Photo by Walter Disney

Researchers with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have reconfirmed earlier findings of high rates of methane leakage from natural gas fields. If these findings are replicated elsewhere, they would utterly vitiate the climate benefit of natural gas, even when used to switch off coal.

Indeed, if the previous findings — of 4% methane leakage over a Colorado gas field — were a bombshell, then the new measurements reported by the journal Nature are thermonuclear:

… the research team reported new Colorado data that support the earlier work, as well as preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage — an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data — which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado.

The Uinta Basin is of particular interest because fracking has increased there over the past decade.

How much methane leaks during the entire lifecycle of unconventional gas has emerged as a key question in the fracking debate. Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4).  And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned — 25 times more potent over a century and 72 to 100 times more potent over a 20-year period.

Even without a high-leakage rate for shale gas, we know that “Absent a Serious Price for Global Warming Pollution, Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere.” That was first demonstrated by the International Energy Agency in its big June 2011 report on gas — see IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change.  That study — which had both coal and oil consumption peaking in 2020 — made abundantly clear that if we want to avoid catastrophic warming, we need to start getting off of all fossil fuels.

A March 2012 study by climatologist Ken Caldeira and tech guru Nathan Myhrvold came to a similar conclusion using different methodology (see “You Can’t Slow Projected Warming With Gas, You Need ‘Rapid and Massive Deployment’ of Zero-Carbon Power“). They found that even if you could switch entirely over to natural gas in four decades, you “won’t see any substantial decrease in global temperatures for up to 250 years. There’s almost no climate value in doing it.” And that was using conventional (i.e. low) leakage rates.

But the leakage rate does matter.  A major 2011 study by Tom Wigley of the Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) concluded:

The most important result, however, in accord with the above authors, is that, unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change.

Wigley, it should be noted, was looking at the combined warming impact from three factors — from the methane leakage, from the gas plant CO2 emissions, and from the drop in sulfate aerosols caused by switching out coal for gas. In a country like the United States, which strongly regulates sulfate aerosols, that third factor is probably much smaller. Of course, in countries like China and India, it would be a big deal.

An April 2012 study found that a big switch from coal to gas would only reduce “technology warming potentials” by about 25% over the first three decades — far different than the typical statement that you get a 50% drop in CO2 emissions from the switch. And that assumed a total methane leakage of 2.4% (using EPA’s latest estimate). The study found that if the total leakage exceeds 3.2% “gas becomes worse for the climate than coal for at least some period of time.”

Leakage of 4%, let alone 9%, would call into question the value of unconventional gas as any sort of bridge fuel. Colm Sweeney, the head of the aircraft program at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory, who led the study’s aerial component, told Nature:

“We were expecting to see high methane levels, but I don’t think anybody really comprehended the true magnitude of what we would see.”

The industry has tended kept most of the data secret while downplaying the leakage issue. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) is working with the industry to develop credible leakage numbers in a variety of locations.

The earlier NOAA findings were called into question by Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations. The NOAA researchers “have a defence of the Colorado study in press,” Nature notes.

Right now, fracking would seem to be a bridge to nowhere.

Related Posts:

• Ken Caldeira: Natural Gas Is ‘A Bridge To A World With High CO2 Levels’, Deployment Is To R&D As Elephant To Mouse
• Caldeira: ‘The Only Ethical Path Is To Stop Using The Atmosphere As A Waste Dump For Greenhouse Gas Pollution’
• U.S. Natural Gas Capacity Must Peak Soon To Achieve Sustainable Pathway

by Tina Gerhardt, via The Progressive

Hydraulic fracturing, known colloquially as fracking, is a contentious issue, and Hollywood has not overlooked it.

Promised Land, directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Matt Damon, takes on fracking, which involves blasting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals into rock, often shale, in order to extract the oil and natural gas within the formations. Critics argue that the process wastes colossal amounts of water; contaminates air, soil, and drinking water; and may be implicated in causing earthquakes.

The screenplay, written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, is based on a story by Dave Eggers. It’s a decidedly mixed bag.

In Promised Land, Steve Butler (Matt Damon) is a salesman, who — along with his colleague Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand) — travels to rural Pennsylvania. He sees fracking as a chance to help struggling farmers. Working for Global Crosspower Solutions, they sign lucrative leases: the farmers earn money by leasing their farmland, while Global earns by extracting its resources.

