by Richard Muller, Professor of Physics, University of Califoria at Berkeley
Some oppose shale gas because it is a fossil fuel, a source of carbon dioxide. Some are concerned by accounts of the fresh water it needs, by flaming faucets, by leaked “fugitive methane”, by pollution of the ground with fracking fluid and by damaging earthquakes.
Although I believe that global warming is real, caused by humans, and a threat to our future, these concerns about shale gas are either largely false or can be addressed by appropriate regulation such as the controversial but ultimately positive developments in Illinois.
Shale gas can not only reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also reduce a deadly pollution known as particulate matter. Particulate matter is the term for particles found in the air, including dust, dirt, soot, smoke, and liquid droplets. Particles less than 2.5 micrometers, referred to as PM 2.5, are believed to be the most dangerous of these particles as they can lodge deeply into the lungs. Greenhouse warming is widely acknowledged as a serious long-term threat, but PM2.5 is currently harming more people. PM 2.5 is currently killing over three million people each year, including roughly 75,000 in the U.S.
As both global warming and air pollution can be mitigated by the development and utilization of shale gas, shale gas technology should be advanced as rapidly as possible. Environmentalists should recognize the shale gas revolution as beneficial to society – and lend their full support to helping it advance.
Should environmentalists support fracking? Can shale gas limit air pollution? Please share your views.
For more information on this topic, please see my report “Why Every Serious Environmentalist Should Favour Fracking”
Source: http://www.ourenergypolicy.org/can-shale-gas-limit-air-pollution-2/ h/t to Steven Mosher
“Particles less than 2.5 micrometers, referred to as PM 2.5, are believed to be the most dangerous of these particles as they can lodge deeply into the lungs. Greenhouse warming is widely acknowledged as a serious long-term threat, but PM2.5 is currently harming more people.”
Any one care to list all the other sources of particulate matter 2.5?
“This caused extreme price spikes, especially in January”
I should note that price volatility and spikes higher, continued well into February, with a top put in(2-24-14) just prior to the expiration of the front Month(at that time, March natural gas).
I’m thinking that was at well over $6 for the front month/March contract, almost double the price it was trading at to start November 2013. This is when weather models started picking up on the big pattern change to cold, a week before it kicked in.
After the late Feb top, we saw a drop to under $4.3 by early April. Priced bounced from there to just above $4.8 in late April and have dropped to around $4.4 right now.
This is the injection(storage refill) season. There is a very long way to go to get anywhere close to full storage by late Oct/early Nov. We are 895 bcf(billion cubic feet) under storage last year and last year’s Summer was cool, which meant less natural gas demand to generate electricity for air conditioning.
From now until early November, we have a potential 25 weeks of injections. To get back at the level we were at, nearly full in early November of 2013, we would need weekly injections to average almost 36 bcf higher vs the prior year.
That is impossible. Obviously, we can take it out much faster in the Winter than we can put it back in the rest of the year.
Not sure what market expectations are but a hot Summer, with absolute certainty, will cause some big price spikes and result in sustained high natural gas prices.
These will be getting passed on to consumers and businesses(industrial demand) as the year goes on.
A hot Summer means $5+, maybe $6+ if hot enough. Another cool Summer like last year or especially like 2009 could result in making up over half the storage deficit vs 2013 and keep prices well under $5. I believe we have enough increasing supply to pressure prices well under $4, best case scenario with a 2009 type Summer.
When storage is as low as we have currently, anomalous temperature scenario’s have greater potential to move prices up or down.
Again, natural gas storage for this current week, is the lowest in 11 years(2003).
What’s interesting is how low prices really are considering this. 6 years ago, for instance, with storage at 500 bcf HIGHER than what they are now, prices were double current prices.
Why would prices be much LOWER, when storage is LOWER?
Shale gas and massive production that the market knows is there.
Most of the reports of flaming methane in their water supply is caused by people drilling water wells and not reporting them, or having them tested. This has been a long standing problem in the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania and New York state. According to one study (American Society of Petroleum Engineers), up to 20,000 unregulated (illegal?) water wells per year are drilled in that area.
Fracking in and of itself will not cause problems with the shallow water deposits, or leak methane into water supplies. The water tables are usually not much over 1000 ft below the surface, and fracking usually takes place a mile or two beneath the surface.
Similar arguments can and have been made concerning the need for more modern nuclear power.
