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Fracking
May 8 2012: Vermont to ban fracking. Vermont is about to become the first U.S. state to ban fracking for natural gas. Legislators are about to approve a conference committee report calling for the ban which reconciles differences with a bill banning the practice passed by the state Senate last week. The measure now goes to the desk of Vermont’s Governor who is expected to sign it into law. link
May 1 2012: New study predicts frack fluids can migrate to aquifers
within years. A study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas
drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected
into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly
than experts have previously predicted. Scientists have theorized that
impermeable layers of rock would keep the fluid, which contains benzene and
other dangerous chemicals, safely locked nearly a mile below water supplies.
This view of the earth's underground geology is a cornerstone of the industry's
argument that fracking poses minimal threats to the environment.
Below:
- What is fracking?
- The dangers of fracking
- Fracking bans around the world
- The technology
- USA situation & Marcellus Shale
| What is 'fracking'? |
Hydraulic fracturing, also called “fracking” or “fracing” is a process that pumps a pressurized mixture of 99.5% sand and water with a small amount of special purpose additives, into a well bore to shatter the rock and release the gas. (The fracking process is currently exempt from federal regulation, and instead states apply their own rules to it.) The Natural Gas industry, which has been exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and CERCLA since 2005, has never been forced to publicly disclose the contents of the fluids it uses to fracture wells. The so-called Halliburton Loophole, inserted into the 2005 energy bill, was a gift of the Bush-Cheney administration (Halliburton invented the process of hydraulic fracturing), and essentially said that the EPA no longer had the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing. link
But the widespread use of fracking has raised concerns about potential contamination of drinking water supplies. Preventing underground leaks of fracking fluid requires proper installation of well casings and careful monitoring. Surface water contamination is also a concern because once drilling is completed the used fluids are brought to the surface and often stored in ponds that can leak. link
The issue of disclosing chemicals employed in fracking is under heated debate as 2010 draws to a close. More
April 2012: The Obama administration said Friday it is creating a high-level working group to coordinate federal oversight of natural gas production, amid industry complaints that excessive regulation could stymie a natural gas boom that has pushed prices to 10-year lows. In an executive order signed Friday, President Barack Obama said the group was needed to make sure a host of federal agencies that oversee drilling work together. link
| CBS's 60 Minutes addresses both sides of the "Fracking" industry in this July 2011 segment - Shale Gas drilling: Pros and Cons. |
What the industry says . . .
The gas industry has used hydraulic fracturing for 65 years in 30 states with a “demonstrable history of safe operations,” said Chris Tucker, a spokesman for Energy in Depth, a Washington-based research and advocacy group financed by oil and gas interests, in an e-mail. Drilling in shale deposits in the eastern U.S. began in 2004. The industry created a public website April 2011 for companies to voluntarily report lists of chemicals used in individual wells, including concentrations. Colorado and Wyoming have passed laws requiring drillers to file reports to the website, Tucker said. link
Improved technology, primarily horizontal drilling, developed over many years, now allows economic production of resources in deep water and large "unconventional" resources, which are difficult to produce. High and increasing natural gas prices have spurred more natural gas drilling and the trend to move from drilling simpler vertical wells to horizontal wells. In the late 1990s, about 40 drilling rigs, or 6%, were drilling horizontally. As of May 2008, the number of rigs drilling horizontal wells has grown to 519 rigs, or 28% of the total. link| The dangers of fracking |
April 2012: USGS scientists report “remarkable increase” in U.S. earthquakes almost certainly man-made.
