the House previously. The bill now goes to Democrat leftist Gov. Tom Wolf, who says he will veto it. The bill restores democracy to the Commonwealth by giving the legislature–the very people elected to be the voice of PA citizens–a role in deciding whether or not PA should join the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI)–which is nothing more than an obscenely high tax on carbon meant to kill coal and natural gas-fired power plants in the state–a major customer of Marcellus gas.
Behaving like the petulant children they are, anti-fossil fuelers in New Jersey are demanding a face-to-face meeting with the board of NJ Transit so they can make a case (i.e. bully the board) against building a small, clean-burning natural gas-fired power plant NJ Transit will be used to power trains in cases of emergency. It’s a backup plant–not even running all the time. Yet antis, so corrupted by their own hatred of “fossil fuels,” are demanding NJ Transit use unreliable solar instead.
OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Three things to know about Charleston, S.C.’s new climate lawsuit; Cheniere resumes normal operations at Sabine Pass LNG; NATIONAL: Energy industry warns of dire consequences if natural gas, oil development banned on public lands; U.S. natural gas prices to average $3.40 in January, says EIA; Fossil fuel-conscious financing decisions add wrinkle to North American LNG market; As renewables falter, environmentalists stand up for nuclear; US will need 280-300 rigs to maintain tight oil output once DUC wells run out; Trump to ban oil, gas drilling off US Florida, Georgia, South Carolina coasts; Baker Hughes to sell SPC flow unit to Pelican Energy Partners; INTERNATIONAL: Carbon-neutral LNG to increase costs of natural gas production, consumption; Did the Russian poison meant for Alexei Navalny kill Nord Stream 2 instead?; PTT reveals ambitious plan to make Thailand an LNG hub.
For the second week in a row, both Pennsylvania and West Virginia issued permits to drill new shale wells last week, and Ohio did not. PA issued 12 new permits for wells on three well pads. WV issued 3 new permits, all for the same well pad. PA’s new permits were split between Bradford County in the northeastern part of the state, and Washington County in the southwestern part of the state. The WV permits were issued in Brooke County, located in the northern panhandle of the state.
S&P Global Market Intelligence has done some forensic analysis of permits issued to drill new shale wells in Pennsylvania during August 2020. They compared last month’s permit numbers with the numbers from a year ago and found that PA issued 77 new permits last month, down 24% from August 2019.
In late 2018 a fringe environmental group called the Coalition to Reroute NEXUS (CORN), along with the City of Oberlin, Ohio, filed yet another lawsuit (with the D.C. Court of Appeals) to nullify the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) original decision to approve the NEXUS Pipeline project that runs through Ohio (see 
It’s not unusual for companies in the business of delivering methane molecules to customers (the local gas utility company) to invest in the long-haul gas pipelines that deliver gas into their system. Consolidated Edison (ConEd), which serves much of New York City and its suburbs with natural gas, is one such company.