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.
ZoeyPointFive that is so clever: “Anthropocentric Bedrock Change”! I wish you could copyright that one.
Thank you William Jackson.
The oil companies have nothing to hide. Up here in the great-white-north, every additive, chemical and process, used in fracturing, has been publicly disclosed for several decades.
This is the primary communication issue with the whole fracking “debate.” Anyone who thinks it is possible for fracking to “contaminate groundwater” or “cause cancer,” is so monumentally ignorant that it’s impossible to engage in a conversation with them. Where do you start? Poison’s ratio? Young’s Modulus? geological time? target depth? redundant casing strings? Permeability? Perforations? etc etc…
A perfect analogy, in my mind, is how I explain to my 3 year old that monsters aren’t real. He’s working on the whole real vs imaginary thing, but he’s scared of them. I can’t seem to convince him that there is nothing to worry about though.
But national meetings about LNG and CNG fleets reports disappointing economic value:
Economics of natural gas don’t always add up for fleets
Fuel Fix ^ | June 12, 2014 | Ryan Holeywell
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2014/06/12/economics-of-natural-gas-dont-always-add-up-for-fleets/
Though natural gas is abundant in the U.S., whether it can serve as a financially viable transportation fuel is a difficult question to answer.
Commercial fleet operators from across the country this week are in Houston discussing the economics of natural gas, which often is touted as a less expensive, cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline.
But industry officials at the Natural Gas Vehicles USA conference say despite their hopes for natural gas, converting fleets to run on the fuel isn’t always easy. Though the fuel has its advantages, the finances of making it work for fleets don’t always add up.
“There needs to be some changes in the cost model,” said Bill Bliem, senior vice president of fleet services at NFI Industries, a New Jersey-based logistics company. “Right now, we’re doing it solely for sustainability. We’re not saving any money. I’m glad to hear we’re not the only one struggling with fuel mileage.”
Bliem said his company has about 2,000 trailers on the road, including nearly 30 that run on compressed or liquefied natural gas. But given the huge expense of natural gas vehicle infrastructure, trucks have to put on a lot of mileage to achieve substantial savings over gasoline or diesel.
NFI trucks serving California, for example, aren’t driving enough miles to compensate for the higher cost of the vehicles. Meanwhile, the company is getting about 9 percent less fuel economy with natural gas than it initially expected when it was calculating whether to invest in the technology, Bliem said.
Indeed, natural gas experts say that while savings from compressed natural gas eventually add up, they might not happen as quickly as some might hope.
“The payback around CNG is challenging,” said Brad Hoffelt, senior vice president and general manager of products and services at GE Capital. “It’s challenging just on the vehicle infrastructure, and if you provide fueling infrastructure as well, it’s particularly challenging.”
As Hoffelt describes it, most fleet customers will only consider switching to alternative fuels if they believe they can save money by doing so. For most, the environmental benefits are “generally a small part of the discussion.”
That’s because of the big expense that comes with building a CNG fueling station. Stations that can dispense natural gas as quickly as a typical gasoline station can cost $700,000 to $1 million to build and generally need to support a fleet of at least 150 trucks in order to make financial sense, he said. Slow fill stations, which fuel trucks overnight, cost around $300,000 to build.
Those costs put fleet operators in a bind. Generally, they prefer to have their own fueling stations so they don’t pay markup on fuel. But building a private station is pricey, and it can take a long time for the investment to pay off.
“It’s not really a question of whether it will pay back,” Hoffelt said. “The CNG investment will pay back over time. But some people think two years is too long, and some people think five to seven years is adequate.”
Even companies that have embraced the technology on a wide scale concede there are challenges and the technology may not be right for everyone.
Dennis Beal, vice president of global vehicles for FedEx Express, said trucks that run of natural gas cost 50 percent to 80 percent more than their gasoline and diesel counterparts.
“If you’re an independent operator, and you’ve got to spend 50 to 80 percent more to acquire a vehicle … the return on investment isn’t quite the same as it is for a corporation,” he said.
He added that public fueling infrastructure for natural gas is lacking, forcing the shipping industry into a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma. As it stands today, there are fewer than 1,400 public and private stations dispensing natural gas nationwide, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, compared to an estimated 157,000 gas stations. He said FedEx, which mostly relies on public fueling stations for its fleet, will only utilize CNG trucks in cities where it’s identified plenty of options for fueling.
That is a very pessimistic write-up. CNG trucks are already capturing about 50% of new garbage/refuse truck sales overall in the USA. Many metro bus fleets converted a decade plus ago to CNG. Atlanta implemented CNG buses almost 20 years ago (for the 1996 Olympics) The UPS delivery trucks I see daily are CNG powered. Kroger is in the middle of buying CNG delivery trucks.
The main trouble with CNG is that it is typically used with overnight (slow-fill) fueling. That doesn’t work well for public fuel stations. Instead a private fueling operation has to be built where the vehicles are parked each night. So yes, as long as FedEx wants to continue using public fueling options, CNG won’t likely make sense.
