Plus a map of ‘Fraccidents’ around the U.S.
Two years ago, ClimateProgress started writing about shale gas as a potential game changer in the energy and climate arena. Since then its potential has only grown, but so too has the scrutiny of its local and global impact.
The humorous video below – put together by the investigative reporting team at ProPublica – is a great intro to the controversy:
So is shale gas a bridge to a clean energy future — or a bridge to nowhere?
On one hand, some, like Oxford Fellow Dieter Helm, call shale gas a “glint of hope” for reducing our dependence on coal and creating a bridge to renewables. According to a recent Bloomberg story, Helm said this week that the switch from coal to natural gas in the U.S., China and India, could halve CO2 emissions in the next couple of decades:
“Cheap and abundant shale gas ‘is the first glint of hope in the climate change debate,’ Helm said. Europe should shut coal stations, build gas-fired ones and concentrate on bringing on alternative carbon-free technologies after 2030, he said.”
However, depressed natural gas prices have been blamed for stalling wind, solar PV and solar hot water projects that compete directly with the resource. While a cleaner-burning form of energy like natural gas is much better than burning coal, focusing too heavily on the resource may delay aggressive development of renewable energy. Helm admits this:
“Low gas prices due to abundant shale resources will keep renewables such as wind power ‘out of the market’ for many years and subsidies for renewable generation will be needed for longer than people expect, Helm said.”
That’s a hard one to swallow. Yes, natural gas is cleaner. But the consequences of delaying the transition to carbon-free technologies are potentially disastrous.
There’s also the question of whether shale gas is truly “clean” or “sustainable.” Although gas burns cleaner, the fracking method – which uses hazardous chemicals and reportedly pollutes groundwater in communities – is a potential danger to the environment and human health. The image below from Earth Justice shows the number of “Fraccidents” around the U.S. (click the image to use the interactive map.)
Each of the
symbols below represents a fraccident: Reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, industrial disasters and explosions from hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”
The folks at the investigative organization ProPublica have been following the environmental and health impacts of procuring shale gas, releasing a number of stories showing that, despite industry claims to the contrary, fracking operations are having a negative impact in some communities hosting drilling operations. (For a spectacular piece on the consequences of fracking, read ProPublica’s piece: “Hydrofracked? One Man’s Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling.”)
And then there’s this piece, released earlier this week, highlighting a report from Duke University that scientifically proved a connection between drinking water contamination and fracking:
“The peer-reviewed study, published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, stands to shape the contentious debate over whether drilling is safe and begins to fill an information gap that has made it difficult for lawmakers and the public to understand the risks.
The research was conducted by four scientists at Duke University. They found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to natural gas wells. They also found that the type of gas detected at high levels in the water was the same type of gas that energy companies were extracting from thousands of feet underground, strongly implying that the gas may be seeping underground through natural or manmade faults and fractures, or coming from cracks in the well structure itself.”
The gas industry shot back, saying that the data was “inconclusive.”
Unsurprisingly, as the Houston Chronicle reports, “Republican lawmakers and state regulators blasted the Environmental Protection Agency’s plans to broadly study the controversial hydraulic fracturing process that is essential to unlocking natural gas from shale formations across the U.S.”
Meanwhile, a major project in Pennsylvania led by Chesapeake Energy is still on hold due to a blown out well that spilled hydraulic fracturing fluid into a nearby body of water – just one of dozens reported incidents of fouled waterways around the country. So, is natural gas really a clean alternative? It’s cleaner than the dirtiest stuff we burn now — coal. But is that really the standard we want to uphold?
– Stephen Lacey
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
Fracking is bad news! If you are interested to learn some harsh truths about this unregulated industry, watch the film “Gasland” http://gaslandthemovie.com/. Here are a few tracking facts from their website. Over 80,000 pounds of chemicals are injected into the earths surface to frack each well. Fracking fluid calls for 2,000,000 gallons of H2O transported by up to 100 water-haulers. Upwards of 70% of fracking fluids remain in the ground and is not biodegradable. Researchers suspect 65% of the compounds used in fracking are hazardous to human health. Thousands of wells are in operation from California to New York in this essential ‘Wild West’ of the energy industry, many of which are near extensive river systems.