Having grown up in rural Iowa, where his grandfather owned a farm, Steve knows first-hand the struggle of farmers, so sees no issues with his mission at first. All the arguments from “can’t survive on federal farm subsidies” to “it will fund the rising cost of a college education” are included in the sales pitch and made in quick succession.

As in real life, heated debates among the area residents ensue. The farmers, who are struggling financially, are tempted to take the badly needed monies to make ends meet. Yet Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), a science teacher at the local high school, expresses concerns at a town meeting about the long-term effects of hydraulic fracturing on the region, its soil, water, and air, and consequently on livestock and residents’ health.

And then Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), an environmentalist, arrives in town, expressing just these and other concerns, too. Who will pay for the clean up that might be needed, once the resources are depleted and the company moves on? The company? The state? The local coffers? Who will pay for any adverse effects on health that might be incurred? Who will replace the lost jobs that the boom and bust economic wave might unleash? A one-man organizer, he goes farm to farm, talking to the residents and putting up signs in their front lawns that read “Global Go Home” and are adorned with images of dead cows.

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by RL Miller

The London-based Control Risks holds itself out as “an independent global risk consultancy specializing in helping organizations manage political, integrity, and security risks in complex and hostile environments.” Or, in practical terms, it provides anti-piracy services, handles kidnappings and other crises, and writes white papers analyzing terrorism risks in various countries.

One suspects that this expertise doesn’t come cheap. Clients buy discretion for large sums of cash, but SourceWatch notes “a long history of working with the energy sector, covering ground in Algeria, Angola, Congo, Nigeria, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Sudan and Yemen.”  And now it’s advising unnamed, but presumably energy-oriented and rich, businesses how to handle fracking activists.

Because a worried upstate New York farmer has a lot in common with a Somali pirate.

The splash page on “The Global Anti-Fracking Movement: What it wants, how it operates, and what’s next” is here. You’re supposed to be able to download the report only by giving an email address to receive more briefings, and if you’re a senior executive in the oil and gas industry you can get the report and a complimentary personal briefing. For those of us who are not senior executives in the oil and gas industry and who don’t want want to give our email address to a shadowy international business that may count Halliburton and Bechtel among its clients, here is the entire report (pdf format).

The report views American environmental activists through the same hostile lens as it uses on kidnappers of Exxon executives. It is shocked to report that “A notable feature of the anti-fracking movement – shared with other social movements such as Occupy – is the extensive use of online social media to disseminate information, organise and mobilise.” (p.8)

The white paper carefully separates those who call for an outright ban from those seeking tighter regulation: “the majority of the anti-fracking movement simply wants tighter environmental regulation of unconventional gas development. With tighter regulation, enforcement and accountability, a sizeable swathe of the anti-fracking movement – from grassroots activists with single-issue grievances to influential environmental NGOs such as the UA’s Natural Resources defense Council (NRDC) – is prepared to drop its objection to hydraulic fracturing.” (p.5) And it goes on to discuss, without actually suggesting that big green groups concerned about climate should co-opt local people concerned about their food and water supply, wink, nudge (p.9):

International environmental NGOs also play a key global networking role. For example, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund) each mount anti-fracking advocacy campaigns and support local anti-fracking groups. yet in contrast with grassroots activists, focused primarily on local social, economic and environmental impacts, international environmental NGOs situate unconventional gas extraction largely within their efforts on climate change.The intervention of international NGOs has inevitably pulled the anti-fracking movement – at the global level – towards the climate change agenda, meaning that purely climate change-focused groups, such as 350.org, have obtained a prominent position. This
has occasionally resulted in friction within the anti-fracking movement, to the extent that some climate change-focused NGOs – though not the three listed above – view unconventional gas as a low carbon alternative to coal. Not only do such groups ignore
pressing local impact concerns, they may also be more amenable to tighter regulation as opposed to an outright ban.

