Dimock, the myth that won’t die for fractivists, enjoyed a brief resuscitation this week when a reporter who’s written more words on the subject than perhaps any other, tried in vain to breathe some new life into the patient.

Shakespeare’s famous play Much Ado About Nothing is a tale of how gossip, rumor and the overhearing of conversations always leads us to the wrong conclusions. Dimock, Pennsylvania, to the chagrin of those who live there and know the truth, has been the source of…

Jeff Heller asks what’s wrong with New York State? Environmentalists, or rather fake environmentalists, have captured the state and at least one of its political parties, to the detriment of its citizens and its followers.

What the heck has happened in New York State? What’s wrong with our state? Here we sit on top of one or two of the richest shale plays in the world, and all we’re doing is watching all the other states (roughly thirty!) take advantage of their opportunities. No one…

Bob Tiberio says Gov. Cuomo seems lost in space, while the people of Upstate New York, the final shale gas frontier, stare into the stars hoping the galaxies will finally smile upon them someday and they’ll be rescued from the science fiction of fractivists.



Houston, we have a problem… with New York. The countdown to prosperity in upstate is on hold. The liftoff of shale gas development has been delayed by a fog of misinformation and false warnings of tornados on…

Energy-related carbon emissions in the US continue to decline as a consequence of natural gas development and conversions of power plants to gas.

There is ever more evidence natural gas, most of which is produced using hydraulic fracturing these days, is leading to lower energy-related carbon emissions. The latest report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued yesterday, is chock-full of data demonstrating how and why U.S. carbon emissions dropped another 3.8% in 2012…

MDN has been closely following the fiasco at Heinz Endowments as purists there apparently reassert control after an errant effort at reasonableness. This compendium of three MDN stories lays it out.

Anti-drillers have been nervous that one of the big-money spigots for funding their so-called research into the dangers of fracking was about to be shut off. In an on-going soap opera that began a couple of months ago, the “longtime head” of environmental grant making for the Heinz…

Global Frackdown? Nah..Time to Drill for Natural Gas Now

Vic Furman says the crass nature of the Global Frackdown reveals its hypocrisy and the money behind it. It’s time to drill for natural gas now in Upstate New York.

Yesterday, in case you didn’t notice and you probably didn’t, there was supposed to be a worldwide event called “Global Frackdown.” It was organized by Food and Water Watch, a special interest group that operates on an annual budget of over $11.5 million and…

Washington County has an economy that can only be described as a Phoenix and it all results from natural gas development driving multiple economic sectors.

The evidence of what natural gas development does for an economy continues to mount. There's no better place to see it graphically than Washington County, Pennsylvania where the Commonwealth's shale gas success began. Washington County is the southwestern corner of the Keystone State, near Pittsburgh, on the Ohio County border. It…

Drilling bans have gotten some mileage here and there but, as Attorney Ken Kamlet writes on his blog, the battle has only just begun because these bans run afoul of the Commerce Clause, which means Federal courts, not state ones, may ultimately decide the issue. 

Attorney Kenneth S. Kamlet, of the Binghamton law firm of Hinman, Howard & KattelI, has written a fascinating piece on the…

A new research report prepared for investors indicates the Marcellus Shale is a huge success story from both a production and profit perspective, leading the way among all shale plays.

Yesterday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch put out their latest version of the Global Energy Weekly (GEW) and it includes some powerful information about what’s happening in the Marcellus Shale play, where production is building while other plays have been battered by low prices. It’s a research report…

Is New York State now so urban that Upstate/Western New York is a secession candidate? Jeff Heller does some wishful thinking before acknowledging reality – that downstate polices are forcing upstate folks out.

Is it possible Abe Lincoln foresaw the ridiculous political situation in New York ? Could he have anticipated that 5% of the land mass of the state would have total control over the other 95%? Could he have anticipated that demographically, under “one man, one vote”, it would…

Bob Tiberio says fractivist misinformation tends to stick unless the facts are told in a simple way that fills the gap created by the false information. Just saying “you’re wrong” seldom works.

“The end of the world will surely come, in eighteen hundred and eighty one.” That well-known prophecy of doom is often attributed to one Ursula Southeil, a 16th…

Jim Willis notes fractivists seem always able to grab attention for their outrageous statements, no matter how credibility challenged they may be. The latest example, from western Pennsylvania, involves some well known names with zero credibility, but there they are; in the middle of the story.

We know everyone likes a good story, so… Once upon a time there were four fractivists: Craig Stevens (from Dimock, PA, he of the little brown jug that supposedly contains contaminated drinking…

Anyone trying to understand the truth about hydraulic fracturing needs to read reports and stories about it with an eye for what’s left out, because that’s often where the truth is to be found. 

Jon Campbell authors a blog called Politics on The Hudson and recently reported on a “study” published by from New York Environment,…

Some perspective on where shale gas has been and how far it’s come is provided through the pen of a UK author who has toured Dimock and knows the truth.

Although the majority of UK residents have only heard of shale gas recently, I’m in year six of the journey. That means not only have I heard it all before as the various myths I have previously refuted here show, I’ve also seen how the shale story has evolved.

I first reported on the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania in August,…

New York City has been stealing water from Delaware County for more than half a century and now it wants to steal its natural gas as well, along with its future.

I’m a landowner and lifelong resident of the Deposit area of Delaware County. My husband and I own 55 acres where we live with our two, soon to be three, little boys. Delaware County landowners and taxpayers have been struggling to be heard by New York City for more than 50 years, but the last five years have been the most…

Progressive columnist and crank Jim Hightower penned a fact-free story the other day in attempt to slander the oil and natural gas industry. Hightower apparently thinks ridicule and sarcasm are compelling arguments but the facts indicate otherwise.

Progressives and professional activists never seem to let a good tragedy go to waste. This time it’s Jim Hightower and his laughable analysis of the Colorado flooding tragedy. Hightower goes straight to the bottom right off the bat when he…

Cabot Oil & Gas just came out with some numbers that offer the definitive pushback to the Frackonomics of Deborah Rogers, the goat farmer and model whose presentations might better be labeled “Foolonomics” given their purpose of fooling the public.



Deborah Rogers was in New York City the other day during her “Frackonomics” song and dance before a group of anti-development legislators and special interests.  State Senator Brad Hoylman, one of the sponsors,…

Wind energy has a place in our national energy portfolio but organizations offering it as an alternative to natural gas miss the entire point and when the DOE over-hypes wind energy with misleading statements, no one is helped.

Last month, the US Department of Energy (DOE) released two studies plugging for wind energy. Renewables are a natural complement to natural gas but, unfortunately, the data presented is very misleading and twists reality to make wind energy look a lot better…

An on-line publication called Gourmet News recently did a story on fracking that caused Jeff Heller to offer some much needed perspective on how real farmers feel about fracking. Here is what he told the editor:

My name is Jeff Heller and I am the president of the Steuben County Landowners Coalition in New York. Neil Vitale is our vice president and I understand he has already talked to you on this. He may have told you that we have 1,700 families in the coalition who own 225,000…

Tony Ingraffea knows how to work an audience and his night in town at Canisius College was a perfect illustration – all show and almost no substance. Cherie Messore reports.

When I heard that Dr. Tony Ingraffea was going to speak at Canisius College on Thursday, Oct 3, I wondered why. Canisius has an outstanding reputation for its business programs and traditional Jesuit values. It’s not a science school per se or the kind place where student unrest is part of the campus culture. I…