What good is it to burn a cleaner energy if it requires us to plunder our rapidly-dwindling fresh water supply?
The whole notion of natural gas being a “transition fuel” is phony. There is enough frackable gas in the ground to last at least a few decades, meaning that 350 and even 450 ppm will become impossible. There is no reason that follow ups to the Duke study- which found gas to cause the same amount of emissions as coal- will come up with a different conclusion. The new studies’ authors will be under enormous pressure- and industry friendly studies are no doubt already being ordered- but when the truth comes out, a war over markets will break out.
If we continue to support fracking, the gas industry will become even more entrenched than coal is now. We have learned from Australia that even catastrophic floods and droughts won’t cause enough people to rethink their addiction to coal. Gas would become even harder to dislodge.
My Water’s on Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song) gets a ten. You could dance on Koch and Cheney’s heads to it. But take a number, please, because there’s quite a line forming.
Unpolluted ground water is more valuable now, and in the future, than natural gas now.
meanwhile:
EWG NEWS RELEASE
Administration Stacks Panel With Big Oil and Gas
CONTACT: EWG Public Affairs, 202-667-6982; leeann@ewg.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 10, 2011
The Obama administration panel named May 5 to study hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique that injects thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water into the ground, is dominated by oil and gas industry professionals.
Notably, the panel does not include citizens from communities concerned about the damage to health, water and private property posed by the surge in natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
“An industry insider like John Deutch is completely unacceptable to lead this panel,” Environmental Working Group Senior Counsel Dusty Horwitt said. “It looks as if the Obama Administration has already reached the conclusion that fracking is safe.”
and
“The new administration panel appears to be an effort to undercut the EPA’s study by assigning an elitist group of industry insiders to take a cursory look at fracking,” Horwitt said. “The EPA is trying to conduct a comprehensive study and to listen to the people directly affected by drilling. It’s hard to see how the Energy department-driven panel can have any credibility.”
http://www.ewg.org/release/administration-stacks-panel-big-oil-and-gas
I think that we are missing the big picture: fouling up the water is part of the overall game plan as that would increase the market for potable water. Carcinogens spilled into our food sources increase the market for diet fads and cancer cures. Creating fear creates markets. Creating scarcities creates markets. It’s all about markets and ever-accelerating consumption.
Consumption induced through deliberate pollution or promoted through rapid-fire ads on the internet and TV result in the trickling up of wealth to a select few, who are presumably stocking up for their eternal Life. The wealthy few are pulling the strings on those who run our governments through their campaign contributions.
However, this system won’t right itself as long as we, in the trenches, are only concerned about what that pollution does to us humans. If we won’t drink the water from the neighborhood stream without filtering and treating it, then we must find it unacceptable for wildlife to drink it as well. Until then, I think that we will continue to be jerked around by hydro-fracking techno-fixes and sheer propaganda.
There is a Holocaust occurring, of Life in general, and we are being globally manipulated and stupefied far worse than the Germans were during the Nazi regime. If we sleepwalk through this holocaust as the Germans did in the 1930s, we will be viewed even more harshly by our descendants.
I wonder how long it will be before somebody from the forces of darkness demands that “Oh frack!” be put on the same list of taboo expressions as the original, ME
“It’s cleaner than the dirtiest stuff we burn now — coal. But is that really the standard we want to uphold?”
In a word – Yes.
You can’t have a discussion about shale gas or hydraulic fracturing without discussing the likely alternative for the next few decades -coal. We are closing coal plants today because gas is so cheap and the only reason it is cheap is shale gas and associated hydraulic fracturing:
http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2011/04/two-recent-coal-plant-closings-confirm.html
http://johnhanger.blogspot.com/2011/04/gas-replacing-coal-even-in-kentucky.html
If we were to stop hydraulic fracturing those plants would not be closing. In fact they would be pushing to build more coal plants.