April 2011: Shale gas could be worse for climate change than coal. Cornell University researchers found that shale gas wells leak substantial amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas which makes its climate impact worse than conventional gas, and probably worse than coal as well. Figures indicate that over a 20-year period, the net warming impact of using shale gas is worse than coal, and, perhaps more surprisingly, that conventional gas may be worse than coal as well. Over a 100-year timeframe, conventional gas is almost certainly better than coal, but shale gas could be worse. link
January 2011. Investigation finds Clean Air Act violated in fracking. Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009, Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act. link
April 2011: Carcinogens threat. A
report released in Congress found more than 650 of the chemicals used in
fracking were carcinogens.
| February 2010: Two of the largest companies involved in natural gas drilling have acknowledged pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel-based fluids into the ground in the process of hydraulic fracturing of hydraulic, raising further concerns that existing state and federal regulations don't adequately protect drinking water from drilling. link |
December 2011: Landowners turn against leasing for fracking. Nearly half of the landowners who have leased their ground to shale gas developers in the north-east of America regret doing it, despite the money. In findings that will intensify opposition to the controversial process of hydraulic fracturing, some 47% of respondents in the "new shale" states of Pennsylvania and New York, who have rented out their land, said they wouldn't repeat the experience. Meanwhile, 48% said they would advise family and friends against leasing their land for "fracking", a process which blasts sand, chemicals and water into shale rocks to release the oil and gas they contain. Fracking has become increasingly controversial in recent months, as the process was found to have caused earthquakes in Oklahoma in the US and near Blackpool in the UK. link
The Halliburton loophole
Despite the widespread use of the practice, and the risks
hydraulic fracturing poses to human health and safe drinking water supplies,
the U.S. EPA does not regulate the injection of fracturing fluids under the Safe
Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The
oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to
inject known hazardous materials, unchecked, directly into or adjacent to underground
drinking water supplies. This exemption from the SDWA has become known as the
"Halliburton loophole" because it is widely perceived to have come
about as a result of the efforts of Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task
Force. Before taking office, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, which patented
hydraulic fracturing in the 1940s, and remains one of the three largest
manufacturers of fracturing fluids. link
A critique of fracturing from a ProPublica investigation - link
| Fracking bans around the world |
France - first country to ban fracking. The
French parliament voted on June 30 2011 to ban fracking. The bill had already
passed the National Assembly, the country’s lower chamber, on June 21, and on
June 30 a Senate vote of 176 to 151 made France the first country to enact such
a ban. The vote was divided along party lines, with the majority conservative
party voting in favor and the opposition voting against the bill, according to Le Monde. The
Socialist Party, in particular, opposed the bill because it did not go far
enough. The bill’s critics said that it left open possible loopholes and that
in particular it does not prevent the exploitation of oil shale deposits by
techniques other than fracking. An earlier version of the bill, which the
Socialists had supported, would have banned any kind of development of the
deposits, Le Monde reported.
link
| November 2010: Movie on fracking - "Gasland" - gets American actor on US terror advisory watch list. Mark Ruffalo attracted the attention of Pennsylvania's Office of Homeland Security when he organised screenings for Gasland. link About the film Energy in Depth challenges the controversial conclusions of the movie. According to Sourcewatch,EID is a pro-oil-and-gas drilling industry front group formed by the American Petroleum Institute. |
reports from elsewhere . . . .
November 2011: UK firm says shale fracking caused earthquakes. In the U.K., shale gas exploration triggered small
earthquakes near Blackpool in northwest England in 2011 UK firm Cuadrilla
Resources said, adding to concerns about the safety of a technology that is
transforming U.S. energy markets. A spokesman said on Wednesday tremors were
triggered by pumping vast quantities of water at high pressure 3 kilometers
underground. "It is highly probable that the hydraulic fracturing of
Cuadrilla's Preese Hall-1 well did trigger a number of minor seismic
events," a report commissioned by the company said. Britain suspended fracking following the May tremor and
commissioned a report into the process, but Cuadrilla has since said there was
little risk that the tremors in April and May of 2.3 and 1.5 on the Richter
scale, respectively, would be repeated. link
April 2011: South Africa calls halt to fracking. South
Africa's government has halted plans by the oil firm Shell to extract natural
gas from the Karoo desert by using a method known as "fracking". The
cabinet decided to stop the development until the ecological consequences have
been studied. link
Australia. Hydraulic fracturing has been suspended in New South Wales (NSW), but