Control Risks’ final suggestions for handling those pesky activists: “acknowledge grievances,” “engage local communities,” “reduce impacts,” and “create more winners” (pay people).  But nothing about actually listening to the activists, cleaning up wastewater, disclosing toxic fluids, or actually reducing carbon emissions. California is next in line for a fracking boom, if the clients of Control Risks have their way the federal Bureau of Land Management’s first auction of fracking leases sold 18,000 acres in ten minutes flat. The divide-and-conquer strategy is just beginning; most large green groups have stayed silent on the woefully insufficient draft regulations recently proposed, Very Serious Editorials opine that full disclosure of fracking fluids is somehow sufficient, bills being introduced echo the call for regulation rather than a moratorium, and efforts within the California Democratic Party to call for a moratorium are being watered down.

As for me, I’m not going to kidnap or terrorize the pro-fracking folk. I just don’t want them doing to the vineyards and suburbs of California what has been done to the farms of Pennsylvania and New York.

RL Miller is an attorney and environment blogger with Climate Hawks. This piece was originally published at Daily Kos and was reprinted with permission by the author.

by Bill Becker

For those of us concerned about the future of the United States in an era of global climate change and international competition over diminishing natural resources, the new report from the National Intelligence Council (NIC) contains goods news and bad news.

The good news: The NIC predicts that in a “likely tectonic shift” the United States could become energy independent in the next 10 years. That’s a goal we’ve been trying to achieve since the oil embargoes of the 1970s.

The bad news: The NIC predicts we’ll get there by increasing our addiction to fossil fuels. In other words, we’ll stop importing oil, but we’ll export more greenhouse gases and make ourselves more vulnerable to rising seas and weather disasters. Surprisingly, the nation’s top intelligence agency doesn’t directly acknowledge this rather important trade-off.

That’s surprising because the NIC was established in 1979 to build a bridge between the intelligence and policy worlds. The analysis of global trends it issued earlier this month was produced with what the NIC describes as in-depth research, detailed modeling and a variety of analytic tools. Experts from think tanks, banks, government agencies and business groups in nearly 20 countries reviewed its report.

And it still got the future wrong.  Missing from the “black swans” the NIC considered are the unexpected technology breakthroughs and underestimated environmental traumas that are likely to prod us into a different energy economy than the NIC describes.

The NIC acknowledges that it can’t predict the future. But its best guess is that shale oil production in the United States, along with a continuing explosion in shale gas production made possible by horizontal drilling and fracking, means that “energy independence is not unrealistic for the U.S. in as short a period as 10-20 years.”  The undesirable environmental impacts of oil and gas production can be mitigated, the NIC says. It predicts that the benefits of more oil and gas production will include lower energy prices, more companies choosing to expand in the U.S., an increase in gross domestic product, an improved energy trade balance, as many as 3 million new jobs by 2030 and fewer carbon emissions than if we continued using coal.

Another outcome would be bad news for cleaner renewable energy resources. Cheap natural gas might result in “the lack of a major push on alternative fuels such as hydropower, wind, and solar energy,” the NIC says. “Under most scenarios, alternative fuels continue to provide a relatively small increase in the share of overall energy requirements.”

What’s wrong with this picture?  Here are a few problems:

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Last week, Sean Lennon and his mother Yoko Ono posted this ad in the New York Times:

The son and wife of the late John Lennon posted this message as part of Artists Against Fracking. The ad explains:

No amount of regulation can ever make fracking safe. No one can be sent thousands of feet under the earth to make repairs once the cement fails – and it will. The enormous pressure and temperature changes at those depths guarantee it…

Fracked gas is not climate friendly. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that leaks from the failed wells, fractured rock and pipelines….

New York can become the Clean Energy Empire State. With an economy bolstered by insulating all buildings. This way we could save far more energy and create FAR more jobs than fracking, plus save consumers money forever. And let’s scale up solar and wind power with a smart grid for truly clean, economical energy.

by Tom Kenworthy

The oil and gas industry frequently claims there has never been a proven case of hydraulic fracturing contaminating ground water. But not even the fossil fuel barons can claim it hasn’t contaminated academia.

Last week, an independent investigation found that a University of Texas study concluding hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses no threat to underground water supplies was tainted by a conflict of interest by the study’s lead author.

That author, Charles Groat, was on the board of Plains Exploration & Production Co. and received an annual fee of $58,500 in 2011 while holding more than 40,000 shares of the energy firm worth more than $1.7 million. Groat has left the university.

The incident has also claimed the head of the university’s Energy Institute, Raymond Orbach, who assumed responsibility and resigned. He remains on the University of Texas faculty.