That argument and $4 will get you a latte at Starbucks. But that about all.
So based on the wisdom of the self styled sceptic Muller, we can expect mass human die offs in China and next to every major desert?
So there should be massive differences in life expectancy between dusty regions and jungle environs.
Closing down coal generation is an ideological argument. The fact remains that we have a couple of centuries worth of coal and it’s a cheap stable fuel supply for power plants. To try and make it up by burning more natural gas is short-sighted. It will cause NG prices to rise as these plants use huge amounts every hour that used to be used by individual households.
Keep burning the coal and leave the gas for homeowners and chemical industries. Coal is a hell of a lot cleaner now than it used to be and comparisons to China with their old and dirty technologies aren’t a good comparison. Much more good comes from cheap coal fired electrical generation than bad. Life is full of choices and risks. I’ll take the risk of a theoretical shorter life for a better economy and cheaper electricity during my lifetime any day of the week.
Mike Maguire says:
May 18, 2014 at 4:29 pm
“This caused extreme price spikes, especially in January”
Mike, one factor was the frac sand supplies fell short because of the cold, particularly in Wisconsin and Minnesota and a few other northern midwest states.
GEE, why am I not surprised?
As I said a few years ago Muller has a consulting business where one of the the TEAM at Muller Assoc. is “former” Shell Oil President, Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive…
The whole CAGW scam has been about getting rid of the competition – COAL.
A short old comment on the subject is HERE.
What are all of the other sources of PM2.5 the EPA wants to regulate?
In Australia there is a big campaign to stop CSG mining on agricultural land. And I tend to agree with the campaign. In Australia there is a legislation that if one is a freeholder of land, the government has the right to come in and use exploration followed by mining. The farmer has no say in it. Our artesian water is not renewable. [Our] water tables are expansive in some areas but can be contaminated. I feel if they do give farmers the right to say ‘yay’ or ‘neh’ if they want to mine on their properties, then it’s up to the farmer. Not the mining companies. Is this the same in the US and UK?
[CSG = C???? Shale Gas? Mod]
Mosher,
What we know is that relatively large concentrations of PM2.5 particles impact lifespan. Any attempt to apply a linear no threshold model to these impacts will certainly result in the wrong answers. Nothing in biology is linear…no dose impact…ever. Is it worth further research? Sure.
To pretend that these questions don’t matter to science and public policy is damaging to both science and public policy.
@ur momisugly Anna Keppa (May 18, 2014 at 12:32 pm )
From Lim et al. (2012) A comparative risk assessment of burden of disease and injury attributable to 67 risk factors and risk factor clusters in 21 regions, 1990–2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010:
Pg. 14 under “Results”:
This means that one cardiac mortality becomes 4 cardiac deaths by attribution to different risk factors, if I understand this correctly. Deaths from cardiovascular disease are one of the biggest components of the PM2.5 death estimates. If I have understood this correctly, then it would be appropriate only to say that PM2.5 contributes to 3 million deaths per year.
With respect to the Chinese study, Chen et al. 2013, the levels of all PM are about 552 μg/m^3 in the North and about 355 μg/m3 in the South or about 46 times and 30 times, respectively, the new limit of 12 μg/m^3 in the US. I have been in cities outside the US where you could not see across the street and levels of PM that high have to be very unhealthy, so I am not minimizing the issue. But the difference in concentration is so great between the Chinese study and the US that the applicability of that study to US levels is questionable.
Further according to Lim et al. (2012) on page 12:
The sources referenced are:
132 Pope CA 3rd, Burnett RT, Turner MC, et al. Lung cancer and cardiovascular disease mortality associated with ambient air pollution and cigarette smoke: shape of the exposure-response relationships. Environ Health Perspect 2011; 119: 1616–21.
133 Pope CA 3rd, Burnett RT, Krewski D, et al. Cardiovascular mortality and exposure to airborne fi ne particulate matter and cigarette smoke: shape of the exposure-response relationship. Circulation 2009; 120: 941–48.
Muller is a strange bird. He tallies an enormous amount of data that corroborates what everyone already knew, that the planet has warmed until recently, and somehow in his mind construes the sheer mass of data as a new indication that the warming is human? Before he amassed the data he thought it might not have warmed?
To his credit he makes very rational and unpopular recommendations if you accept the thesis that a serious amount of warming is human.
Seems like another initial conditions problem…
NO use for this man, or anything he says or does.
