UPS Natural Gas Fueling Station Opens in Middletown, PA
Jim Willis on NGL Pipelines
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)
[Editor’s Note: UPS has opened a CNG fueling station for its vehicles in Middletown, Pennsylvania. It’s natural gas even though the company is pretending it’s something else.]
Shipping giant UPS recently opened its fourth-largest U.S. distribution hub (a “superhub”) outside of Middletown, PA, in Lower Swatara Township (Dauphin County, near Harrisburg). It is UPS’s largest natural gas fueling station in the country, and it is fed by a pipeline built by UGI for that purpose. While the press announcement says the gas is “renewable natural gas” (RNG), there is no doubt the actual molecules feeding the plant come from the Marcellus.
Image Credit: UPS
What does this massive facility do?
“The 775,000-square-foot distribution facility features the latest sorting, processing, and data capture technology,” Tom Farrell, a UPS spokesperson said in an e-mail. Seven hundred and fifty people are expected to work at that facility.
UPS spokesperson Kim Krebs previously told PennLive that the site in Lower Swatara Township was chosen as the site of the “super hub” because of its proximity to major highways and accessibility to the northeastern United States. Packages will be shipped in from around the country, sorted at the new facility, loaded onto trucks and shipped out quickly, according to Krebs.
“Super hubs are really focused on sortation and moving the packages that are going out of the region,” she said.
The facility includes a compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station. It is UPS’s largest CNG station in the country.
Earlier this week, UGI announced the facility is open and that UGI is flowing natural gas to it:
UGI Utilities is pleased to serve UPS’ fourth largest U.S. distribution hub with clean and efficient natural gas. The recently-opened, nearly 800,000 square foot facility in Middletown is home to the largest natural gas fueling station in UPS’ network.
In 2020, UPS approached UGI for the facility’s natural gas needs. UGI was excited for the project and to help further reduce carbon emissions from the region’s transportation sector. In late 2020, UGI began construction on an approximately two-mile long, eight-inch diameter pipeline to connect to UPS’ new hub. The pipeline went into service the following year.
UPS explains that, “Through best-in-class engineering, UPS is reimagining its network with innovation-driven investments to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The new renewable natural gas (RNG) fueling station will: remove 8 million gallons of diesel fuel per year; help UPS reach 40% alternative fuel in ground operations by 2025; and, lower carbon footprint while still delivering for customers.”
Natural gas is an essential fuel to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gases (GHGs). The use of affordable natural gas by Pennsylvania fleets such as UPS offers a unique opportunity for the Keystone State given the Commonwealth’s prolific natural gas reserves paired with a growing supply of renewable natural gas.
“We’re on a mission to improve our ground operations network, create local jobs and bring to life sustainable solutions,” said Crystal Lassiter, UPS buildings and systems engineering vice president. “With a focus on getting things right, we’re able to expand our bottom line.”
Supposedly the methane molecules that feed the plant come from so-called renewable sources, like landfills and chicken poop. We say that’s nonsense. Yes, UGI has multiple deals with various “renewable” sources to accept and clean up methane molecules, adding them to its distribution system.
But just like the scam of paying more for your electricity that supposedly comes from windmills or solar farms, there is a scam afoot with RNG–paying more for so-called renewable natural gas from “clean” sources (not that filthy fracking in the ground stuff). Do you think the molecules flowing through a pipeline care if they came from a chicken’s butt hole or the ground? They do not. There is no distinction in methane molecules flowing through UGI’s pipelines. Hence our assertion that 99% of the molecules feeding this new UPS plant, molecules that get compressed and used to power big rigs and other vehicles, come from the PA Marcellus.
If UPS wants to pay more and pretend it’s somehow helping the planet be greener, fine with us. Just know that it is the Marcellus powering those trucks and this new distribution superhub.
Editor’s Note: Jim makes a great point about the word game going on here. And, no, it doesn’t matter for our economic purposes, but it is a worrying indication of what’s happening to our society today. Truth has been sacrificed to political correctness and the more it occurs, the less truth has any impact. We are all being taught to play stupid word games for virtue signaling purposes but real virtue is evaporating faster than hand sanitizer. We are being conned into living in an ever more phony society where we are but serfs being manipulated by forces we can’t believe, can’t see and can’t challenge. We are living by lies all around and that can only end badly.
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