Month: May 2015

Letting the FERC know what you think about PennEast just got a whole lot easier…

Even though the number of comments to the FERC opposing PennEast have been impressive, we could do better.  I know a lot of people in particular get frustrated trying to navigate the FERC site.  It’s down constantly, and even when it’s up you have to navigate a crusty old web site that feels like a throw back to 1998.

Well, you don’t need to do that anymore.

The Delaware Riverkeeper Network has created a page to make it trivially easy to send a note to the FERC docket:

http://www.delawareriverkeeper.org/act-now/urgent-details.aspx?Id=187

You can choose to either write your own message, edit the sample provided by the Riverkeeper, or just send the default form as is. You can also choose have the DRN either send your submission in electronically, or have them print and mail it.

Some come on folks! Take 5 minutes out of your day, visit the site and add your voice to the opposition. Let the FERC know the depth and breadth of opposition PennEast faces and that their pipeline is not wanted or needed.

Who’s buying the PennEast gas?

So how can PennEast justify this pipeline?  We already seem to have enough natural gas.  The whole state of NJ uses around 1.8 billion cubic feet a day on average across all consumer types (residential, electrical, industrial, transportation).  This pipeline, at 1 billion cubic feet a day, could power more than half the state all by itself.  So how could this work?

Who’s Buying the Gas?

Well, there are a few different ways.  First there’s the Purpose and Need justification they have to provide to satisfy eminent domain. They have to prove that this project will provide material benefit to the people of NJ and PA that outweighs their taking our land via the government.  In this case their purpose and need is that several companies are willing to buy natural gas from the pipeline, and that they will use it to benefit businesses and consumers in Eastern PA and NJ.

The reality is a bit different though.  In PennEast’s most recent government filings they have included the list of “open season” subscribers who have pledged to buy gas from PennEast.  These are shown below:

This table shows each subscriber to the pipeline, how much volume they’ve committed to, what percentage of the total that represents – and most critical, whether the company is an owner of the pipeline or not.

As it turns out 76% of the pipeline capacity is being bought by the pipeline owners (those are the names highlighted in red).  The pipeline owners are literally selling the gas to themselves and using that as their eminent domain justification.

But this still doesn’t solve the question of what it’s going to be used for.  Natural gas consumption in NJ has been flat for years, and is projected to the stay that way except for very moderate growth in gas-fired electrical generation.  So where can it go?

Next up we’ll look at the major pipeline interconnects to see physically where this gas can go.

The fracking industry’s amateurish attempts to mislead the public and FERC

A gentleman by the name of Dustin Kuhlman posted a comment to the PennEast FERC docket this morning. He is very pro-pipeline has some nice turns of phrase in his commentary. His comments in full are below:

The vocal opposition of a few should not be generalized as the common opinion of many. I, like many of my neighbors, colleagues and friends, welcome responsible natural gas development and recognize the PennEast
Pipeline Project as crucial to the region. As such, I would like to add my voice to those who support the PennEast Pipeline Project.

The presence of large quantities of accessible natural gas in our region cannot be ignored. With current state-of-the-art technologies and diligent oversight to ensure established safety protocols are followed,
this natural gas resource must be developed and put to good use for the benefit of homes and businesses.

I proudly encourage environmentally responsible exploration, safe drilling, efficient transportation and proper maintenance of our natural gas resources. This will ensure that our energy needs will be met well
into the future in an environmentally and sound economical manner.

Beyond the logic of putting our own resources at a higher priority than those controlled by often hostile foreign energy suppliers, I point to the growing needs of our local economy. The PennEast Pipeline Project not only will deliver a safe, reliable, affordable supply of natural gas, it will do so with a $1.6 billion economic benefit during its design and construction and provide annual energy savings of close to $900 million per year to Pennsylvania and New Jersey consumers. These are major economic benefits for many of our local and regional families, communities and businesses.

As someone who knows firsthand the benefits of all that natural gas makes possible, I ask you to approve the PennEast Project. Thank you.

I suppose if you read the above opinion in a vacuum it would be pretty impressive. Hey, we should safely and diligently work to exploit this resource to our best abilities, and the boon to the region will be absolutely incredible! Let’s ignore those few pesky whiners out there and focus on all the good this project will do for us!

Sounds good, right?

Except of course we don’t live in a vacuum, and a lot of Dustin’s words will seem eerily familiar to those who have been following the PennEast news closely.

He opens by saying “The vocal opposition of a few should not be generalized as the common opinion of many”. This is eerily similar to what Patricia Kornick, PennEast spokes person, said in a recent article in LehighValleyLive.com. Kornick said: “The vocal voices of a few should not be construed as the overall perception” (the full article is here http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/newjersey/2015/05/residents_along_penneast_pipel.html).

The “1.6 billion” deal is of course referring to PennEast’s bogus Drexel study from a few months ago that was thoroughly debunked by multiple sources. The “energy savings of close to $900 million per year” is a gross perversion of the more recent PennEast study where they claimed they could have saved the region $890 million if they were able to take a time machine back 3 years, magically build the pipeline and have it ready for the polar vortex winter of 2013/2014.

So what’s Dustin’s deal here?

Well it’s pretty simple. Dustin is a Vice President for the firm Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc. (CEC):

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/dustin-kuhlman/19/5a6/21a

A big part of his firms business is to hire themselves out as high priced consultants to the fracking industry.

http://triblive.com/business/headlines/7011170-74/cec-gas-industry#axzz3ZGpvVtxB

You see, Dustin overseas the consulting group within CEC that focuses on the natural gas industry. His group has grown their revenue from fracking operations from $2 million in 2007 to $32 million last year.

There’s also Frank Jeanson. He wrote an identical comment to the FERC. Here’s his linkedin profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/frank-jeanson/16/694/392

From there we see he works for Shell Oil Company as “Community Relations / Non-Technical Risk Manager for Shell’s Appalachia project which includes over 1 million acres in 4 distinct project areas across the State of Pennsylvania”.

And there’s Devesh Mittal, also with the same identical submission. Here’s his linked in profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/devesh-mittal/23/470/25

He’s a Vice President and General Manager at a company called Aquatech. He’s in charge of their shale gas division. They do water treatment of the contaminated water that comes out of fracking wells. Another company who make tens of millions from fracking.

Jennifer McDonough? She did the same. And guess what industry she works in?

https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jennifer-mcdonough/a/31a/96a

She’s a “Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Rex Energy Corporation”, a big time fracking company.

Amber Benzon. Ditto:

http://marcelluscoalition.org/about/staff/

She works for the Marcellus Shale coalition and is a “Director of Government Affairs”.

None off these people disclosed their employment in the fracking industry. Not a single one.

So, just like the UGI employees commenting on the FERC docket without identifying their conflict of interest to the government, we have multiple people cheerleading the pipeline without disclosing that their companies makes tens of millions of dollars from the fracking industry.

I have no problem with fracking industry leaders voicing their opinions in a public forum. It’s a free company and we’re all entitled to our opinion. But people who have a financial stake in the outcome of a project should disclose their conflict of interest as a matter of course to keep the debate honest. To fail to do so exposes the deep level of deception and lack of ethics that you see in the shale gas boom’s darker corners.