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A closer look at natural gas
The Sentinel ^ | March 13, 2011 | Stephen Bloom

Posted on 03/13/2011 5:43:56 AM PDT by LikeLight

Imagine a place with more jobs than local people can fill. Imagine a place where small businesses are thriving. Imagine a place investing millions of dollars in infrastructure improvements.

Imagine a place pumping billions of dollars directly to residents. Imagine a place where, since 2007, through the depths of the Great Recession, taxable income is up by over 5 percent and sales tax revenue is up by over 10 percent.

Hard to imagine?

Now imagine a nation with clean abundant energy. A nation where people can efficiently and comfortably run their homes, schools and hospitals for generations to come. A nation where employers can grow jobs in productive enterprises relying on safe and steady energy supplies. A nation where individuals can travel the roads and highways cheaply and independently. A nation where economic prosperity isn't held hostage to the whim of tyrants and dictators in faraway kingdoms. Hard to imagine?

The place is real, and the nation can be real, too.

The place experiencing such astounding economic growth is the region of Pennsylvania sitting astride the vast geologic formation known as the Marcellus Shale. And in those once-depressed counties where clean natural gas trapped in the deep shale rock is now being reached for energy consumers through high-technology horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, residents are enjoying a dramatic rebirth of jobs, business growth, and income.

And, as a result, the Pennsylvania state treasury and the municipal governments in those regions are already receiving significant boosts in tax revenue, sharing in the positive fiscal impact of the expanding private-sector profits, wages, and royalties of taxpaying citizens through the normal workings of existing tax laws.

As the increasing flow of Pennsylvania's clean natural gas energy resources enters regional and national distribution networks, producers and consumers alike will continue to benefit.

For example,

(Excerpt) Read more at cumberlink.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Editorial; Government; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: energy; marcellusshale; naturalgas; pennsylvania
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State Rep. Stephen Bloom, R-199, serves on the House Environmental Resources & Energy Committee. His website is www.RepBloom.com.

(fyi Bloom is me, FReeper LikeLight, Class of '98)

1 posted on 03/13/2011 5:44:01 AM PDT by LikeLight
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To: LikeLight

Well get together with our state reps in Michigan and kick their butts. We have plenty of natural gas and we need the jobs too.


2 posted on 03/13/2011 5:45:59 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: LikeLight
Congrats on serving in the PA legislature.

I know many families in Texas that have recovered their lost retirement from the payments from the Bartlett Shale. Amazing to watch, especially those families battle hardened by the results of the economic recessions from the boom - bust cycle of the oil business.

Thee do not waste their resources. We as a nation should do no less.

3 posted on 03/13/2011 5:50:21 AM PDT by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!)
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To: LikeLight

The whole secret to getting out of the mess we’re in is domestic energy independence...and abadoning globalism


4 posted on 03/13/2011 5:53:04 AM PDT by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you do not, no explanation is possible")
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To: mo
As a PA resident, I can tell you the MSM here is already pushing stories of 'the polluted water and streams' supposedly caused by shale drilling. The enviroweenies are determined to destroy or hamper the industry. Many suburban communities are holding hearings and banning drilling within their areas. The rural areas are a 'go', however.
5 posted on 03/13/2011 5:58:56 AM PDT by Ciexyz
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To: Ciexyz

From a history of Michigan oil and gas exploration. Many of the things the greenies blame on oil and gas drilling happen anyway.

http://clarke.cmich.edu/resource_tab/information_and_exhibits/michigans_oil_and_gas_industry/history/04_oil_and_gas_exploration_before_1925/04_oil_and_gas_exploration_before_1925_index.html

“In 1911 Michigan’s first commercial natural gas well began production. The tabulation of “Reported Discoveries of Gas in Michigan” in the Geological Survey Bulletins is longer than the oil well list and included 116 wells. These were mostly located in ­southeastern Michigan, including Macomb, Oakland, St. Clair and Wayne counties as well as in Manistee County in western Michigan. Many of the early natural gas discoveries were most likely made not as a result of a search for oil or natural gas but were instead test wells drilled for salt or for fresh water. Strong flows of gas from water wells are not unusual in southeastern Michigan and sometimes the shallower rims of the basin can still provide a surprise. In the mid 1980s holes drilled to provide footings for a highway overpass in St. Clair County “blew out” with natural gas. The flow of gas from these early wells was usually quite small. The largest volume of natural gas was in St. Clair County were wells supplied “several families” in one case, “pumps, drills and two houses” in another case and “one house” in a number of instances.”


6 posted on 03/13/2011 6:01:12 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek
I found a map the other day dated March 2010 on the web that has the Whole State of Michigan as an Antrim Source, not just that County. I don't know how acturate it was.
7 posted on 03/13/2011 6:11:21 AM PDT by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: LikeLight

Thank you for being a FReeper, Rep Bloom!

I live in Williamsport and we have absolutely benefitted from the Marcellus Shale boom. Rep Gene Yaw is my representative and he is a great man.

What most people (even Pennsylvanians) do not realize is that we have some of the toughest regulations on the natural gas drillers in the country. Of course, this is not enough for the liberals who spread fear and disinformation across the state.

