natural gas Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

EPA Foes Vow To Block Power Plant Rules. It May Not Matter

Regardless of whether the rule stands or falls, the standards it sets could happen anyway.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued its final rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from power plants Thursday, and the reaction from state officials was swift.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he’d take the case to court. Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’d introduce a repeal resolution in the Senate. Democrat Joe Manchin, who’s not running for re-election, said he’d support her measure.

Regardless of whether the rule stands or falls, the standards it sets could happen anyway.

Morrisey was successful in his bid to block President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan. The U.S. Supreme Court sided with him in West Virginia v EPA two years ago.

The policy never took effect. But as Amanda Levin, director of policy analysis for the Natural Resources Defense Council, points out, the goals it set were met, and earlier than planned.

“That was also a rule at that time, there were concerns about whether or not the power sector would be able to achieve it, and it ended up achieving those standards 11 years early, even though the rule was stayed,” she said.

Now, as then, critics of the rules, including some in the electric power sector, say they can’t be achieved. Manchin points to the 2021 winter storm in Texas that caused deadly power outages.

“We saw what happened in Texas, how many people’s lives were lost, how much was disrupted in the economy, went to heck in a handbasket down there when their gas lines froze up.” he said.

The failures in Texas, and more recently in the eastern United States in late 2022, were mostly of fossil fuel infrastructure, especially natural gas. Renewables and battery storage helped hold the Texas power grid through last summer’s heat.

Levin says the new EPA rules come at a time when electric utilities are rapidly building wind, solar and battery storage. They’ve already surpassed coal and even nuclear.

“Clean energy sources are now the cheapest and fastest growing source of new power generation,” she said.

Even West Virginia is building more solar and will soon begin building storage batteries.

Mon Power activated the largest solar facility in the state in January in Monongalia County and is building another one in Harrison County.

Form Energy is building a long-duration storage battery plant in Weirton. Other companies coming to West Virginia, including steelmaker Nucor, wanted access to renewable power.

Phil Moye, a spokesman for Appalachian Power, which operates three coal plants in West Virginia, says the company is looking at the EPA rules to see how they affect plant operations and future investments.

“The development of new dispatchable generation resources and storage technologies will be critical in determining how quickly the industry can meet the requirements of the new rules,” he said.

Appalachian Power is an underwriter of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Seeks Late May Approval To Start Operation

The company wrote that the 303-mile project will be mechanically complete by May 22 and seeks FERC’s approval by May 23.

The builders of the Mountain Valley Pipeline are seeking federal approval to begin operations within weeks.

MVP has sought approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to begin operations in late May.

The company wrote that the 303-mile project will be mechanically complete by May 22 and seeks FERC’s approval by May 23.

It says its customers with long-term contracts for natural gas from the pipeline become effective on June 1.

The $7.5 billion pipeline has been delayed and cost more than projected as environmental groups and landowners challenged the project in court.

The MVP is under a consent decree with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration over a corrosion-resistant coating that may have degraded while large sections of pipe were exposed to weather during the delays.

That’s after groups challenged the safety of the exposed pipe. The company agreed to take corrective measures to eliminate any safety risk.

Various legal challenges to the pipeline’s construction ended last year when Congress passed, and President Joe Biden signed, a spending agreement that approved all remaining permits.

While some opponents continue to press forward, it appears they have few options remaining before the pipeline goes into service.

The MVP has a capacity of two billion cubic feet of gas a day. It will connect north-central West Virginia with southern Virginia and open up West Virginia gas production to new markets in the mid-Atlantic.

Coal Production Lags In First Two Weeks of April, Federal Data Show

U.S. coal production fell below 8 million tons the first two weeks of April, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Coal has seen a slump in production this month, according to federal data.

U.S. coal production fell below 8 million tons the first two weeks of April, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A year ago, the United States produced about 10 million tons of coal during the first half of the month. Year to date, coal production is down more than 16 percent.