Moderator CSG is coal seam gas. This is the concern in Australia. And as far as I know our subsurface aquifers are used but considered fresh enough for stock and irrigation.
The world economy has been burning all energy sources as rapidly as possible. We must ride the wave of infinite economic growth. Why should shale gas be any different? I haven’t heard of anything slowing shale gas technology. Why not advance clean coal technology as rapidly as possible?
Muller is often portrayed as a person who was originally a climate sceptic, but who became a believer. I think he was always a believer. However, he made scathing remarks about Mann’s hockey stick, calling it ‘an artifact of bad mathematics’ or something similar. Of course, it’s perfectly possible to subscribe to AGW or even CAGW and still be capable of recognising bad or even fraudulent science.
I’m baffled as to why Muller thinks the warming is a threat to humanity. History shows that mankind always prospered during the warm periods and suffered during the cold periods. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that the IPCC forecasts are hopelessly exaggerated. If any more warming occurs during this century (and even that isn’t certain) it will probably be small and, as some research shows, will almost certainly be of net benefit to humanity.
Muller is wrong, just as he turned out to be with his Nemesis hypothesis.
Sadly, I’ve lost some respect for Muller, but his book, Nemesis, is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.
Chris
Exploring for CSG may involve accessing shallow coal seams which are in communication with near-surface aquifers (but sometimes CSG exploration attempts to extract gas from deeper coal seams well away from the surface).
Shale gas or shale oil extraction, however, is aimed at shale beds deeper than about 1,500m and these beds are NEVER in communication with shallow groundwater. If the cement jobs on the casings of shale or shale oil wells are done properly, then there should never be an effect on the near-surface groundwater. What is potentially a problem is the theft of cement, as in the old Soviet Union, with the result that poor cement jobs can result in messy consequences. Nasty old capitalism is less likely to experience such bad consequences than noble socialistic regimes (sarc.)
So, bushbunny me old cobber, please don’t confuse shale gas or shale oil with CSG (as it is known in Queensland) or coal bed methane (as it is known in the USA where the technique was developed well before it ever took off in Queensland and the CSIRO came up with the bullshitty term “CSG”).
The USA has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions as well as producing substantially more natural gas at a cheaper price due to the widespread drilling and fraccing for shale gas. Shale gas is mostly methane and comes from geologically tight formations but otherwise is no different from natural gas that is produced from permeable formations such as sandstone or limestone. Fraccing has been around as a technique used by the oil industry since the 1940’s and has been extensively used all over the place with minimal effects to farm houses, etc, etc, etc.
Thanks John, (me old cobber? Only a term for men LOL) when I hear the name fracking I assume they are both similar or the same processes used.
Hi bush bunny you grouse sheila! (Sorry about the wrong gender identification).
The term “fracking” is oil industry slang for hydraulic fracturing whereby water is pumped into formation surrounding the well bore under high pressure and is accompanied by sand proppant (to keep the induced fractures open) as well as specialised chemicals. The technique has been used to render “tight” formations more permeable since the 1940’s and is, by no means, confined only to CSG (or as our American cousins would call it “coal bed methane”) or in “shale gas” production.
Fracking is the name of the technique and experience shows that it is pretty harmless to the near surface with the exception where you have gassy coal seams very close to the surface and use of the technique can affect shallow ground water that supplies agriculture.
Gail Combs said:
“GEE, why am I not surprised?
As I said a few years ago Muller has a consulting business where one of the the TEAM at Muller Assoc. is “former” Shell Oil President, Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive…
The whole CAGW scam has been about getting rid of the competition – COAL.
A short old comment on the subject is HERE.”
Yet Anthony’s association with the Heartland Institute doesn’t prove anything about him. Seems like a selective application of that logic to me.
owyagoin me old mate Johnno, LOL. Well what I sympathize is with the farmers on whose land this will be fracked if they go ahead. The current legislation states they have no say in it. One company that is being involved said they could provide NSW with 25% of its energy. However, this is not completely true, they are selling it overseas.
Armidale NSW had a gas generating station before it had electricity. Piped to the older sections of town until a few years ago, when the site was sold to Centro, and all piped gas ceased and replaced by cylinder gas. But the old gas fires, I was allergic to them, and could not work near them. But it is now more expensive if you use it for heating. Cooking stoves don’t seem to use a lot. They use it in Canada though, and it is expensive I believe.