In addition overnight fueling is not practical for long distance trucks. They need a relatively rapid fueling option like diesel. LNG provides that and from what I can tell from the press releases, public LNG fuel lanes are opening now. Lowe’s and UPS being 2 of the biggest customers for the moment, but as I read it they are triggering the opening of public LNG fuel lanes one at a time. As more and more open, it makes it feasible for smaller operators to use the same fuel lanes..
UPS has said they plan to have almost 1,000 LNG trucks on the road by the end of 2014.
As I suggested before, one place to read about successful roll-outs is the Clean Energy press releases: http://investors.cleanenergyfuels.com/releases.cfm
Admittedly, for now public fuel lanes are opening one at a time and each one or two seems worthy of a press release. The good news is the chicken and egg issue is slowly resolving itself as the LNG option is starting to be embraced by regional trucking operations that can manage to operate with a single LNG fuel center for their regional operations. ie. think of a spoke and hub distribution center. Putting a LNG station close to the warehouse is enough to let the trucks servicing that warehouse convert to LNG. That sort of thing is what Lowe’s is doing now.
@ur momisugly RACookPE1978 says:
June 13, 2014 at 6:17 am
Ya DO know that you’re draggin’ your feet on this, right? Where were you with comments of doubt like this about the Prius and other gasoline-electric hybrids that have to be subsidized by a large fraction of their selling cost before people can afford them? They only thing those hybrids and pure electric cars do is shift WHERE the pollution is generated. Not how much, since they’re responsible for the creation of MORE pollution, when the entire chain of their manufacture, use and maintenance is taken into account (demonstrated so many times over the years I won’t bore you with it again).
Since the Obama Administration seems to be of the opinion that they can force everyone to use electric or hybrids and then, since they won’t be in competition with the more efficient gasoline powered vehicles anymore, economy of scale and monopoly effects will kick in, and prices will stabilize on personal vehicles and use and people will adjust, or simply travel much less by anything other than mag-lev rail (run by AMTRAK, of course, at hideous expense to the taxpayer. And never mind that mag-lev rail-lines don’t exist; wishing-will-make-it-so seems to be the approach of this administration)(and most Greens and ALL CAGW prophets of doom).
But if we support the sale of Prius and other hybrids, then we should not oppose, nay, should be pushing for the government to mandate a shift from gasoline to LNG, and after everyone is converted and there ARE no more gasoline powered automobiles, economies of scale will kick in and we’ll have a lot less pollution and everyone will be happy, right?
Or we could all just ride our unicorns.
And I don’t see that the article says the economic value is disappointing:
What they’re all saying, as I read it, is that there are challenges, but they’re toughing it out and staying optimistic. Contrast this situation to windfarms, or solar power, or subsidies for hybrid-electric cars, and then let’s talk about “economic disappointment”.
Why do you think I am in favor of any of those subsidies (for government-paid electric car plug-in stands, for the Volts or Tesla’s or Solyndra’s or the wind mills or the corn oil to fuel or today’s latest “fads” in get-me-a-grant research using fill-in-the-blank-CAGW-funded billions each month?
Where was I when these subsidies began? Opposing them in 1970’s – the 1980’s, the 1990’s , in 2002, 03, 04 ….
Classic rate-of-return financial analysis uses a 10 year period for at least a 10% growth requirement. These do not meet that minimum by any means.
@ur momisugly RACookPE1978 says:
June 13, 2014 at 8:02 am
My apologies if I sound accusatory—but I’m confused by your attachment of the article, and your presentation, which makes it appear that you disapprove of LNG or CNG as fuel. I agree that CNG appears the more difficult and expensive in the short term, though the easier to use: it was in use in the ACT when I lived in Australia from 2000-2003, while LNG was still simply a format for transport.
The reason I am scornful of hybrids is that it is impossible, on the face of it, for them to be more efficient than burning ANY hydrocarbon, as far as I can tell. We cannot mine or drill for electricity, and the only direct methods of generation are solar cell (terribly inefficient at present, and not showing signs of improving significantly any time soon) hydro-electric (limited by geography) and wind (don’t think we need to go into that).
Now I’m just a dumb old sailor, but I’m a US Navy trained Electronics Technician. With hybrids, you lose two ways: thermal losses and hysteresis while charging, and the same on the way out. A hybrid gains somewhat in that breaking is going to be lost power regardless, so it’s a sunk cost. But battery technology isn’t efficient enough to make the partial recovery of sunk costs a large enough gain to be worth it.
Burning LNG (let’s just focus on that, as it’s where we want to be, rather than CNG) is more efficient because the energy is directly used from the burning; no thermal or hysteresis losses for charging and discharging batteries, no losses creating the batteries. Less pollution than burning gasoline, and I won’t even bother to talk about the waste that is “biofuel”.
Infrastructure capital costs: large, yes. But so were those when going from a coach-and-four to a Tin Lizzy. And it’s not complete expense, it’s an investment, if it catches on and enough people use it to make economy of scale work.