I do think your point about gas being so cheap that it makes wind and solar less competitive is a good one. I will continue to support subsidies to make them competitive and would not be opposed to a national tax on gas and an even bigger one on coal to pay for it.
Raindog-
You’re wrong. The notion that if we don’t use gas we’ll have to burn coal is just another story put out by the oil and gas companies, who are gearing up for all gas power in a big way.
Sailesh-
Good one. Thanks.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/e384226wr4160653/
Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations
From the abstract:
We evaluate the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas obtained by high-volume hydraulic fracturing from shale formations, focusing on methane emissions. Natural gas is composed largely of methane, and 3.6% to 7.9% of the methane from shale-gas production escapes to the atmosphere in venting and leaks over the life-time of a well. These methane emissions are at least 30% more than and perhaps more than twice as great as those from conventional gas… Methane contributes substantially to the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas on shorter time scales, dominating it on a 20-year time horizon. The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20% greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon and is comparable when compared over 100 years.
Mike Roddy at #8 – how do you see us displacing coal power in the next 20 years without gas? Coal currently provides about half of our electricity. If hydraulic fracturing is banned, gas production will decrease by at least 50% over the next ten years. 25% of our electricity comes from gas. How would you propose to make up for that?
Wind and solar are great and I want to build them as fast as possible. Experts say that if we get to 20% renewables by 2030 then we are doing fantastic. Do you think it can get done faster? What is your plan? I am sure Obama would be very interested to hear it. Right now he is going with gas (that more and more will come from shale) as a major part of his energy plan.
In the real world these are the problems leaders need to solve without crashing the economy. You can’t build any wind and solar with a crashed economy. When you look realistically at the numbers gas is the only realistic way to cut down coal consumption.
Raindog-
It’s technically feasible to build enough solar and wind installations to replace the canceled gas plants, and to make a full transition by 2030 or much sooner if we really wanted to. The only limitation is money, but money is required to drill for gas and build new gas power plants as well. Solar and wind cost more, but not that much more- solar panels cost $2 a watt or less for commercial scale, and wind capital costs are already comparable to gas, without the need for fuel.
The notion that we need several decades to make the conversion to clean energy is repeated so often that people believe it to be true. These rumors originate from utility and fossil fuel companies. Germany switched from gasoline to coal to power their airplanes in World War II in less than two years. That is much more difficult technically.
Yeah, this will place a burden on our financial system- and also create jobs, as well as provide the only real hope to avert very dangerous global warming. We just have to do it, that’s all. Coal and now gas power (as evidenced by the new study) will make us toast if we keep burning them.
Mike
I’d love it if what you say is true, but I think more progressive countries like Germany would already be where you think we can be in less than 20 years. They are at about 16% renewables for electric power with an enormous public subsidy. Don’t you think that if what you say above is true that Germany would have found a way to get closer to 100% by now? They have been working on it for about 20 years. We use a lot more energy than Germany. Many of the same people opposed to gas drilling are also opposed to wind projects near them. Getting these approved can take >10 years. Now there appears to be opposition to big solar projects as well. And the transmission lines required to do this will be fought for decades.
And that is only electricity – what about all the heating and other industrial uses for gas?
Why else do you think that Joe Romm would have come out so strongly for shale gas as a game-changer if what you say is true?
Raindog,
There’s opposition to big solar projects because they’re being proposed on what’s essentially defacto wilderness. Its not that people are opposed to the big solar projects, they’re opposed to more giveaways of publicly owned natural resources to the energy industry.
Also, I would argue that pursuing solutions that don’t disrupt the economy is more or less a dead end. Our economy is a dead end. It needs to be disrupted. Shale gas is, at best, a band aid. By the time we’re ready to “transition” away from gas (which won’t happen, we’ll just go back to coal again) we’ll have fewer choices than ever. Trust your own observations of the world. The energy industry is not trying to prepare a long term strategy for sustainability. They’re maximizing short term profits.