The panel that investigated the case concluded that “the study falls short of the generally accepted rigor required for the publication of scientific work,” citing Groat’s failure to disclose his conflict of interest as the main lapse.

No doubt the oil and gas industry wishes that this was an isolated case. Not quite.  Other research into fracking, a controversial drilling technique that injects a combination of water, sand and chemicals deep underground to fracture rock and release fossil fuels, has been tainted as well.

A shale oil and gas institute at the State University of New York at Buffalo was recently shut down after conflicts of interest created what the university president described as a “cloud of uncertainty” hanging over its research. And Pennsylvania State University professors rebelled over a study that had been criticized as tilted toward industry, prompting its sponsor, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, to cancel the research.

Tom Kenworthy is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Two new papers tie a recent increase in significant earthquakes to reinjection of wastewater fluids from unconventional oil and gas drilling. The first study notes “significant earthquakes are increasingly occurring within the United States midcontinent.” In the specific case of Oklahoma, a Magnitude “5.7 earthquake and a prolific sequence of related events … were likely triggered by fluid injection.”

The second study, of the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico by a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team, concludes ”the majority, if not all of the earthquakes since August 2001 have been triggered by the deep injection of wastewater related to the production of natural gas from the coal-bed methane field here.”

Both studies are being presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union this week (program with abstracts here).

These studies, together with other recent findings, make a strong case that we need national regulations on wastewater injection to prevent induced earthquakes.

BACKGROUND

As hydraulic fracturing has exploded onto the scene, it has increasingly been connected to earthquakes. Some quakes may be caused by the original fracking — that is, by injecting a fluid mixture into the earth to release natural gas (or oil). More appear to be caused by reinjecting the resulting brine deep underground.

In August 2011, a USGS report examined a cluster of earthquakes in Oklahoma and reported:

Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased.

In November 2011, a British shale gas developer found it was “highly probable” its fracturing operations caused minor quakes.

In March 2012, Ohio oil and gas regulators said “A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth.”

In April, the USGS delivered a paper at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America that noted “a remarkable increase in the rate of [magnitude 3.0] and greater earthquakes is currently in progress” in the U.S. midcontinent. The USGS scientists pointed out that ”a naturally-occurring rate change of this magnitude is unprecedented outside of volcanic settings or in the absence of a main shock, of which there were neither in this region.” They concluded:

While the seismicity rate changes described here are almost certainly manmade, it remains to be determined how they are related to either changes in extraction methodologies or the rate of oil and gas production.

Now the USGS is building on that work in an invited paper presented this week, “Present Triggered Seismicity Sequence in the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico.” Here is the abstract:

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The oil and gas industry has enjoyed relative freedom in hydraulic fracturing without much accountability for its climate pollution and chemical use.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration issued the first-ever national standards for air pollutants related to fracking on federal lands. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas lobbying arm, was even satisfied with the new rules, which still allowed companies to frack first and disclose later.

And that’s the way the industry wants it to be. At an event this week, API President Jack Gerard argued that there is no case for regulating the controversial drilling technique, suggesting companies should get free reign:

“You can’t be for the potential energy development in the United States and be against hydraulic fracturing,” Gerard said. “You fundamentally can’t regulate the very technology that has created the potential and deny the ability to use that in places where we can see job creation, revenue creation.”

There is strong evidence for the need to scrutinize the fracking industry. The Obama administration’s new rules are just a small step in tackling problems, since it applies to only a portion of the U.S. natural gas supply and won’t regulate greenhouse gases. Hydrofracking poses a great risk for the future of the climate, since studies point to high levels of methane leakage, a greenhouse pollutant more potent than carbon. And thanks to exemptions from the Clean Water and Air Acts, as well as weak state-level rules, companies can avoid disclosure of chemicals that are injected near water wells.

by Tom Kenworthy

Many parts of the nation are experiencing a boom that is unlocking large new reserves of oil and gas from shale formations. While this means an increase in domestic fuel production, it is also fostering a gusher of increasingly bitter fights among local authorities, state governments, energy companies, and landowners about who has the right to regulate where and how drilling occurs.

Spurred in large part by concerns over the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, citizens and local governments are mobilizing in support of bans or other restrictions on oil and gas drilling and, specifically, fracking.

