Renewables a “Roadmap to Nowhere” – Sued for Telling the Truth
We spotted an article a month ago that is shocking and disturbing. This is the first time we’ve had a chance in our daily article roundup to bring it to you. A Stanford University professor pedals a “religion” that claims the world can be fueled by 100% renewable energy. That is, renewables can provide everything we need: electricity, heating, transportation, industry, shipping, the works. And renewables can do it so well that we won’t need power plants that run on actual fuel. It’s a bizarre viewpoint, but there you go. Some people believe in Santa Claus too. The Stanford prof published a paper espousing this theory. There were a lot of factual flaws in the paper, so another scientist (actually 22 prominent scientists) published a paper pointing out the problems with the Stanford prof’s paper. That’s how it’s done in academe. You put your research out there, and others can (often do) come along and question it with their own research and rebuttal. That’s how science gets better. So what did the Stanford prof do? He sued one of the 22 authors of the dissenting paper, along with the academic journal that published it! Sued them for libel. The person he chose to sue isn’t affiliated with an institution with a legal team to defend him–so this is selective persecution. An attempt at legal bullying. No longer is science something we debate with published findings. Now it’s a matter of faith–and God help you if you believe on the wrong side of an issue like global warming, or renewables. If you dare to believe the “wrong way”–or worse yet poke holes in a true believer’s theories–you may get hauled into court. An ebook titled “ROADMAP TO NOWHERE: The Myth of Powering the Nation With Renewable Energy” (full copy below) covers this controversy and shines a light on what you thought you knew about so-called renewables. The ebook compares renewables with nuclear energy (we wish it were natgas, but perhaps using nuclear is the better comparison in this case). Take a blood pressure pill before you read the following…
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MDN is please to announce the completion of improvements to our website. We began a journey last fall when Google (the 800-pound Internet gorilla) informed us that we needed to begin serving all of our webpages at an https (i.e. secure) address. That’s not to say there was anything inherently unsecure or bad about the way we were serving our webpages, but Google wanted it done. And what Google wants, Google gets. So we embarked on a path to both update the look and feel of the website and make our pages 100% secured. We launched our updated look and feel in early October, the first such update since the site began in 2009 (see MDN Launches Redesigned Web Site – We’d Like Your Feedback). The secure pages part took a bit longer that we expected. We finally got that part operating in early December (see 
The “best of the rest”–stories that caught MDN’s eye over the break that you may be interested in reading. In today’s lineup: 6 permits issued in Utica Shale; fossil fuel divestment is a costly, empty gesture for NY; a tale of two river basins; Jessup Borough hires radical lawyer to review power plant project; New England electric generators burned 2M brels of oil in 15 days; Scott Pruitt aims to accelerate efforts to remake EPA; new strategy for pipeline cos – bigger pipes; OPEC frets about new flood of U.S. oil; EIA says U.S. fossil fuel production to hit new records in 2018 & 2019; and more!
Yesterday Antero Resources, one of the biggest and best drillers in the Marcellus/Utica (concentrating on just those two plays), released highlights of their 2017 performance and “guidance” for 2018–their plan for what they will do in 2018. In 2017 the company reports average net daily gas equivalent production was 2.3 billion cubic feet per day, an 18% increase over the same quarter in 2016. In 2018, Antero plans to spend $1.45 billion. What will that buy them? In the PA and WV Marcellus, Antero will run five rigs and drill 120-125 wells, with an average lateral length of 9,300 feet. The company says they will average 9 wells per well pad this year. In the Ohio Utica, Antero will operate one rig and drill 20-25 wells with an average lateral of 11,600 feet. In both the Marcellus and Utica, Antero says the cost to drill those wells will go down another 9% this year over what it cost them last year. Antero continues to be one of (if not THE) best “hedgers” in the business–realizing more money for their gas and NGLs than any other driller in the region…
Anyone with even a passing interest in the natural gas market–either the Marcellus/Utica or elsewhere–knows there is one dominant factor that drives exploration and production: PRICE. The price of natural gas is the tail that wags the entire natgas dog. Low price? Less (or no) drilling, shut-in wells, less leasing–everything is less. High price? Pop the cork on the champagne bottle! When the price goes up and stays up, drillers begin seismic surveys, then leasing, then permits, then drilling. After drilling comes pipelines–both to the well and to market. And businesses tend to gather around points where there is access to natgas (and its byproducts). It’s a virtuous cycle, from upstream (drilling) to midstream (pipelines) to downstream (end users of the gas)–that all starts with price. Who should have an interest in price? Everybody! However, there are some whose jobs and livelihoods depend on price–gas traders, industrial buyers, drillers who need to sell their gas, etc. Those people need a daily update on the price. Who do they turn to? There are several price reporting authorities that monitor trade information for natural gas trading. There is no single price for natural gas–there are hundreds of prices. Gas is traded at trading hubs or points along major pipelines across the country. Each time a trade is done (price requested, price offered or “ask” and “bid”), that valuable information gets recorded and sent to a price recording authority. Each day around 1:30 PM Central Time, NGI gathers up trade information for THAT DAY, trades that have occurred so far at trading points all over the US and Canada, and posts/emails the information to subscribers. It is like getting tomorrow’s prices–the prices everyone else will base their trades on–today! How can you get tomorrow’s prices today? Glad you asked. 