Coal was once the dominant fuel for producing electricity but it has been overtaken in recent years by natural gas and increasingly renewables such as wind and solar.

Further data show that coal’s market share for U.S. electricity has been under 15 percent for the past two months.

At its peak in 2008, the country produced 23 million tons a week and it commanded more than 40 percent of U.S. electricity generation.

The sector will lean more heavily on exports, the Energy Information Administration reported, though the temporary closure of the Baltimore export terminals will dent those numbers as well.

Production in West Virginia is down 14.5 percent from a year ago, according to the agency, and 13.5 percent in Appalachia.

A mild winter can cut into electricity demand, and natural gas prices are lower as well, eroding coal’s competitiveness.

Gas Group’s Chief Talks About MVP, Carbon And Coal Competition

Curtis Tate spoke with Charlie Burd, president of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, about the state’s role in supplying the global market.

The United States exported a record volume of natural gas in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Curtis Tate spoke with Charlie Burd, president of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, about the state’s role in supplying the global market.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: Who are the biggest natural gas players in West Virginia? Where does the gas go?

Burd: We have two of the largest natural gas producers in the country operating in West Virginia. Actually, EQT is the largest natural gas producer in the country. And Antero resources is the largest natural gas producer in West Virginia. And I believe I heard the number that about a third of our production here in the state, and we produce just less than 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. It was 2.8 in 2022. And I’ve heard during the legislative session, that number may top 3 trillion for 2023. I haven’t seen those numbers yet. Because the reports aren’t due until like April, mid-April, but about a third, I believe, of our production is transported east to be converted into liquefied natural gas to be shipped across the oceans to our allies.

Tate: Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was a game changer. When did production take off?

Burd: I think the first well was drilled in December of 2007, put into production in 2008. That was a Chesapeake well. We produced 256 (billion cubic feet) of natural gas. And now we’re producing round numbers that say 3 trillion cubic feet. So that’s where it started. And that’s where we are. And it has greatly increased from year to year. That 3 TCF, 96 percent of that comes from probably about 4,600 horizontal wells in 2022, 2.85 trillion cubic feet from 4,500 wells. And I think we’ve added about 100 wells. I won’t have the exact numbers for a couple of weeks. That’s where it all came from.

Tate: Where is the production concentrated?

Burd: If you were to look at a map of West Virginia, and look at I-79, which literally dissects the state almost straight up the middle of north and south. When you get to about Braxton County, and it all goes to the northwest. That’s where the wet play is. That’s where the more enriched natural gas with propane and ethane is, if you’re again using that as a kind of a guide, using 79 as a guide, anything to the east of 79 is pretty much in a dry play. It’s almost pipeline quality gas coming out of the ground there.

Tate: What’s the difference between wet and dry gas?

Burd: Wet gas has the heavier hydrocarbons: propane, ethane, butane, isobutane. And what we call dry gas would be that gas stream that is just mostly methane. So in addition to methane, those other heavier hydrocarbons are what we delineate as a wet gas. And we produce somewhere in the neighborhood of 700,000 barrels of ethane and liquids a day in that northwestern tier of the state. And those products are extracted through two or three large processing facilities we have up in that also in that same general area. Those liquids are sent south and north, south into Louisiana and north into Canada to be further processed. Or put in a pipeline and shipped to where those liquids are used.

Tate: What does the Mountain Valley Pipeline mean for gas producers in West Virginia?

Burd: That pipe is what they call fully subscribed. Meaning that the end users that have already subscribed or purchased will be purchasing that gas in long term, fixed contracts for that natural gas. But it means a lot to us because it’s literally, probably one of the last major pipelines that may be built. And for West Virginia, unlike Texas, and other places that can move a lot of gas across their state and be intrastate, our situation is much different. We have to ship our gas out of state where there are markets. West Virginia is small in comparison to other markets. So our gas is moved through interstate pipelines out of the state.

