Tag: natural gas

Appalachian Fracking Water Contains Lots Of Lithium, Report Says

Lithium is a key ingredient in batteries, and a boom in electric vehicle manufacturing and storage for renewable energy means it’s in high demand.

A new report says the wastewater generated by hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas contains something valuable.

Fracking in Appalachia produces a lot of polluted water. But also, as it turns out, lithium.

That’s what a report from the National Energy Technology Laboratory found.

Lithium is a key ingredient in batteries, and a boom in electric vehicle manufacturing and storage for renewable energy means it’s in high demand.

“The drilling boom in Appalachia created large volumes of produced water that is considered a waste,” said Justin Mackey, the project’s lead investigator. “We found that this fluid is significantly enriched with lithium compared to produced water from other shale formations.”

The laboratory concludes that Pennsylvania’s shale wells alone could provide as much as 40 percent of the nation’s lithium supply.

Researchers say the reason the Appalachian Basin has a higher lithium content than other oil and gas fields is because of layers of volcanic ash.

The report says 95 percent of the wastewater generated by fracking is reinjected into wells.

Harvesting the lithium could help reduce the disposal costs for the wastewater, it concludes.

Federal, State Agencies Quiet About Mountain Valley Pipeline Failure

Groups that oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline say last week’s failure in Roanoke County, Virginia, shows the risks the project poses to communities and property.

This story has been updated with comment from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The state and federal regulatory agencies that oversee the Mountain Valley Pipeline have said little about a rupture last week during a pressure test.

Groups that oppose the Mountain Valley Pipeline say last week’s failure in Roanoke County, Virginia, shows the risks the project poses to communities and property.

Because it is undergoing testing now, Wednesday’s rupture only released water. But the pipeline’s builder, Equitrans Midstream, has asked federal regulators for permission to begin operations at the end of this month.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting asked the company for comment and has yet to receive a reply. We also reached out to the principal state and federal agencies that oversee the project.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration have not replied.

After this story was first published, Irina Calos, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, said the breach occurred at 10 a.m. on May 1, during hydrostatic testing of the pipe.

“A section of pipe ruptured during this test, and municipal water used in the testing was discharged through the rupture,” she said.

Equitrans Midstream has removed the accumulated sediment, she said. She added that the incident would not affect any state permit approvals.

The public initially became aware of the incident because it was reported to a state database by a landowner.

Jessica Sims, Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices, says her group has received very little information about the pipeline’s failure.

“Much more of a response would be helpful for community members to understand what happens now, what happens next,” she said, “What does this mean for the testing schedule? What does this mean for the overall integrity of the project?”

If FERC approves Equitrans Midstream’s application, 2 billion cubic feet of gas a day could be moving through the 303-mile pipeline next month from West Virginia into Virginia.

Had the rupture occurred then, the public would know much more about what happened and why. For example, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated a 2012 gas pipeline explosion in Sissonville, West Virginia, producing a detailed report.

But Sims says the state agency in Virginia doesn’t even publicly say when testing on the MVP will occur. She also says Freedom of Information Act requests to PHMSA, a small agency within the U.S. Department of Transportation, are taking months to complete.

She says state and federal regulators need to be more transparent.

“If there is a problem, how will the community know what has happened?” Sims asked. “And what is the plan in place to communicate that?”

Mountain Valley Pipeline Bursts During Pressure Testing In Virginia

A landowner observed sediment-laden water in her pasture on Wednesday morning and reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

A section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline ruptured during pressure testing Wednesday in Roanoke County, Virginia, according to a report from the state’s environmental agency.

A landowner observed sediment-laden water in her pasture on Wednesday morning and reported it to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The agency sent a construction compliance expert to investigate the origin of the water.

“The origin of the sediment-laden water reported in the complaint was from the rupture of a section of pipe during hydrostatic testing the morning of 5/1/2024,” wrote the expert, John McCutcheon.

The 300-mile MVP is undergoing pressure testing with water in anticipation of beginning operations later this month.

MVP’s builder, Equitrans Midstream, has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for permission to put the natural gas pipeline in service after May 23.

The company entered an agreement with the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last year to ensure sections of pipe that had been exposed to the elements had not lost their corrosion-resistant coating.

Court challenges led to long pauses in construction until Congress last year required the project’s completion.

In its first quarter earnings report Tuesday, Equitrans Midstream said the project’s cost had increased to $7.85 billion, more than twice the original estimate.

McCutcheon’s report indicated that crews were preparing the site of the rupture for repairs.

Hope Gas Asks PSC To Block Pipeline From Supplying Pleasants Plant

Quantum Pleasants is talking to a pipeline developer, Icon New Energy Pipeline, about an agreement to supply the plant with the volume of gas it needs and at a lower cost.

Hope Gas has asked the Public Service Commission to block another supplier from providing gas to the Pleasants Power Station.

The Pleasants Power Station was sold last year to a California Company, Omnis Technologies, that plans to produce graphene and graphite and run the power plant on the hydrogen byproduct.

That will require a lot of natural gas: 100 million cubic feet a year by the end of 2025. The plant, now Quantum Pleasants, told the PSC in a Wednesday filing that Hope Gas cannot supply that volume.

Instead, Quantum Pleasants is talking to a pipeline developer, Icon New Energy Pipeline, about an agreement to supply the plant with the volume of gas it needs and at a lower cost than Hope.

Hope wants the PSC to review whether the arrangement would violate state law because the plant is an existing customer.

Omnis said the law doesn’t apply because the company has never been a customer of Hope. It asked the commission to dismiss Hope’s request.

In its own filing Wednesday, Icon said the PSC does not have jurisdiction over the company except for pipeline safety. It told the commission it supported the Omnis motion to dismiss.

The potential closure of the Pleasants Power Station, which dates to 1979, caused considerable outcry from lawmakers.

The plant shut down, briefly, last June but was reactivated when Omnis agreed to buy the plant from Energy Harbor.

State lawmakers had passed a resolution urging Mon Power to purchase the plant. The sale to Omnis made it moot.

PSC Approves Construction Of Gas Power Plant In Doddridge County

The PSC granted a siting certificate to Competitive Power Ventures to build a $3 billion combined-cycle natural gas power plant a few miles southeast of West Union.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission has given its approval for the construction of a gas-fueled power plant in Doddridge County.

The PSC granted a siting certificate to Competitive Power Ventures to build a $3 billion combined-cycle natural gas power plant a few miles southeast of West Union.

The plant will generate 2,060 megawatts of electricity, which will be sent to the regional grid on the wholesale market.

The plant’s Massachusetts based owner also plans to incorporate carbon capture and storage into the operation, with a tax credit that was part of the Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022.

Construction is to begin in the fourth quarter of next year.

“West Virginia is pleased to welcome yet another business to our state,” PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane said.

Despite being one of the top U.S. gas producers, West Virginia has no other combined-cycle plants, which are more efficient. In contrast, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia have built dozens, largely displacing coal.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rules for power plants announced last week require new gas-fired power plants as well as existing coal ones to capture at least 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions.

The plant will be called the CPV Shay Energy Center. Shay is a type of geared steam locomotive used on West Virginia’s logging railroads in the early 20th century.

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.

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