Guest essay by Steve Goreham
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a technique to remove natural gas and oil from shale formations, has been under withering assault from environmental groups for much of the last decade. Fracking has been blamed for contamination of drinking water, air pollution, earthquakes, water shortages, global warming, radiation discharge, and even cancer. But it appears that environmentalists have lost the battle against fracking.
Environmental groups have been almost unanimously opposed to hydraulic fracturing. Greenpeace and the Sierra Club favor outright bans, and other organizations call for tight controls on the process. According to the Sierra Club website, “‘Fracking,’ a violent process that dislodges gas deposits from shale rock formations, is known to contaminate drinking water, pollute the air, and cause earthquakes. If drillers can’t extract natural gas without destroying landscapes and endangering the health of families, then we should not drill for natural gas.”
But the case against hydraulic fracturing is weak. Shale is typically fractured at depths greater than 5,000 feet, with thousands of feet of rock between the fractured area and the water table, which is located near the surface. When properly designed, fracking wells are lined with multiple layers of steel and cement casing to prevent leakage of water and natural gas into the local water supply. Approximately one million wells have been hydraulically fractured over the last six decades without cases of water contamination. During Congressional testimony in 2011, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa Jackson stated, “I am not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water, although there are investigations ongoing.”
Earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing appear to be minimal. Only a handful of micro quakes have been linked to fractured wells. None of these quakes have caused damage and most are too weak to feel. Nor is there evidence to show that fracking poses greater air pollution, radiation discharge, or cancer impact than agriculture, other mining, or other common industrial processes.
Burning natural gas releases carbon dioxide, like any other combustion. Climate activists oppose natural gas as a planet-warming fossil fuel and therefore oppose fracking. But gas combustion releases about half the carbon dioxide of coal combustion. The majority of the decline in US carbon dioxide emissions over the last ten years is due to the switch of electric utilities from coal to natural gas fuel, not from the growth of renewables.
Arguments about pollution of drinking water, earthquakes, water usage, radiation, and cancer appear to be a smoke screen to protect renewable energy, the sacred cow of the environmental movement. Natural gas from hydraulic fracturing is a direct threat to the growth of wind and solar energy.
Gas-fueled power plants are low-cost and dispatchable. In contrast, wind and solar electricity is two to three times the price and plagued by intermittent output, unable to respond to varying electrical demand. With hundreds of years of natural gas available from hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling techniques, why build another wind turbine?
Fracking opposition has been strong in isolated locations across the world. Bans or moratoriums are in place in Bulgaria, France, Germany, and South Africa. Protesters are blocking fracking operations in England and Poland. Selected US counties and communities have imposed fracking bans. The state of New York established a fracking moratorium in 2008 and has delayed approval of fracking for more than five years. Ironically, natural gas provides a growing majority of New York’s energy consumption.
Despite the opposition, it appears that environmental groups have lost the battle against fracking. In 2012, 40 percent of US natural gas production was shale gas, using fracking technology, up from less than one percent in 2000. Shale gas is projected to exceed 50 percent of production by 2040. US crude oil production is also surging due to oil recovered from shale fields, up more than 50 percent since 2005.
In Europe, concerns about energy dependency on Russia have triggered a turnaround of government opposition to fracking. Germany is preparing a framework for tapping oil and gas by hydraulic fracturing and planning to lift its ban. The British government is proposing policies to remove roadblocks from fracking efforts.
The Obama administration, despite its campaign to fight climate change, publically supports hydraulic fracturing and liquefied natural gas exports. Climate hawks, such as Senator Mark Udall of Colorado, also support the expansion of natural gas, to the dismay of green organizations. Governor Jerry Brown of California presses for action on climate change, but has not opposed hydraulic fracturing.
Today, hydraulic fracturing is underway in 21 states. Several more states are developing supporting regulations. Despite a number of local bans, fracking is now a frequently used industrial process across the nation.
Shale gas and oil are here to stay. Weak environmental arguments to ban fracking are being overwhelmed by the irresistible economic bonanza of low-cost energy.
Originally published in Communities Digital News, republished here by submission from the author.
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
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The word fracking was a PR disaster, it sounds so unpleasant. Can anybody think of a better name?
I like the sound of “fracking ” the green nutjobs…
“Anthropocentric Bedrock Change”
The actual name for Fracking is well stimulation. This of course could stimulate some minds. Aditionally, water wells are also stimulated. Anytime the formation permeability is low, the stimulation will improve the flow. See what I mean.
Common Sense is winning the battle against the Earth worshipers.
The most effective means of long-term CO2 reduction for those who really believe it’s a problem, is self-sterilisation.
To frack not to frack.
Face the green slings and arrows aspersions.
Or to feed warm family.
Well, everything gives you cancer…
What is needed is education. Hydraulic fracturing has been going on for almost 70 years – like since I was born. From Wikipedia: “The first, experimental use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947, and the first, commercially successful applications of fracking were in 1949. Worldwide, as of 2012, 2.5 million hydraulic fracturing jobs have been performed on oil and gas wells; more than one million jobs were performed in the U.S.[3][4]”
And if you don’t like here is a note from Alberta Environment:
environment.alberta.ca/04131.html
Alberta has used hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas recovery since the 1950s. Since then, … Baseline Water Well Testing for Coalbed Methane Development;
The concern seems to be related to fracturing shallow formations and somehow some environmentalists and news media decided they had a story. Probably there has been an incident or two. Just like with water wells that hit gas or people falling asleep at the wheel.
It just seem like the soup de jour to me since its been done almost since we first started producing oil in Alberta. We have even done it is water wells to improve production.
