Every now and again, the liberal Democrat editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette publish an unsigned editorial (from the editors) that surprises us. Yesterday was another such instance when Post-Gazette editors said Pennsylvania should leverage frack wastewater to extract lithium, which can be used to make electric vehicle batteries for Joementia’s EV fantasies. The editors cited…
Read More...Yesterday, the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released its latest quarterly Natural Gas Production Report for January through March 2024 (full copy below). There were 100 new horizontal wells spud (drilled) in 1Q24, a decrease of 20 wells (-16.7%) compared to 1Q23. That number was also down from the 110 wells spud in 4Q23. This…
Read More...A new scientific study published in the June issue of Science of the Total Environment by two Penn State researchers confirms what everyone has known for the last 13 years: Recycling brine (frack wastewater) and releasing that recycled brine into groundwater supplies is not a good idea. The researchers sampled freshwater mussels downstream from a…
Read More...One of the aspects of the Austin Master Services (AMS) story (from Ohio) that captures people’s attention is that the frack waste at the facility contains drill cuttings, some of it with a low level of radioactivity. The headline-grabbing media touts that aspect of the story, overplaying just how “radioactive” it actually is. “OMG! If…
Read More...Yeah, the bottom pretty much fell out of the rig count last week, both nationally and for the Marcellus/Utica region. We’re hitting new lows with both counts. For the M-U, Pennsylvania stayed the same with 21 active rigs, but Ohio lost one rig, and West Virginia lost two rigs last week, for a net loss…
Read More...We’ve had more than a few MDN readers pass along links from recent mainstream media stories about the treasure trove of lithium available “beneath Pennsylvania” in the state’s brine (shale wastewater) production. Which makes us a little bit crazy and amuses us at the same time because we’ve been reporting on this story since 2019!…
Read More...In March, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro traveled to Scranton, PA, to announce a proposal to “immediately pull Pennsylvania out of a multi-state carbon cap-and-trade program” (the so-called Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI) and instead enroll PA in its very own RGGI-like carbon tax program (see PA Gov. Shapiro Proposes Own Version of Marcellus-Killing Carbon…
Read More...The environmental left is now attempting to co-opt the term “Evangelical Christian,” defined as protestants who tend to be pro-life and conservative in their political views. We’re here to expose them for who they really are. We’re talking about the so-called Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) that keeps trying to pressure Pennsylvania to adopt unreliable renewable…
Read More...Two days ago, MDN brought you an extensive article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that delves into the thorny issue of who should pay to plug some of the 200,000+ orphaned and abandoned wells in Pennsylvania (see The Thorny Issue of PA’s Old Conv. Wells & Who Pays to Plug Them). In some cases, the owners…
Read More...Private companies create jobs and economic stimulus, not “the government,” as the left convinces you. Companies, especially manufacturing companies, locate where there is cheap energy. In Pennsylvania, there is abundant cheap (and CLEAN) energy from Marcellus gas in the northeastern part of the state. And indeed, that is exactly what is happening. Businesses are locating…
Read More...When the Bidenistas announced a $750 million “investment” of taxpayer money would flow to the Philadelphia region (actually Delaware and New Jersey, and a little bit of Philly) for a “green” hydrogen hub, wackadoodle antis pitched a fit (see Mouthy Delaware Riverkeeper Disrupts PA Gov. at Hydrogen Rally). Antis, along with selfish companies (that would…
Read More...Greg Wrightstone, a Pennsylvania native, is a geologist, the executive director of the CO2 Coalition, and an author. Wrightstone recently published an article detailing how Pennsylvania’s environment is not in the state of crisis that alarmists say it is. He implores Gov. Josh Shapiro to get his head out of his…mental morass…and stop worrying about…
Read More...Permitting in Pennsylvania, especially permits overseen by the Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP), has been a hot mess for years. A Chapter 102 Erosion and Sedimentation permit sometimes takes two, three, or even six to eight months for approval — instead of the law-mandated 14 days. It got so bad that in the fall of…
Read More...According to Mark Caskey, CEO and founder of Steel Nation (and an MDN friend), Pennsylvania state environmental agencies aren’t listening to the people who produce the energy. And he should know since he had a front-row seat watching the decline. Mark is frustrated by how powerful the PA Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) has become…
Read More...With the rapid increase in carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects around the country, including right here in the Marcellus/Utica region, a key issue has arisen. Where does one store (sequester) all that carbon dioxide (CO2)? The answer is underground in a Class VI injection well. Class VI wells are a relatively new classification for…
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