Landowners who live in the Delaware River Basin feel betrayed and disenfranchised following the actions of the aggressive, malignant Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC)–a quasi-governmental agency set up to oversee and protect water usage within the Delaware River Basin. The DRBC colors WAY outside the lines of its charter by limiting not just water use, but land use within the basin. The Delaware River and its tributaries supply fresh drinking water for some 14 million people, including New York City. The DRBC, under the pretense of protecting water, issued draft regulations on Nov. 30 that will permanently (!) ban hydraulic fracturing in the basin (see 
Once upon a time, it was pretty easy for commodities traders (and others) to predict oil and gas production. You just watch the Baker Hughes rig count. When the number of rigs actively drilling goes up, production will follow X months later. And when active rigs go down, production goes down too. But that is no longer the case! Why? Shale wells are producing more over a longer period of time. And the technology used when drilling today is radically different than tech from just a few years ago. Drillers now drill wells faster–much faster–meaning they can use fewer rigs. And frackers are using “hellish” amounts of sand to frack wells, producing ever-more quantities of oil and gas. What it all means is this: If you’re a trader, you can no longer depend on rig counts as your main metric to calculate production. You need new metrics, such as…
Sometimes it’s hard not to grow weary fighting against Big Green and their seemingly endless sources of funding (and a sympathetic mainstream media) when it comes to the issue of fracking. The very word itself, fracking, is a moniker slapped on the industry as a way of implying there’s something dirty and vulgar about what we do. We can’t tell you how many times readers have lectured us to not use that word–fracking. But the word is now entrenched in the public psyche, so we use it. How do we effectively counter the wrong/false statements and arguments used by Big Green and their supporters? Simply using facts and science, to counter the emotional puking that comes from Big Green, is not enough. The United Kingdom is now entering a phase long past here in the U.S. The U.K. is just now beginning to drill and frack its very first wells. There are more than 300 anti-fracking groups in the U.K. and an almost endless barrage of negative press about fracking in the country. The head of communications recently granted an interview to PR Week about how they are countering the opposition there. It’s an excellent interview and gives us some ideas about how we might counter the opposition on this side of the pond…
The Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has just collected a whopping $1.7 million fine from Energy Corporation of America (ECA) for violations at 17 well sites in Cumberland, Jefferson, and Whiteley Townships in Greene County, and Goshen Township in Clearfield County. ECA’s violations? “Failure to properly contains fluids in onsite pits, unauthorized discharge of industrial waste into groundwater, unauthorized disposal of residual waste, failure to restore the pits and well sites, and operating solid waste storage, treatment, and transfer facilities without permits.” Pretty serious stuff. Essentially, ECA (according to DEP) was sloppy in how they handled flowback and brine, using open pits to store it long after their use was outlawed under new Chapter 78a regulations were adopted. Spills from those pits contaminated a water well of one nearby resident. It’s interesting to MDN that as you read the consent order (full copy below), not only is ECA listed, but also “Greylock Production.” You may recall our news from late last year that ECA reorganized itself under a new name–Greylock Energy–shafting existing shareholders in favor of a new investor, ArcLight Capital (see 
Yesterday our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report, the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. The numbers are AMAZING. Natgas production continues to be on fire (poor metaphor, but the only thing we can think of)–especially here in the Marcellus/Utica region, which is labeled “Appalachia” in the report. EIA predicts production in the Marcellus/Utica will soar another 377 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d), which is more than one-third of a billion cubic feet (!), between January and February. Incredible! What’s even more incredible: Marcellus/Utica production, predicted to be 26.8 Bcf/d in February, represents 42% of all shale natural gas production in the U.S. Our region is a MONSTER natural gas producer. Here’s the latest DPR with the amazing news…