Some local folks got good reports after consulting with their medical experts.
Spring continues to progress in the Creston area now with new fish stories. Blue bells, especially at the mouth of Nettle Run, violets, plum trees & Dutchman’s breeches are now blooming making it a great time to walk through the deep woods looking for beauty. Folks have been gathering ramps and the turkey gobblers have been trying to impress the demure hens.
The Calhoun road crew has been working on the Hardman Fork & Richardsonville roads and applying some stone.
Over the weekend there was a significant amount of ditch digging to install new water lines. John Little was called to assist after one existing water line was made into two lines complete with a gap. Others were consulting so as to not cut into gas lines.
On Saturday the Creston Community Building had their Easter egg hunt, complete with the Easter bunny. The rain let up for the egg hunt and the small crowd of egg hunters had a great time.
Sonny Burdette & Chancy Shaw have been out scouting for the route for the first Creston ATV poker run which will be April 30. One 30″ tree had to be cut out of one road that should make for a fun ride. Sonny was doing some work at his place.
The U S Post Office announced that the cost to mail a letter will go up again to 60 cents on July 10. Older folks remember when it cost 3 cents to mail a letter. Inflation is real & if the same criteria were used as basis back during the Jimmy Carter situation the current rate would be somewhere between 15% to 20%.
Royal Dutch Shell reported that their ethane cracker is 95% done & should be in operation later this year [in spite of the green weenies who think plastics come from pixie dust]. The facility will use 96,000 bbl. of ethane daily to make ethylene, the raw material for ethylene glycol [anti freeze] and polyethylene which is the base for most plastics. Some Creston natural gas has 18% ethane. If there was any leadership down at the Mouth of the Elk there would be an ethane cracker being built in West Virginia to provide material for several new plastic factories in the region to utilize the valuable world class oil & gas fields in West Virginia. Also there would be, by now, fertilizer plants up & running using the methane which is the main component in natural gas.
Last fall one fellow spread lime on his meadows and this spring he planned to add “fertilize”. However, the price went out of sight and such was not done. The huge hike in fertilize prices will, of course impact the price of every thing that is grown. At the last SPE ( Society of Petroleum Engineers) meeting a fellow there told of his recent visit to a coal fired power plant in northern Indiana that is scheduled to be shut down to prevent “global warming”. The plant has scrubbers to stop “acid rain” and the result is used to make dry wall as is done at the Mitchell plant in Marshall County. To replace the power plant 2,500 acres of prime farmland is to be covered with Chinese solar panels even when the senile guy noted that there would soon be food shortages. Is anyone minding the store?
One windmill company recently pled guilty to killing 150 eagles with their government subsidized machines.
The use of hydrogen as fuel has been talked as a great wonder and was supported by those who want to ban the use of coal, oil & natural gas to save the planet so that China & Russia, also India, can build more factories and open stack power plants. Now some of the green weenies are upset as they now learned that one has to use natural gas to “make the hydrogen”. Sorta like the energy input to grow corn to make ethanol to add to gasolene. With a projected world food crisis, in part the result of the war between Russia & Ukraine, one might question the wisdom of using corn which is excellent for animal and human food to make motor fuel. The senile fellow told Europe that we would send lots of LNG (liquified natural gas) but his toadies in the regulatory agencies have made it clear that the bad place will freeze over first. As concerns the use of corn for motor fuel one can be sure that ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) will have major input as they own several senators & congress critters.
For all the fancy new gadgets that “folks have to have” there is a need for what are called the “rare earth” elements. There was a good source out in the west but some rich ladies who write laws for us who live in California transferred those to their Chinese communist friends who “were nice to them”. Now the world is dependent upon dictator Xi for the rare earths that are mostly mined in Cathay. However, West Virginia has substantial amounts in places such as acid mine drainage. If our “leaders” could quit thinking about dope dens and gambling parlours for a little while, West Virginia might clean up some mine drainage problems and have a new industry with high paying jobs. It was learned that the fellow who is trying to retire Sen. Mike Azinger is beholden to Randi Weingarten. Mrs. Weingarten is head of the AFT (teacher’s union) and was responsible for school closures, forcing children to wear masks & other things that one might describe as child abuse. For certain most school children have lost time, learning and experiences and will likely never catch up. CRT & “gender studies” don’t do much to allow one to master reading, writing & arithmetic, skills one needs to function in the work force & in society.
The price of local Pennsylvania grade crude oil is now $97.26/bbl. with condensate, formerly called Appalachian light sweet, fetching $83.26/bbl. while Marcellus & Utica light brought $88.26 & medium $97.26/bbl. Henry Hub (Louisiana) natural gas was said to be $6.28/mmbtu. while local gas on the Columbia system (TCO) brought $4.83 and gas on the Dominion lines fetched $4.64. Y grade natural gas liquids from the fractionation plants brought $51.057/bbl.
In the Parkersburg area there seems to be considerable amount of construction which requires concrete. Concrete contains cement that is made using, for the best result, high sulphur coal, The price of coal is now about ten times (10 x) what it was a few years ago. To be environmentally friendly will we have to import our cement from a third world country? Some years back Al Gore Jr. said that, to protect the land, we should import all our food from third world nations. Lucky for us some stubborn folks concluded that he had cooked too many neurons in toke rolling class.
