Author Archives: Tom Shepstone

Natural Gas Consumers Score Win After Win After Win!

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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It just doesn’t get much better for natural gas consumers, as an Energy Information Administration post tells us. It’s one huge win after another.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is out with an excellent post today that reveals just how much winning natural gas consumers are experiencing. The post is titled “Natural Gas Prices in 2019 Were the Lowest in the Past Three Years” is all about production, prices and versatility in the way natural gas consumers are able to share in the benefits.

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Natural Gas Does A Lot More Than Just Reduce CO2; It Saves Lives!

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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A new study says natural gas hasn’t just helped lower CO2 (if you care) but also, and much more importantly, saved 38,000 or so lives and done lots more.

It has bothered me for some time that, with all the talk about lowering CO2 emissions by substituting natural gas for coal, the far important environmental benefits of natural gas are getting short shrift. The impacts of lowering CO2 emissions are debatable, after all, but those associated with lowering actual air pollutants are undeniable. Now, an academic study published in the Nature Sustainability pulls our attention back to what ought to matter; that natural gas conversions save lives.

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Two Bats Out of Hell for Hollywood Environmentalist Types

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Hollywood celebrity environmentalist types just received two bats out of hell; one from Meat Loaf and the other from Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes.

I’ve always loved the energy and melodies of Meat Loaf’s ballad style music, although I can’t say “Bat Out of Hell” was ever one of my favorites; the lyrics are just too much. Nonetheless, the song has the intensity of an enlivening movie scene slap in the face.

And, that’s precisely what Meat Loaf just gave those Hollywood and media types who elevated Greta Thunberg to cult leader status in global warming theology. It was a bat out of hell for every shallow celebrity and news reader who tried to convince us a 16-year Greta was some superior intellect of even more audacious morality.

Then, a second bat out of hell was received in Hollywood itself as Rick Gervais delivered a slap to the other side of the Hollywood face. Where were these guys when had to deal with Josh Fox, Susan Sarandon, Yoko “Loco” Ono, Matt Damon and Mark “Little Green Hulk” Ruffalo?

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While You Were Distracted, A New Jersey Pipeline Was Upgraded

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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A critical New Jersey pipeline project was just upgraded while everyone was distracted by other battles. New Jersey will now get more much needed gas.

While the NESE languishes and the PennEast fights an absolutely bizarre Federal court decision, another New Jersey pipeline has been quietly upgraded and it will help send more Marcellus shale gas to the Garden State. It is the Williams Gateway Expansion Project, which will serve Northeast New Jersey.

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Blue Bloods or Blue Collars? The Mega-Battle We’re in with Elites

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Everywhere we look today, and especially with regard to fracking and global warming issues, blue bloods are doing all they can to shunt aside blue collars.

A few weeks ago NaturalGasNOW received a bit of a back-handed compliment from the New York Times. It was a story about the Rockefellers and the burning desire of some trust-funder members of that family to shut down the oil and gas industry that made them filthy rich. The article was by John Schwartz, with whom I  corresponded once. It wasn’t terrible as NYT articles go, but presented the Rockefeller story as if it were all about the high-minded goal of fighting global warming. It focused on the family’s battle with ExxonMobil, of course, that being a most interesting angle, given the family’s role in founding the company. But, with all due respect to Mr. Schwartz, that is far from the real story.

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Energy Stats Prove the U.S. Is the Star Performer: Thank Natural Gas!

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Professor David Ruzic from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign presents energy stats showing just how much the U.S. has achieved with fracking.

I think I could listen to this fellow all day. David Ruzic is surely the master of energy stat. His style of presentation is matter-of-fact, although the opening does get our immediate attention. How appropriate that is, because what Ruzic does is get us back to the basics and the facts that must guide intelligent discussion of energy. His energy stats are simple enough, yet totally overwhelming is demonstrating why the U.S. is energy dominant and why natural gas has been so, so important. Fracking has delivered us.

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Wind Turbine Collapse in the Bronx; Will Any Lessons Be Learned?

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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A wind turbine collapse in the Bronx of all places just destroyed a car and endangered many. Politicians complained, of course, but have they learned?

This is a bizarre story. It’s all about a wind turbine collapse in the Bronx. It’s hard to imagine a wind turbine in the Bronx, let alone a wind turbine collapse. This was no ordinary wind turbine. It turned horizontally, rather than vertically, which is how it sometimes has to be done in tight spaces. It was installed in the Baychester section of the Northeast Bronx just two weeks ago and has already torn itself apart, making for some great photos, video and tabloid journalism. But, are any lessons being learned?

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Delaware Riverkeeper Losers Denied at Supreme Court: ERA Plan Dashed

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Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Delaware Riverkeeper a/k/a PovertyKeeper plans to impose its ideology 200 miles from the Delaware using the Environmental Rights Amendment club are dead.

The Delaware Riverkeeper, ignoring its charter and using money from the William Penn Foundation, traversed 200+ miles from the Delaware River to fight natural gas development in Middlesex Township, Butler County, Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth Court had shut down the Delaware Riverkeeper’s challenge of local zoning allowing such development in an R-AG Residential Agriculture Zoning District encompassing most of Middlesex Township. It had focused on trying to expand the meaning of the Commonwealth’s vague Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA).

The case then went to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to the Commonwealth Court to reconsider in light of its then recently decided Gorsline decision. The Commonwealth Court just did so and, as I noted here, “handed the Delaware Riverkeeper its head a second time.” Now, the Supremes have done so, too, pulling the nails out and breaking the club the PovertyKeeper tried to make of the ERA as a weapon to bully small communities who want natural gas development. It has also officially branded the Delaware Riverkeeper Network as big-time losers.

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