ORVI Insider #19: RGGI Revenue Could Help Ease the Energy Transition in PA
The latest news, research, and analysis from the Ohio River Valley Institute. June 30, 2021 A new report from the Ohio River Valley Institute outlines the economic opportunities of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Institute (RGGI), a cap-and-invest program for greenhouse gas emissions currently in place in eleven U.S. […]
Joe Manchin Cites ORVI Report in Senate Hearing on Abandoned Mine Land Damage
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) pointed to a recent Ohio River Valley Institute report in a Senate committee last week on the huge economic opportunities of abandoned coal mine reclamation. “The Department of the Interior estimates the cost to complete [abandoned mine land] reclamation work at $10.6 billion. According to recent reports from the Ohio River […]
FIDdlesticks: Why PTTGC can’t make up its mind
Don’t look now, but it’s late-June – season of the summer solstice and the now annual announcement by PTTGC that, despite previous assurances, it must yet again delay a final investment decision on the proposed ethane cracker in Belmont County, Ohio. Recall that in February an uproar arose when the Bangkok Post reported that PTTGC […]
Fact-Checking Fitzgerald on Fracking
In response to Pittsburgh protests over fracking and petrochemical development in the region, Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald uttered a string of half-truths and factual distortions about the impacts of the industry. As a corrective to Fitzgerald and other industry boosters, the Ohio River Valley Institute is offering here a fact-based response. According to Don […]
ORVI Insider #18: What’s the Future of the Ohio River?
ORVI Insider Vol. 18 June 15, 2021 What will our Ohio River look like in 10 years? To see the future of the Ohio Valley, ORVI Research Fellow Eric de Place writes, look to a place that is almost its antipode: the tropical waters of Sri Lanka. Billions of tiny resin pellets, […]
The Future of the Ohio River Is in Sri Lanka
To see the future of the Ohio River you can look to a place that is almost its antipode: the tropical coastal waters of Sri Lanka. It’s there, some 9,000 miles away as the crow flies, that residents have recently discovered the scourge of pollution from the tiny resin pellets that are used to make plastic […]
REGROW Act Could Provide $1.7 Billion to Clean Up Hazardous Wells in Appalachia
In early April, we released a report outlining the benefits of plugging and cleaning up orphan and abandoned oil and gas wells in Appalachia. Since that time, there have been several bills introduced in Congress to address the issue. These include the Orphan Well Cleanup and Jobs Act (HR 2415) in the House and the […]
Appalachia Could Address Poverty and Build Worker Power by Reforesting Mine-scarred Land
This post is the second in a four-part series based on a recent ORVI report on abandoned mine land (AML) issues. Figures cited below can be found in the accompanying report. Abandoned coal mines have damaged thousands of acres of land, polluted hundreds of miles of streams, and are emitting tons of greenhouse gases. In […]
ORVI Insider #17: Could a Former Coal Town in Washington Provide a Model for Appalachia’s Energy Transition?
ORVI Insider Vol. 17 May 25, 2021 Could a former coal town in Washington State provide a model for Appalachia’s energy transition? In 2011, Centralia, Washington was struggling to deal with a shuttered coal mine, the looming retirement of a coal-fired power plant, and the loss of more than 900 […]
Jobs and equitable transition: Bridging the chasm between rhetoric and action
There was a time when the sight of rows of office workers hammering away at their Friden adding machines would have sent me into paroxysms of delight because I, the Victor Comptometer salesman, had a new and better “programmable calculator” that could kick the Friden’s ass. I was a young 1970s college graduate entering the […]