The nonprofit environmental news organization Grist has included citizen advocate Laurie Barr from Potter County and Jennifer Wilcox, a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, on its Grist 50 List of people tackling some of the most pressing problems of today in innovative and exciting ways.

Grist said, "These leaders have pushed back against harmful industries (and won), cut carbon emissions from hospitals, advanced wildfire solutions from Hawaii to California, and brought together unlikely coalitions to break ground on clean energy networks.

"They’re teachers, scientists, doctors, farmers, artists, entrepreneurs, and activists who are putting climate front and center in their work and driving real progress.

"While no individual can solve climate change, progress depends on individuals figuring out how to bring their skills and passions to the table."

Profile Of Laurie Barr

Grist included this profile of Laurie Barr, Environmental Advocate & Wellhead Coordinator, Save Our Streams PA for her work related to abandoned conventional oil and gas wells--

State officials have identified nearly 9,000 orphaned [conventional] oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania. But some experts estimate that the true number is in the hundreds of thousands. Laurie Barr is on a mission to find every single one of them.

It’s no small task. Prospectors have been drilling in Pennsylvania since the late 1850s.

When operators go under or otherwise abdicate their responsibility to plug and clean up well sites, the job falls to the state.

Barr co-founded Save Our Streams PA in 2010 to try and help; her work became all the more urgent when methane from abandoned wells caused two homes in a nearby county to explode.

She’s been devoted to finding abandoned wells ever since and has reported more than a thousand wells to the state environmental agency.

These wells are sometimes hidden deep in forests, on public roads, even under homes, slowly corroding and leaking methane, a potent greenhouse gas.

 Some unplugged wells are just holes in the ground, posing a safety issue for passersby.

Barr has been using old aerial surveys to identify drilling sites from the 1930s and ’40s. Then she and a team of volunteers embark on “scavenger hunts” to find the wells and determine whether they’ve been properly plugged.

“What kept me going was knowing that people needed to know about these and didn’t,” Barr said. “I needed to raise awareness and promote plugging.”

She’s now training the next generation of well hunters, with plans to extend the effort into nearby states.

 “I’m 64 years old now, and I know that one day I’m not going to be able to do this,” she says. “That’s why I switched gears and started focusing a lot of my efforts on training younger people.”

[In 2022, the FracTracker Alliance also recognized Laurie Barr as one of seven winners of the Community Sentinel Award for Environmental Stewardship.  Read more here.]

Profile of Jennifer Wilcox

Grist included this profile of Jennifer Wilcox, Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy Policy--

It’s cliché to say someone wrote the book on a subject — but in Jennifer Wilcox’s case, it’s true.

In 2012, four years after she started teaching a course on carbon capture, she wrote the world’s first textbook on it.

Carbon capture and storage, or CCS, has long been controversial, often seen as a distraction or a crutch for fossil fuel companies.

But today, it is also widely understood that carbon capture is necessary to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius.

Wilcox is at the forefront of figuring out how that happens.

She spent the last 3.5 years at the Department of Energy, leading the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management — previously just the Office of Fossil Energy.

Before she arrived, it focused on studying the most efficient ways of producing and using coal, oil, and natural gas.

 Wilcox led a turnaround that saw the office shift to curbing the pollution those fuels generate.

“It’s the most impactful work of my entire career,” she said. “Dollars [are] going out the door to spaces that we didn’t have dollars for before.”

Since her arrival, the DOE has invested well over $1 billion in carbon capture research and related programs.

That money is not without its controversies — CCS technologies are still in early stages — but Wilcox sees the opportunity in funding technologies with potential for significant carbon reduction. She’s also directed funding to clean hydrogen and methane mitigation.

After the stint in government, Wilcox is back doing what she loves most: teaching.

As a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, she’s developing new courses focusing on the barriers — financial, technical, or social — to deploying clean energy technology.

“It’s another chapter that allows me to take everything I’ve learned and share it to the next set of people who might go and do what I just got to do,” she said.

Visit the Grist 50 List webpage to learn more.

(Photos: Laurie Barr and Jennifer Wilcox.)

PA Oil & Gas Industry Public Notice Dashboards:

-- PA Oil & Gas Weekly Compliance Dashboard - Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 - Mystery Oil Leak Into Allegheny River; Holes In Shale Gas Casing; 65 Days Late In Plugging Conventional Well  [PaEN]

-- PA Oil & Gas Industrial Facilities: Permit Notices, Opportunities To Comment - September 7 [PaEN]

-- DEP Posted 48 Pages Of Permit-Related Notices In September 7 PA Bulletin  [PaEN]

-- DEP Permitting Efficiency: 20,595 Permits Since 11/2023; Decisions On 16,745;  Zero  Currently Eligible For PAyback Did Not Meet Decision Deadlines; No Application Fees Refunded [9.6.24]

Related Articles This Week:

-- Abandoned Well Citizen Expert Laurie Barr, University Of Pennsylvania Prof. Jennifer Wilcox Recognized On The Grist 50 List [PaEN]

-- Sen. Comitta: New PUC Pipeline Safety Regulations To Be Published As Final This Month For Public Utility Hazardous Liquid Pipelines  [PaEN]

