Localities which it might pass through
I’m referring to the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a proposed 300-mile natural gas transmission line that has riled up residents in the counties of Giles, Floyd, Roanoke, Montgomery and Franklin — localities which it might pass through.
In the small picture they are battling to keep 125-foot-wide swaths of their land from being ripped up, and to preserve land uses, and because they’re wary of potential gas leaks in the high pressure line and other environmental degradation.
But the picture here is much, much bigger. Gazillions of dollars and some serious geopolitics are in play. It’s a bit like a real-life version of the Parker Brothers board game ”Risk,” with some elements of chess thrown in.
To understand this, we have to back up a bit.
The United States is in the midst of a huge energy boom. If we haven’t already, we’re about to eclipse Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil-producing country.
Meanwhile, as a result of the gas drilling process known as fracking, in which water and a concoction of chemicals are injected into the earth, we’re already the biggest gas-producing country in the world. No. 2 is Russia, which is a principal gas supplier to Europe.
Fracking, which is quite controversial because it may be poisoning groundwater supplies, has produced an enormous glut of natural gas that’s expected to grow in coming years. Because of that, the wellhead price of 1,000 cubic feet has fallen from about $11 in 2008 to under $4 now. Which means the fracking companies are making a much lower return on their investments than they were only a handful of years ago.