Tate: Why is MVP one of the last major pipelines to be built?

Burd: I think you just look at the extraordinarily difficult process someone has to encounter to design and construct a pipeline in this country now, it’s almost impossible. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which was a Dominion project, another 2 BCF a day that would have gone to eastern markets and military use. That project got scrapped a couple years ago. Because, the cost overruns, and just the increased scrutiny of us to have a line crossing 200 feet under the Appalachian Trail. Not impacting the trail at all, but just because it, quote-unquote, “crossed underneath.” that there was a lot of outcry.

Tate: Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide and producing and transporting gas releases methane. Both are greenhouse gases. What is the industry doing to reduce those impacts?

Burd: Number one on our own, several years ago, the industry took upon itself to develop a program internally to reduce methane emissions. And here in the (Appalachian) basin, there’s lots of smaller conventional wells. And now in addition to the bigger Marcellus wells, we’ve reduced our carbon footprint here by something like 70 percent, over the last 10 years, just on initiatives, initiatives of our own, and then we get new legislation that says we have to do more. I mean, I think we’re still in the process of completing what we started on our own. Secondly, the methane that comes off of fugitive emissions that we would have when wells are put in, put into service, and methane doesn’t stay hovering over West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. It goes way into the atmosphere. And there’s no question that if this administration is serious about reducing global emissions, no one produces natural gas more safely, or efficiently, or environmentally sound. And we do that we do right here in this country. No one has the exacting standards for environmental and safety as the United States does.

Tate: Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia have moved sharply away from coal and toward natural gas for electricity in the past 10 to 15 years. Why hasn’t West Virginia?

Burd: Well, it’s not because of lack of effort to develop natural gas fired electric generation. We have tried, and there have been numerous projects that have been placed upon the table. I think, Curtis, choosing my words with you carefully here, we have a state that has historically believed its reliance on energy and jobs came from the coal industry. But at the hands of the EPA and others, this constant demand to reduce emissions, and produce energy cleaner has transformed all those states you mentioned to producing electricity with natural gas. West Virginia’s a bit behind, but it’s not because we’re not trying. It’s just that we find ourselves in a better place. Literally, every day when it comes to being able to compete for those projects evenly with all the same playing field with Ohio, Pennsylvania. I mean, you’re right, Ohio and Pennsylvania collectively have maybe two dozen plants, two dozen natural gas fired electric generation plants. We literally have one down there in Huntington.

Naloxone And Natural Gas, This West Virginia Morning

On this West Virginia Morning, harm reduction advocates celebrate an anniversary and a discussion about the state’s role in supplying the global market of natural gas.

On this West Virginia Morning, harm reduction advocates celebrated the first anniversary of the installation of a Narcan vending machine in Charleston on Monday.

Also, Curtis Tate speaks with Charlie Burd, president of the West Virginia Gas and Oil Association, about the state’s role in supplying the global market of natural gas after a record year of production.

West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, which is solely responsible for its content.

Support for our news bureaus comes from Shepherd University.

Eric Douglas produced this episode.

Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning

Does Biden’s Permitting Pause Squeeze U.S. LNG Exports? Experts Say No

To hear what impact the decision has on U.S. LNG exports, Curtis Tate spoke with Sam Reynolds and Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

A recent decision by the Biden administration to suspend permitting for new export terminals for liquefied natural gas has drawn criticism from West Virginia lawmakers.

To hear what impact the decision has on U.S. LNG exports, Curtis Tate spoke with Sam Reynolds and Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, an organization that favors a faster transition away from fossil fuels.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tate: What does the pause on permitting for new LNG export terminals really mean?

Reynolds: Just for perspective, the U.S. is currently the largest global LNG exporter worldwide, we export about 86 million tons of liquefied natural gas a year. That’s more than Qatar and Australia, which are the next two largest. The U.S. currently has five projects under construction to export more LNG that would nearly double that amount over the remainder of the decade. Now, the U.S. pause on permitting, does not affect any of the existing or under construction projects. So that’s really important for consumers around the world to know that the U.S. is still on pace to nearly double its export capacity, and it’s already the largest worldwide.

