PA DEP to Issue “Acid Rain Permit” to Scranton Gas-Fired Power Plant
Pennsylvania’s largest operating natural-gas fired electric generating plant, Lackawanna Energy Center (LEC) near Scranton (in Jessup), will soon receive a permit officially allowing and capping sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant. Should nearby residents be concerned?
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The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) is doing a happy dance that they’ve shaken down XTO Energy $425,000 to settle a violation by XTO for drilling a shale well in Belmont County a year ago that exploded and caught fire.
The following story highlights what should be, in our opinion, a crime: Foreign liquefied natural gas (LNG), in record amounts, is coming to Boston and being offloaded into the Algonquin Gas Transmission pipeline in order to meet the high demand of New Englanders for gas. In fact, a new record has just been set for the amount of foreign LNG imports flowing for a single day. Maddening.
NEXUS Pipeline, a $2.6 billion, 255-mile interstate pipeline that runs from Ohio into Michigan, began a partial startup in October, and was fully online in November. Although there was early opposition to the project, and some complaints from landowners along the route of construction, the project is noteworthy for the just how little complaining there actually was.
Last August Eclipse Resources announced it had sold itself to Blue Ridge Mountain Resources, the renamed remnant of Magnum Hunter Resources (see
MARCELLUS/UTICA REGION: Dimock fractivists and funders throw friends under the bus; ME 1 still offline with no end in sight; work on Ohio Tetco explosion continues too; Pit bull escapes home, leads police back to save owner from gas leak; New York’s top environmental regulator won’t be stepping down after all; OTHER U.S. REGIONS: Oil and gas industry warns against proposed New Mexico fracking moratorium; NATIONAL: Does the U.S. oil rig count still matter?; Chevron, Exxon ask 2nd Circ. to sink NYC’s climate suit; INTERNATIONAL: Why did France just save Nord Stream 2?
The latest edition of the MDN Weekly Digest is now ready. The digest is the meat and “essence” of each story for all posts appearing on the MDN website during the past week, collected in a single PDF document capable of being downloaded and printed. The Weekly Digest is available to paying subscribers only as part of your 
EQT CEO Rob McNally and board chairman Jim Rohr are in a pitched battle to maintain their control of the company. They dismiss a plan by Toby and Derek Rice to enhance EQT’s production at a lower cost as something that worked for small potatoes Rice Energy, but couldn’t work for a big, important company like EQT. The Rice boys shoot back that EQT is bloated and lumbering and needs a good house-cleaning. So what is the essence of the Rice plan to get EQT back on track? What’s the Rice boys’ secret sauce?
Three families who live near a former drill site and frack wastewater impoundment at the Yeager Marcellus Shale site in Washington County, PA sued Range Resources in May 2012 claiming the air they breathe and the water they drink had been contaminated by Range’s operations at the site (see 

We spotted a couple of op-eds yesterday commenting on the obtuse position taken by New York State (Andrew Cuomo) in blocking natural gas pipelines. One of the columns, by MDN friend Katie Klaber, makes a brilliant point. Want to know where New York is heading energy-wise? Just look at Venezuela.
The West Virginia House Energy Committee passed a bill yesterday that appears to be picking up steam and possibly headed for approval by both the House and Senate. It’s an interesting bill that allows local natural gas utilities to pay drillers to drill new gas wells in areas where there is not a reliably sufficient supply of gas.