I learned about “fracturing” in hydrology classes 50 years ago so I don’t understand the media attention. I guess it has to do with the combination of horizontal drilling and fracturing, particularly in coal bed methane and that somehow has evolved to “all fracturing is bad”.
The words “stimulating production” used to be used but that applies to many things besides fracturing. Perhaps we should go back to that.
“‘Fracking,’ a violent process…………… ROTFL
Fracking looks particularly attractive if you compare it with coal mining. It is astonishing that anyone (apart perhaps from a coal miner) could simultaneously campaign against fracking and for continued or increased coal extraction.
Everything that is supposedly bad about fracking (groundwater contamination, fugitive methane emissions, seismic events, CO2 emissions when the fuel is burned) is worse with coal. In addition, the coal industry kills dozens of people a month directly in industrial accidents, not to consider the wider health impacts of the sulfur, nitrogen and other emissions from coal burning.
And the quickest way to stop the coal industry death toll is of course to make gas more economically attractive, through promotion of fracking.
Poor little protestors have lost their teddies and blankies. I bet they still have their binkies and are at the teat of somebody’s tax dollars.
At a big gas conference in Europe the other week it was suggested that the industry should get around the naming issue by talking about drilling for gas using “horizontal drilling” rather than “fracking”. Of course the two techniques go hand in hand when extracting hydrocarbons from shale.
Mike, the correct nomenclature is ‘Hydraulic Stimulation’.
The next step in the ongoing development of hydraulic stimulation techniques is employing entirely re-used fluid which sidesteps two oft-quoted objections to hydraulic stimulation, namely the high water demand required during a well stimulation today in addition to disposal of used fluid and the traces of nasty chemicals contained there-in.
Next will probably be the use of gas (eevil CO2 maybe) in lieu of water as the carrier fluid.
Does the aversion to’fracking’ indicate a childhood exposure to Battlestar Galactica?
MikeUK,
“Hydraulic Well Stimulation” is an accurate way to describe the process.
“Fracking” is a derivative of “Fracturing” which is what the George Mitchell, the genius developr of the process, knew would increase production from ‘tight’ geological formations where low porosity restricted the amount fo hydrocarbons that could be economically recovered from a well. the greens, in their reactionary and fact-free hatred of fracking are really telling more about themselves than the process.
But today’s greens are not about a commitment to accuracy and truth. They are after imposition of an agenda at any cost.
NIgel, talking about exploiting shale gas by ‘horizontal drilling’ would be pretty ambiguous given the number of conventional oil and gas wells drilled around the world each year that involve a horizontal drain section in the reservoir or a horizontal (or highly deviated) tangent section to reach a reservoir that is distant from a fixed drilling platform.
Are you sure the quamby who made the suggestion wasn’t a politician or PR consultant?
I believe there’s still a moratorium on fracking in the National Socialist Democratic Peoples Republic of Maryland.
Nigel Harris says:
June 11, 2014 at 12:40 pm
“In addition, the coal industry kills dozens of people a month…”
======
Oh horse hooey. The industry does not kill people. Accidents kill people. This is a silly argument against coal. I bet most of the deaths are in places like China where they don’t care all that much about works anyway.
@ur momisugly mkelly
I’d say the argument that the coal extractive industry has a dreadful safety record is a pretty strong argument against it provided there are other energy sources that have dramatically better safety records. Which there are. And fracking is one of them.
Well stimulation has been done with many things. Nuclear explosives were used in the swords to plowshares program, such as the Rio Blanco shot. Unfortunately or fortunately it did not pan out because the shock wave decreased the permeability of the formation. Solid rocket propellants have been used to drive fluids at a high rate into tight (low permeability) formations. Rapid drive produces a star shape of shorter fractures around the well. Nitrogen at ahigh rate of injection has also been used. The most common is a spearhead of 10k gallons of HF acid or some other material that will facilitate stress corrosion fracture, followed by a million or more pounds of high quatz “sand.” The grains are about the size of a small pea. The sand is suspended in a common food thickener additive with some friction reducing compunds added. As the fluid is being injected a polymer breaker is added to facilitate the flowback of the fluids. The fluids are injected at about 10K 15K psi. and 5 to 30 barrels per minute using large positive displacement pumps. The pressures and flows will change with the depth of the formation and the stimulation design. Above about 2500 ft the fractures become horizontal as it is easier to lift the overburden. below 2500 ft the fracures will be mostly vertical in the direction parallel to the regional stress. In shale the fractures will go mostly in the plane of the shale.
“When properly designed, fracking wells”
I’d say when properly designed and installed, fracking wells …
One can have a perfect plan/design but if executed/installed poorly the results can still come up short in the performance department.
The 6 year recession that we have been in is what killed their cause. The fact there was no recovery from the last recession before hitting the next one meant people would not pay attention. Add to that the Obama policies that restricted oil extraction by limiting leases, driving up the cost, meant people did not have the money to worry about fracking.
You can only heap misery on people for so long and so much before they retreat to a bunker mentality. Where they seek to assure their own survival, not some mythic catastrophe from a Hollywood movie set.
The states that do not allow well stimulation should also be ecouraged to pass legislation to not allow any hydrocarbon that was produced by well stimulation to be consumed in their state or city. These hydrocarbons were produced by evil means and will only bring evil with them or some such nonsense. I remember that in Germany some scammers were selling radiation shield covers to put over the electrical wall plugs to keep the radiation from coming out. The logic was that the electricity came from nuclear reactors.
“Can anybody think of a better name?”
Cohabitating with the rocks?
Gas-fueled power plants are low-cost and dispatchable.
More proof the current UK couldn’t pull off a one horse parade without a right royal cock-up.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/10/uk_preps_ww2style_energy_rationing/