-- Environmental Health Project: CNX Resources Claims Shale Gas Drilling Poses No Public Health Risks Are ‘Misleading, Irresponsible, Dangerous’  [PaEN]

-- Cecil Township Proposes 2,500 Foot Setback Ordinance From Oil & Gas Infrastructure For Sept. 4 Hearing In Washington County  [PaEN]

-- Center For Coalfield Justice Hosts Sept. 24 Program In Washington County On Increasing Setbacks From Oil & Gas Infrastructure  [PaEN]

-- US Dept. Of Interior Approves $76.4 Million To Plug Abandoned Conventional Oil & Gas Wells In Pennsylvania; 1,234 Violations For Abandoning Conventional Wells In Last 20 Months  [PaEN]

-- Environmental Defense Fund, Moms Clean Air Force To Hold Public Meetings In 3 Northwest PA Counties On A Project To Test New Methods Of Locating Abandoned Conventional Oil, Gas Wells  [PaEN]

-- Source Of 19-Day-Old Oil Discharge Into Allegheny River In Venango County Still A Mystery; Recreators Asked To Avoid The Area  [PaEN]

-- Baker Hughes: PA Natural Gas Drilling Rigs Dropped 2 More Last Week To 16; Nearly 25% Drop In 2 Weeks

-- DEP’s Oil & Gas Workload Report shows during the week ending August 30, DEP received Zero new permit applications for conventional wells and Three new permit applications for shale gas wells.

-- Independent Fiscal Office Reports 2nd Quarter PA Natural Gas Production Dropped To Lowest Level Since 2020; Number Of PA Drilling Rigs Drop By Nearly 25% In 2 Weeks As A Result Of Drillers Trying To Raise The Price Of Gas  [PaEN]

-- Center for Coalfield Justice Blog: Update On Underground Longwall Coal Mining In Greene, Washington Counties; Next DEP Report On Longwall Impacts Due… Soon  [PaEN]

-- PUC Invites Comments On Accelerated Removal, Replacement Of Older Plastic Pipe In Natural Gas Distribution Systems  [PaEN]

NewsClips This Week:

-- Post-Gazette - Anya Litvak: PA To Receive $76 Million To Plug Hundreds Of Abandoned Conventional Oil, Gas Wells; DEP Holds Workshops On New Plugging Grants

-- Earthworks: Radically Misleading - Gov. Shapiro’s Dangerous Partnership With CNX Resources Nurts Communities, Ignores The Facts

-- Inquirer - Will Bunch: Everything You Know From TV About Pennsylvania And Fracking Is Wrong

-- Reuters: Anadarko, Other Natural Gas Companies Defeat Federal Lawsuit In PA Over Royalty Payments

-- Marcellus Drilling News: UGI Seeks To Temporarily Store LNG Gas In Trailers In Scranton Suburb During Winter  [PDF of Article]

-- Scranton Times: UGI Claims Dickson City Boro Has No Jurisdiction Over Plan To Store LNG Gas In Trailers

-- Erie Times Guest Essay: Erie Manufacturer & Business Assn. Questions Biden’s Pause On Permits For New LNG Gas Export Facilities [Court Ended Pause July 1; PA Shale Gas Desperate To Sell Gas To Our Competitor China To Support Their Economy, Will That Help PA Manufacturing? ]

-- PennLive Guest Essay: Energy And Labor Are Both Needed To Power PA’s Future - By Marcellus Shale Gas Coalition & PA State Building Trades Union  PA Shale Gas Desperate To Sell Gas To Our Competitor China To Support Their Economy, Will That Help PA Manufacturing?]

-- US EIA: North America’s LNG Gas Export Capacity On Track To More Than Double By 2028

-- Utility Dive: Ratepayer Advocates Urge PJM To Include Power Plants With ‘Reliability-Must-Run’ Contracts In Next Electricity Auction; Would Have Lowered Overall Cost Of Last Auction By $5 Billion

-- Utility Dive: Reregulation?  How Utilities And States Are Responding To PJM’s Record Electricity Capacity Prices [Part 1 of 3]

-- Utility Dive: PJM Considers Fast-Track Review For Shovel-Ready Electric Generation Projects [Part 2 of 3]

-- Utility Dive: Increasing Capacity Of Existing Generation, Batteries, Demand Response May Offer Near-Term Responses To Record PJM Electricity Auction Prices [Part 3 of 3]

-- Bloomberg: High Natural Gas, Other Fossil Fuel Use Highlights US Challenge To Clean Energy Transition

-- Bloomberg: European Natural Gas Prices Approach Oversold Zone After 3-Day Sell-Off

-- Reuters: US LNG Gas Export Dominance Tested As Europe’s Demand Wilts

-- Reuters: US Regulators OK First Step To Start New Louisiana LNG Gas Export Facility

-- Bloomberg: DOE Approves New Fortress Energy LNG Gas Export Facility In Mexico

-- US EIA: North America’s LNG Gas Export Capacity On Track To More Than Double By 2028

-- The Guardian: How An LNG As Export Facility Project Along The Gulf Coast Is Upending Residents’ Lives

[Posted: September 5, 2024]

9/9/2024