Part of Jefferson Natl Forest Closed to Keep MVP Protesters Out
Last week MDN told you about a couple of rabid antis who climbed trees in Jefferson National Forest and have perched themselves in homemade tree stands in an attempt to block tree cutting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline (see Radicals Go Up a Tree in Quest to Illegally Block MVP Construction). Time is ticking. Tree felling must happen by the end of March, or the builder (EQT Midstream) will need to wait until October to fell the trees due to a ban on cutting trees during “bat season” (don’t ask). The antis are still, literally, up a tree–still blocking tree cutting in the forest. Last week a judge issued a restraining order that instructs the tree sitters to come down. But they haven’t–not yet, anyway. Following the judge’s order, the U.S. Forest Service, in charge of Jefferson National Forest, issued an emergency closure order, closing the forest along the 3.5 miles of MVP’s path through the forest. The Forest Service is trying to prevent any more tree sitters from invading the forest and setting up what will no doubt be a police action to remove the demented tree sitters already up a tree…
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We’re in a position we don’t typically find ourselves in–defending a member of liberal Democrat PA Gov. Wolf’s staff. We don’t have much respect for Wolf and his administration, but sometimes there’s an injustice that simply can’t be ignored. We find this injustice particularly loathsome. A Big Green supporter and far-left radical environmentalist who lives in Chester County, PA, Caroline Hughes, filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission against PA Gov. Tom Wolf’s deputy chief of staff, Yesenia Bane, late last year (see 
Did you know that once upon a time, around 100 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, that mom earth had no permanent polar ice caps, and that the amount of greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, CO2) in the atmosphere was 10 times (i.e. 1000%) higher than it is today? And yet, somehow, life survived. Who knew? Contrary to the scaremongering balderdash being pedaled today, the amount of CO2 we humans pump in the atmosphere today by burning fossil fuels is puny compared to what volcanoes used to pump into the atmosphere eons ago. Humans today are pikers–bush league–compared to the volcanoes of old when it comes to warming up mother earth. That’s what we learned in reading a newly published study on the link between the formation of today’s shale oil and gas deposits and ash from long-ago volcanoes. “Nutrient-rich ash from an enormous flare-up of volcanic eruptions toward the end of the dinosaurs’ reign kicked off a chain of events that led to the formation of shale gas and oil fields from Texas to Montana.” So says “Volcanic ash as a driver of enhanced organic carbon burial in the Cretaceous”–a new study just published in the journal Nature…
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye that you may be interested in reading: Anti-pipe agenda in New England leads to higher costs, less reliability, Russian LNG; Tellurian to acquire 15 Tcf of gas for Driftwood LNG; Cheniere building 3rd berth for Sabine Pass LNG; the permanence of the Permian; Georgia fracking regs waiting for gov’s signature; former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson out as Secretary of State; is LNG the next world energy sector the U.S. will disrupt?; Mickey Mouse getting LNG powered cruise ships; natgas is the fossil fuel of choice; Canada to slap border tax on gas?; and more!
While everyone was focused on the passage of a co-tenancy bill in West Virginia (see 
Seems like we increasingly see the word “microgrid” popping up. What, exactly, is a microgrid? Microgrids are small electric generating plants, most often powered by natural gas. They usually produce a few megawatts of electricity and are often used for “peaking”–which means they are used during times of high electricity demand. During times of high demand these small microgrids kick on and produce electricity to help meet the demand (see 
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from the so-called “more than 1,000” protesters willing to get themselves arrested in Lancaster County in their holy mission to stop the Williams Atlantic Sunrise Pipeline. As of last November, the unofficial tally we could determine is that 45 people who belong to Lancaster Against Pipelines (LAP) have gotten themselves arrested for illegal actions in attempting to stop the pipeline (see 
A third sinkhole related to Mariner East 2 pipeline work and the uncovering (and subsequent shutdown) of the Mariner East 1 pipeline has some folks in Chester County, PA stirred up and rather grumpy (see 
We spotted an article appearing on the Forbes magazine website that has a chart that stopped us cold in our tracks. The article was written by Jude Clemente, one of our favorite contributors to the Forbes website. He includes three charts in the article to update folks who have an interest in the natural gas space (the article is titled 
Events related (or of interest) to the Marcellus and Utica Shale, primarily pro-drilling events. To have your event included (or if you are aware of a worthy event you believe should be on this page), please send the details and/or a link to have it included to the calendar@marcellusdrilling.com email address. Thank you!
The Ohio Dept. of Natural Resources (ODNR) has just issued production numbers for the fourth quarter of 2017. Production was up for both natural gas AND oil, as it was in the third quarter (see 
If you look at the number of Utica wells drilled in 2017, Belmont, Monroe and Jefferson counties were the top 3 counties in the state for new Utica wells drilled. However, if you dig a little further, you’ll find that two of those three counties saw more wells drilled in 2017 than in 2016, while one of them saw a 45% drop in new wells drilled in 2017–indicating that county has “fallen out of favor,” at least to some extent. Which is which? For that, you have click to continue reading…
MDN reported yesterday that due to underground horizontal direction drilling (HDD) in Chester County, PA (near Philadelphia) for the Mariner East 2 (ME2) Pipeline project, a third sinkhole had developed (see