Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
Bureau of Economic Analysis data on growth in the Gross Domestic Product of Williamsport vs. Ithaca shows the former comes out on top again thanks to gas.
Eight years ago I wrote a post for Energy In Depth titled “Williamsport Explorers Beat Ithaca Winers with Walk-Off Home Run.” It was all about the fact Williamsport, Pennsylvania was, as a result of natural gas development, then growing its metropolitan gross domestic product (GDP) at a rate that blew Ithaca, New York, completely away.
It was a fair comparison as the cities are roughly the same size, but one had the fortune to be in Pennsylvania where natural gas had been allowed to prosper, while the other was in a state then incapable of moving forward politically. These several years later, New York has now closed the door “at this time” while Williamsport continues to beat Ithaca, as well as Binghamton and, especially, Elmira.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
You know you hit the target when the opposition squeals like a stuck pig. Food & Water Watch has taken a huge hit as its paid Dimock shill has been revealed.
If any evidence was needed that Food & Water Watch is embarrassed and frightened by the relevation that Craig Stevens has been its paid Dimock shill all along, it has been provided by Wenonah Hauter. The haughty Hauter has gone apoplectic, telling us how proud she is of Craig Steven’s contributions to fractivism while simultaneously screaming, in so many words, “how dare you, how dare you fight back to tell your side.”
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
Westchester County leaders, in a perfect display of the Stockholm Syndrome, are asking Andrew Cuomo for help in dealing with a ConEd moratorium he caused.
The Stockholm Syndrome is what happens when hostages develop irrational psychological sympathies with their captors as survival strategy during captivity. This term came into use after four hostages taken during a 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden, defended their captors upon release.
We may have another instance of it in Westchester County, New York where ConEd, the local gas provider, has had to impose a moratorium on new gas connections as a direct consequence of Andrew Cuomo delaying pipeline approvals that would bring new gas to the region. Who are Westchester leaders looking to for help? None other than Andrew Cuomo!
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
Mountain Valley Pipeline opponents thought New York provided the “just say no” model for how to resist pipelines but reality has delivered a bitter lesson.
Mountain Valley Pipeline opponents are scratching their heads trying, desperately, to figure out a way to stop the already begun project. Their prospects are not good. Their slim hope seems to be placed on a maneuver designed to get Virginia to revoke its water quality certification, but once again no one seems interested in the law, which would effectively prohibit this. The opponents had argued Virginia should just follow New York into never never land where the answer is simply “no” without regard to law or facts, but that hasn’t worked out so well.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
The Transco Pipeline, which connects New York City to natural gas sources, experienced its heaviest use ever in January, proving the City needs pipelines.
Nothing more is needed to understand New York City dependence on natural gas from sources between here and the Gulf than the latest news from Williams, the owner of the Transco Pipeline. We’re talking record deliveries due to the recent polar vortex. The critical nature of the Northeast Supply Enhancement project to keep the New York City metro area warm became so obvious even the Geico Caveman could see it, notwithstanding the opposition of Food & Water Watch and other gentry class shills for the anti-gas project.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
UPDATE: Roger has looked at my analysis of his post and thinks I may have simplified the issue too much. He offers must-read additional perspective here.
Politicians love schemes showing them to be doing something, especially when no one can decipher it. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is such a scheme.
Yes, the pols are always eager to stick their noses in things and make themselves look like problem-solvers. The less the public is able to understand it, the better. That way no one can direct effective criticism toward it; only the good intentions make it into the media and that’s just perfect.
The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is such a scheme. The goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions comes through loud and clear but few are able to discuss the complex details, so criticism is effectively muted. Some do know, though, and what we are learning is that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is on the fast track into the abyss, unless the program is modified and this could be important to gas.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
Budweiser goes windy with virtue signaling Super Bowl ad intended to make you think the beer is beer is green, but it actually uses gas to make that beer.
The bigger corporations get and the more international they are, the more likely they are to imagine politically correct virtue signaling is somehow good business. It’s not, of course. It’s much more about peer pressure and when you’re owned by Europeans or managed by the sort of people who want to rub shoulders with elites at the next World Economic Forum in Davos, there’s a high likelihood you’ll want to antagonize some of your customers by virtue signaling to others. Budweiser officially joined this corporate potlatch club during the Super Bowl with a commercial suggesting it would be making its beer with wind energy, which isn’t quite true. It’ll be using gas.
Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.
Natural Gas NOW readers pass along a lot of stuff every week about natural gas, fractivist antics, emissions, renewables, and other news relating to energy. As usual, emphasis is added.
Tom Shepstone
Natural Gas NOW
The saddest part of the story regarding Dimock fractivists and their funders is how everyone involved used each other and threw their friends under the bus.
You can’t read the Craig Stevens deposition and not feel a little sad for the Dimock fractivists who were but pawns in the hands of their funders. Likewise, you have to feel for the small fry true believers and opportunists who got victimized by the big money special interests during this whole sordid tale. Everyone used each other to the nth degree and the end result for these folks is a picture of friends throwing each other under the bus.