Fracking—the high-pressure injection of water, chemicals, and sand to fracture underground rock formations and release trapped natural gas and oil—along with advances in horizontal drilling, has made it possible to develop extensive new fields of oil and gas around the United States. But the practice now used in an estimated 95 percent of U.S. oil and gas wells has elevated concerns about the health and safety of drilling, particularly in regard to those communities close to oil and gas developments.

As of late July “more than 200 municipalities in 15 states, including city councils, town boards, and county legislatures, have banned natural gas drilling that uses hydraulic fracturing,” according to OMB Watch, a nonprofit organization that follows the Office of Management and Budget. Some of these recent developments include:

• In Colorado the state commission that oversees development of oil and gas resources has taken the city of Longmont to court to block the city’s new restrictions on drilling in residential areas and its requirement that water quality be monitored for five years after wells are hydraulically fractured. Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) has strongly backed the agency’s suit.
• In Pennsylvania municipalities are suing the state over a new law that bars them from using their zoning authority to determine where wells can be drilled. The dispute is now before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, after a lower court ruled in July that the law violates the state constitution.
• In New York more than 140 towns and cities have imposed bans or moratoria on drilling, anticipating that a four-year-old statewide suspension on fracking will be lifted once environmental and health reviews are completed. Energy companies have filed lawsuits to question the legality of these local antifracking ordinances, and in October two New York judges ruled in separate decisions that local governments are allowed to prohibit drilling—decisions that are likely to be appealed.
• In Ohio several dozen local communities have called for drilling bans, despite a state law that gives sole regulatory authority over oil and gas development to the state government. In an attempt to gain some local control over drilling, activists are pushing communities to adopt what is called “limited home rule,” which would ideally give the local communities more control over oil and gas drilling, and bills asserting the right to clean air and water.

The uprising against drilling and fracking is widespread enough that the Natural Resources Defense Council, a national environmental group, announced in late September that it has established a new program to assist fracking opponents with legal and policy advice. The Community Fracking Defense Project will operate in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and North Carolina.

“For too long, communities around the country have had little defense against the oil and gas companies that sweep into their neighborhoods and start fracking without regard for the impacts on the people who live there,” said Kate Sinding, a senior attorney in the New York office of the National Resources Defense Council.

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by Steve Horn, via DeSmogBlog

A storm is brewing in Buffalo and it’s not the record snow storm typically associated with upstate New York. Rather, it’s taking place in the ivory tower of academia and revolves around hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” for unconventional gas in the Marcellus Shale basin.

Public funding has been cut to the tune of over $1.4 billion over the past five years in the State University of New York (SUNY) public university system under the watch of current Democratic Party governor and 2016 presidential hopeful Andrew Cuomo and his predecessor, David Paterson.

These cuts have created new opportunities for the shale gas industry to fill a funding vacuum, with the SUNY system’s coffers hollowed out and starved for cash.

“It’s a growing problem across academia,” Mark Partridge, a professor of rural-urban policy at the Ohio State University, said in an interview with Bloomberg. “Universities are so short of money, professors are under a lot of pressure to raise research funding in any manner possible.”

The oil industry’s eagerness to fill the void for its personal gain can be seen through the case study of what we at DeSmog have coined the ongoing “Shill Gas” study scandal at the State University at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo).

Among other findings, a DeSmog investigation reveals that one of the lesser-known offshoots of the Scaife family foundations, key bankrollers of the climate change denial machine, may potentially soothe SUNY Buffalo’s budget woes with funding for the university-connected Shale Resources and Society Institute.

The Prelude to the Storm

A prelude for what’s now transpiring occurred in Spring 2011, when SUNY Buffalo played host to the Marcellus Shale Lecture Series. Throughout the eight-part series, not a single speaker was a university-based scholar and all speakers but one were employed by some element of the oil and gas industry. The Shale Resources and Society Institute (SRSI) arose out of the series, as Daniel Robison of WBFO in Buffalo wrote in a recent article:

The decision to greenlight SRSI came after SUNY Buffalo hosted the Marcellus Shale Lecture Series in mid-2011… Last fall, enthusiasm stemming from the lecture series grew into informal discussions among the speakers, natural gas industry representatives and members of SUNY Buffalo’s geology department.