Think of the early days of Beta and VHS, 30 years ago. Marketplace competition at work. There is no question in my mind that LNG can be made to work, without the hideous subsidies required by hybrids, while generating less pollution, at an efficiency that is acceptible if not yet as efficient as the much maligned burning of gasoline.
If I sound a false note here, please let me know.
I’m interested to learn that you opposed the nonsense for so long. I did not, because I wasn’t aware of what was going on while I was serving overseas for so long, so you’re one or two up on me there.
I don’t believe anyone who thinks about it seriously can be in favor of any of the subsidies. As I said, in Japan, hybrids are a necessary evil to reduce smog—it’s a cost they’re willing to pay to reduce a grave health hazard. We have no such need here in the US, and people who drive hybrids are dupes.
Again, apologies if I appeared to be casting aspersions, but I failed to any correlation between your statement:
and what I got from the article that reflected that you had a positive opinion about LNG as a worthwhile energy source for which to drill.
If the Federal Government in the US would lose their fear of another “oil crisis” like those of ’73 and ’78, the US could become the largest exporter of energy, and do away with the DoE completely, AND end Russia’s stranglehold on the EU, after they so naively put their neck in his noose.
The current economic malaise in the world is, at its root, because governments everywhere are passing legislation—primarily because of CAGW nonsense, but that’s not the only reason or even the one with the worst impact—that inhibits expanding energy production, transport, or use. These policies have made food more expensive because of fuel costs and the nonsense of “biofuels” while jacking up taxes everywhere to support lunacy like “biofuels” and hybrids. While I cannot myself point to a single study which proves that yes, these policies have killed X number of individuals or name them, anything which increases the costs of fuel and food will have a very negative impact on public health in poor nations at the very least. To say nothing of the warfare to gain control over the little that there is in such places.
Not to go off on a too-excessively long diatribe of a polemic, I’m in favor of drilling, and the use and export of both CNG and LNG. I’m against “biofuels” and hybrids—I’d say both are placebos for those brainwashed green, but placebos do no harm.
In any case, apologies if I gave offense. It was unintended, and I misunderstood your point.
p@ur momisugly
I’m new to “frakking” – and any references to “earthquakes” and “frakking” brings up Greenpease as an “authority” – please post any, preferably scholarly … thanks.
@ur momisugly Brian says:
June 13, 2014 at 3:38 pm
http://tocs.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/53823028.pdf
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=-_L7TUVSw-MC&oi=fnd&pg=PR11&dq=hydraulic+fracture+basics&ots=H2XKCG1410&sig=IRasLS_cfYymmck7UDYav4xl3P8#v=onepage&q=hydraulic%20fracture%20basics&f=false
Just a quick example of what you can find on scholar.google.com
I’m not vouching for either of the two I list, but they should give detailed information more of the sort you’re asking for—certainly more reliable than anything you’ll get from Greenpeace or the like. Hope that helps.
I find the tone and structure of this rant very disturbing. The logic is similar to “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” – if “environmentalist groups” are against something, it must be good for us.
And now the EPA suddenly is cited as a credible scientific authority?? Hello!!
Would you like some FDA with that?
Of course the misgivings of the governments of Germany and France (strangely, Canada, your nearest neighbour was omitted from this list of doubting Thomases) only reinforces the safety of fracking when the wells are “properly designed” (and constructed, and maintained, one would hope). Never mind the EPA’s dismal history in preventing or cleaning up other toxic pollutants, from the Love Canal, through Libby, MT’s asbestos, to Rocky Mountain Flats, etc., etc..
The “almost unanimous” opposition of “environmental groups” (only “groups”?) seems to have become your litmus test for environmental safety. Who needs science? I believe you have contracted the zealotry disease yourself.
I belong to no “environmental group” and was booted out of the only one I belonged to decades ago for insisting on informational integrity (as opposed to propaganda). Nor would most people consider me particularly “environmental”. But I do care about my health and those of my neighbours, and I have been following the fracking debate and reading what little credible information I could access.
And, as it happens, I was considering buying some property in Quebec near the Utica Shale field. But uncertainty as to whether the newly elected government in Quebec will maintain the five year fracking moratorium in effect until 2018, has dampened my interest.
Another data point about LNG getting through the chicken and the egg stage. Apparently there are now enough public LNG fuel stations for LNG trucks to make it from Los Angeles to Houston:
http://www.cleanenergyfuels.com/news/2014/clean-energy-opens-interstate-10-highway-to-LNG-fueling-and-more-061614.html
That is the first true long distance route I’m aware of that LNG trucks can take. Everything I knew of before this addressed regional needs.
So it looks like the good news about the rollout of LNG for large trucks just keeps rolling in.
I forgot to add that Shell opened a LNG fuel lane near I-10 in the LA area last month:http://www.fleetsandfuels.com/fuels/ngvs/2014/05/shell-opens-its-first-u-s-lng-lanes/
It was Shell’s first LNG station.