• 
• Source: Nytimes

WASHINGTON — A federal proposal to ban the construction of coal-fired power plants that release all of their carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would seem to smooth the way for carbon capture, a budding technology that traps the greenhouse gas for storage or other uses.

Read more at: www.nytimes.com

• 
• Source: Philly

The collapse of natural gas prices has created a buying opportunity for Atlas Energy L.P., the Philadelphia company controlled by Edward E. Cohen’s family that cashed out most of its Marcellus Shale assets for billions in 2010. Atlas Resource Partners L.P., the company’s exploration and production subsidiary, on Thursday announced it is buying the Barnett Shale assets of Titan Operating L.L.C., a private company in Fort Worth, Texas, for $184 million.

Read more at: articles.philly.com

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A Cabot drilling rig, located in Susquehanna County

Two weeks ago, we told you about a Vermont bill banning hydraulic fracturing.

An update: on Wednesday, Democratic Governor Peter Schumlin signed the legislation into law, making Vermont the first state to put a fracking ban on the books. More from CNN:

(CNN) — Vermont’s governor has signed a bill making it the first U.S. state to ban fracking, the controversial practice to extract natural gas from the ground.

“This is a big deal,” Gov. Peter Shumlin said Wednesday. “This bill will ensure that we do not inject chemicals into groundwater in a desperate pursuit for energy.”

Shumlin said fracking contaminates groundwater and the science behind it is “uncertain at best.” He said he hopes other states will follow Vermont’s lead in banning it.

The American Petroleum Institute is raising questions about the measure’s constitutionality, arguing a wholesale ban on an industrial practice violates the document’s Commerce Clause.

Vermont isn’t part of the Marcellus Shale formation, and the Green Mountain State doesn’t appear to be sitting on a trove of gas. Shumlin acknowledged that: “We don’t know that we don’t have natural gas in Vermont. …this bill will ensure we do not inject chemicals into groundwater in a desperate pursuit for energy.”

More from the Pittsburgh Business Times:

Eureka Resources LLC said Thursday that it will open a treatment facility in Bradford County to treat wastewater from the Marcellus and Utica shales.

Eureka already has a treatment plant in Williamsport in the northeastern section of Pennsylvania. The Bradford County facility will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and will treat up to 10,000 barrels of drilling muds and flow back water beginning at the end of the year. The water will then go to reuse, stored or sent to the Williamsport facility.

A second phase of the plant in Bradford scheduled for 2013 will allow for the reuse of brine with the help of a crystallizer unit.

More and more drillers are treating and reusing their fracking fluid, though a substantial amount of waste is being stored in deep injection wells, or sent to waste treatment pits.

Fractracker has mapped out all of the locations Pennsylvania drilling waste is treated or stored.

• 
• Source: Marketwatch

DULLES, Va., May 18, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Low natural gas prices are expected to continue to exert downward pressure on electricity prices this summer, although there could potentially be more volatility in Southern California, Texas and Boston, where power generation capacity reserves are tighter, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) summer assessment.

Read more at: www.marketwatch.com

• 
• Source: Npr

A new law in Pennsylvania grants physicians access to information about trade-secret chemicals used in natural gas drilling. Doctors say they need to know the information to treat patients who may have been exposed to chemicals. But the law also says doctors can’t tell anyone else — not even other doctors — what’s in the chemical formulas.

Read more at: www.npr.org

Scott Detrow / StateImpact Pennsylvania

A producing well pad in the Tioga State Forest

3,000 acres of state game land in Bradford County are being leased for natural gas drilling.

Environmental advocates have bemoaned drilling in Pennsylvania’s state forests, worrying the clearings, well construction and truck traffic will permanently damage the wildlife. But Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser takes a different approach in an interview with the Towanda Daily Review, arguing “well pad and pipeline construction can actually benefit wildlife in the long run” by clearing out space and creating “meadow-like areas.”

The Pennsylvania Game Commission recently announced that it would be accepting bids from natural gas companies to lease State Game Lands 36, which is located across Monroe and Overton Townships and consists of over 3,177 acres, for the development of natural gas drilling.

“We’ve found that state game lands can actually benefit two different ways from natural gas development,” Press Secretary Jerry Feaser said. “We’ve discovered that well pad and pipeline construction can actually benefit wildlife in the long run. The initial excavation, construction and drilling processes are temporary habitat displacements. When the development enters the production stage, we’ve actually witnessed and photographed habitat improvements because well pads in production are meadow-like areas and pipelines provide a linear food supply.

“The other benefit is for the game commission, itself, in the form of increased revenue,” Feaser said. “Through lease payment and eventual royalty revenue, we’ll be able to provide more funding to the game lands, hire more personnel and acquire more lands.”

• 
• Source: Reuters

Out past the vacant storefronts and abandoned buildings, beyond the shuttered steel mills and decaying industrial plants, residents of eastern Ohio suddenly are seeing dollar signs.

Read more at: www.reuters.com

The group made the walk to call attention to the fact PNC Bank is the country’s leading financier of mountaintop-removal mining, a practice where extractors literally blow off the tops of mountains, in order to access coal seems.

The Post-Gazette reports on the end of the activists’ journey:

Along highways, back roads, and through peaceful battles with PNC branches at every stop, the Philadelphia-based group’s message to the bank remained: Agree to stop financing companies that conduct mountaintop removal coal mining by May 31 or more than $2 million will be removed from supporter accounts.

When the journey finally ended, it was no surprise to EQAT that an invitation to James Rohr, chairman and CEO of PNC Financial Services Group, and William Demchak, president of PNC, to meet with the group and speak with residents affected by mountaintop removal wasn’t accepted.

Nor was PNC’s decision to continue to decline to address the issue publicly.

“There’s nothing they can say, because they know they’re wrong,” said Amy Ward Brimmer, executive director-elect of EQAT. “My sense of it is that until we become such a risk that they have to respond, they are probably going to try to keep burying their heads in the sand. They are going to have to respond, eventually.”

PNC has not commented on the protest: neither to the Post-Gazette nor to the Patriot-News, which covered the protests when they reached Harrisburg.

• 
• Source: Npr

Natural gas is a much cleaner-burning fuel than coal, so the gas boom going on around the country is often touted as a win for the environment. But no one really knows how much pollution is created by gas drilling. One scientist stumbled upon data that suggest the process may be dirtier than billed.

Read more at: www.npr.org