While the liberals call for higher taxes and choking regulations on the natural gas industry, they will never be happy until they drive them out of the state. That is the dirty secret these liberals can never admit.

With the Utica Shale find below the Marcellus, gas drilling will be in our great Commonwealth for decades to come. I welcome it!


8 posted on 03/13/2011 6:13:05 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: cripplecreek
We have plenty of natural gas and we need the jobs too.

Indeed.

9 posted on 03/13/2011 6:16:42 AM PDT by LikeLight
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To: mo
The US is endowed with an abundant supply of oil, oil shale, natural gas, coal, and hydro power. Technology supplies the means to convert coal to oil and uranium to electricity. A crash exploration/production program would result in the US being energy independent in a very short time.

The only thing missing is the political will. In fact, politics has caused the latest energy "shortage". Your president is on record as advocating higher energy prices. Attitudes have to change and the political will to exploit resources and expand the economy has to be regained.

10 posted on 03/13/2011 6:18:15 AM PDT by Former Proud Canadian (How do I change my screen name now that we have the most conservative government in the world?)
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To: texas booster
I know many families in Texas that have recovered their lost retirement from the payments from the Bartlett Shale. Amazing to watch, especially those families battle hardened by the results of the economic recessions from the boom - bust cycle of the oil business.

Same in PA. And the natural-gas-driven economic recovery is strongest in the areas that need it most desperately.

11 posted on 03/13/2011 6:22:41 AM PDT by LikeLight
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To: mo
The whole secret to getting out of the mess we’re in is domestic energy independence

Amen.

12 posted on 03/13/2011 6:29:10 AM PDT by LikeLight
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To: Erik Latranyi
With the Utica Shale find below the Marcellus, gas drilling will be in our great Commonwealth for decades to come.

Literally a century's worth of clean reasonably priced energy.

13 posted on 03/13/2011 6:31:26 AM PDT by LikeLight
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To: LikeLight; All
I dont normally watch him, because what he does was classified by a famous CFA as financial porn, but I stumbled upon Jim Cramer the other night talking about natural gas. IMHO he is over-caffinated meets ADD pump and dump, but this time he was lucid with a succinct theme and to the point, It was a long diatribe, let me see if I can distill it.

· The Coal State Politician's keep pushing clean coal to protect their interest ( I may disagree with him on technology, but lets continue)
· The Midwest State Politician's are pro Ethanol again do to their voting block.
· Obama is pro Wind, Solar, Biomass and he sort of noted they are not ready because you can't run industry on them
· He then noted the push for "batteries" in cars and trucks and you can't put them in trucks and the electricity you get is 85% coal anyway.

The meat of the matter is Jim is Pro Natural Gas and believes it for Trucks 1st Cars 2nd. He noted look you are investing in (his audience) in this because you want it to work etc. And then he said, it ain't gonna happen with the Obama Administration. Maybe a President after-wards but not him, which is a pound of suckage, because Cramer was an Obama supporter. He noted the Gas stocks and conversion infrastructure companies have taken on the chin as of late.

It was almost like he was telling his watchers this ain't gonna make money soon, sell if you want too.

I have been researching this field for 2 years and I am fascinated by it. I can't help but wonder if it won't at some point soon gather it's own momentum and happen even with Obama and the Sierra Club.

But other points are, I am stunned by the number of market type blogs that are aware of this game changer and potentially getting aboard it, and I am also stunned as to no word yet from Sarah Palin on this. Pushing Shale Gas as a rapid fire move towards energy independence would be a natural for her.

14 posted on 03/13/2011 6:32:47 AM PDT by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: taildragger
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
15 posted on 03/13/2011 6:55:10 AM PDT by cripplecreek (Remember the River Raisin! (look it up))
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To: cripplecreek
Dats da one :-)...

The question is how many more "finds" out their that haven't even yet been found....

16 posted on 03/13/2011 7:02:17 AM PDT by taildragger (( Palin / Mulally 2012 ))
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To: mo
The whole secret to getting out of the mess we’re in is domestic energy independence...and abadoning globalism

That's one part of the secret. Money and banking are just as big a problem if not bigger.

17 posted on 03/13/2011 7:11:41 AM PDT by wendy1946
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To: LikeLight
"And the natural-gas-driven economic recovery is strongest in the areas that need it most desperately."

And whose liberal politicians are fighting the strongest to keep it from being utilized.

Jobs be damned, we have to protect the furbish lousewort.

18 posted on 03/13/2011 7:20:52 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog
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To: Former Proud Canadian

All dams in the Pacific Northwest must be demolished to allow the Free-Range Chickens to swim upstream to their old breeding grounds.


19 posted on 03/13/2011 7:23:52 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: taildragger
"But other points are, I am stunned by the number of market type blogs that are aware of this game changer and potentially getting aboard it, and I am also stunned as to no word yet from Sarah Palin on this."

No word from Sarah Palin??? What rock have you been living under?? Palin has been preaching the use of ALL our domestic resources both in and since the McCain campaign. Do you honestly think she needs to sit down and list off all the possiblities??

20 posted on 03/13/2011 7:24:22 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog
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