Right now, in Asia, the U.S.’s largest customers are Japan and South Korea, and a lot of these new export facilities in the U.S. are justified under the impression that our customers need more of this LNG. In fact, if you look at these two largest buyers, Japan and South Korea, both are reducing their natural gas and LNG demand, and actually quite dramatically. So in Japan, LNG exports peaked in 2014 and have declined ever since. And they actually fell 8 percent last year, which is more than double the rate of decline in previous years. Japan is upping its nuclear and renewables capacity, and actually doesn’t want any more of this very expensive fuel, that is LNG. It’s opting for cheaper resources. and South Korea is very similar. LNG demand fell 4 percent last year, as it brings on cheaper energy sources like renewables and nuclear.

Tate: What about Europe? Didn’t Putin’s invasion of Ukraine cause European countries to become more reliant on U.S. LNG?

Jaller-Makarewicz: So while the U.S. was thinking, ‘Oh, Europe is in a big crisis, and we really need to step in to supply all the LNG that they need,’ at the same time Europe was working on their strategies to reduce gas demand. So what we see today, at the beginning of 2024, is a different reality than at the beginning of 2022. So what we have been saying in Europe, and I think that’s also the concern for the U.S. is that we need to analyze today’s conditions. For example, the gas demand in Europe reduced 20 percent In the last two years. Nobody could expect that. We could agree in certain instances, there’s some part of gas demand destruction. Part of it. But a great majority of it has been implementation of energy efficiency measures on gas demand management, on renewables. The mentality in Europe has changed now.

Tate: Can countries turn to other sources for LNG?

Reynolds: The growth, if you look at the growth markets for LNG demand, where is demand actually increasing? And the largest sources of growth for this product are in South Asia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Southeast Asia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand, Singapore. Now, these are much more price sensitive countries, they don’t have the same amount of wealth that Europe, Japan and South Korea have to spend on this relatively expensive product that is U.S. LNG.

And in fact, our main competitors for supplying these markets are Qatar and Australia, which are much cheaper sources of supply to this region. So they’re going to be making an economic decision about where to buy LNG. And actually, since the pause, we’ve seen a spate of deals announced with Qatar to buy more of their LNG. So it’s not necessarily that these countries are turning away from the U.S. specifically, because of the Biden pause. But there is an economic calculation to be made. Qatari LNG can often come in five to six times cheaper than U.S. LNG, which has to be shipped all the way around the world.

Jaller-Makarewicz: So I want to add something here. When the crisis started in Europe, Europe realized the dangers of depending so much on one supplier. That was the main problem that Europe was facing. So I don’t think they’re going to allow the same thing to happen. They are saying we need diversification of sources. So there will be up to a point where they will say that’s it. We need to diversify. We cannot accept more U.S. LNG, because we need to have more sources supplying the gas and LNG to Europe. So that also comes into play. Europe is under a lot of pressure for not repeating the mistakes of the past.

Tate: Has the Russia-Ukraine war accelerated the adoption of renewables and energy efficiency in Europe?

Jaller-Makarewicz: I can say that. And for example, in energy efficiency, before we were not talking about that topic, and suddenly, look, in September of 2022, I was in Madrid for an event. And it was hot. And they had a law that they couldn’t have the air conditioners, they had to have them up to a certain level, because they didn’t want to use more energy. We also got lots of talk here, the thermostats in the winter would have just one degree less, so they started to think about us as consumers, we could also do something to reduce it with our consumption. And it was not talked about like that before. Now it was decided, we need to speed up the renewables, we need to reduce all the problems with the bureaucracy and all that to allow those tax breaks to come into operation. So they accelerated that. I can say that they accelerated that.