View of the FirstEnergy R.E. Burger power plant in Shadyside, Ohio on 01/31/2016. The plant’s coal-fired boilers were taken off line in 2011 and the facility was completely closed in 2015. The site is being considered for a new ethane cracker plant. The processing plant would take ethane from the Utica and Marcellus Shale formations and convert it into ethylene, which is used in the petrochemical industry.
Wells are being drilled across the states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to extract gas from the Marcellus and Utica Shale, rock formations that extends throughout much of the Appalachian Basin. Gas companies are using a technique known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”, which involves pumping fluid into wells at high pressure in order to fracture the rock formation and release the gas. Noah Addis/Marcellus Shale Documentary Project