it is still being used in coal-seam gas mining in other states. A Senate
committee recently called for a moratorium on all future coal seam gas fracking
in the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland and NSW. Greens senator for
Queensland Larissa Waters said the Wyoming, USA case should be wake-up call for the
nation. The Queensland Government has introduced legislation banning the
addition of chemicals benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene in fracking
operations. link
| The technology |
May 2011: Possible solution to fracking contamination. An absorbent form of silica can remove nearly all petro-chemicals from the water produced by hydraulic fracturing in shale-gas wells, Energy Department scientists announced late last week. After field testing the modified silica, called Osorb, DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory confirmed it can remove more than 99% of oil and grease from water, and more than 90% of volatile compounds that can poison drinking water. Hydraulic fracturing of shale has become increasingly important for freeing vast reserves of natural gas from shale formations in the United States, such as the Marcellus Shale formation under the Appalachian Mountains. But opposition to “fracking” has mounted because water injected underground to shatter the shale carries toxic hydrocarbons back to the surface and could imperil drinking water aquifers. Approximately 21 billion barrels of produced water, containing a wide variety of hydrocarbons and other chemicals, are generated each year in the United States from nearly one million wells. link
| Shale Gas fracking- The Guardian supplies some facts and figures - link |
Avoiding risks would be very costly. With mounting evidence linking hundreds of small earthquakes from Oklahoma to Ohio to the energy industry's growing use of fracking technology, scientists say there is one way to minimize risks of even minor temblors. Only, it costs about $10 million a pop. A thorough seismic survey to assess tracts of rock below where oil and gas drilling fluid is disposed of could help detect quake prone areas. But that would be far more costly than the traditional method of drilling a bore hole, which takes a limited sample of a rock formation but gives no hint of faults lines or plates. The more expensive method will be a hard sell as long as irrefutable proof of the link between fracking and earthquakes remains elusive. link
USA situation
April 2012: Obama administration sets first-ever national standards to control air pollution from fracking. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued the first federal air rules for natural gas wells that are hydraulically fractured. Operators of new fractured natural gas wells will be required to use technologies to capture natural gas that might otherwise escape into the atmosphere, threatening public health. These technologies will not only reduce 95% of the harmful emissions from these wells, they will enable companies to collect additional natural gas that can be sold, offsetting the cost of compliance. The EPA estimates that the industry will save from $11 to $19 million each year after the rules are fully implemented in 2015. During the first phase, until January 2015, owners and operators must either flare their emissions or use emissions reduction technology called "green completions," technologies that are already widely deployed at wells. In 2015, all new fractured wells will be required to use green completions. While environmental groups are disappointed that the final rule postpones requiring green completions for two and a half years and does not directly regulate methane, they acknowledge that the rule is a step forward. link
January 2012: U.S.
doctors call for moratorium until health studies conducted. The
U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in
populated areas until the health effects are better understood, doctors said at
a conference on the drilling process. “We’ve got to push the pause button, and
maybe we’ve got to push the stop button” on fracking, said Adam Law, an
endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. link
September 2010: EPA results show Wyoming fracking zone is
causing pollution.
Government scientists have found that private water wells in Pavillion, Wyo.
are polluted with toxic chemicals used in the controversial gas drilling
technique of hydraulic fracturing, and residents have been told not to drink
from them. The finding offer the latest evidence that the fast-spreading
gas-extraction method could be endangering public health. link
August 2010: Wyoming survey points to high incidence of 'fracking' related health problems - link
February 2012: Ohio tries to escape fate as a dumping ground
for fracking fluid. link
June 2010: Wyoming first state to act on fracturing disclosures. Wyoming regulators have approved rules requiring oil and gas
drillers to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, making
it the first state to order companies to do so. link
Pennsylvania
is at the center of the battle over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which
promises to open up huge swaths of land for natural gas extraction, but whose
environmental risks are still uncertain. link
| February 2012. The fracking industry buys Congress. The fracking industry goes virtually unregulated. Why? The answer is money. The oil and gas industry has reaped billions in profits from fracking. And since 1990, they've pumped $238.7 million into gubernatorial and Congressional election campaigns to persuade lawmakers that fracking is safe, which has effectively blocked federal regulation. A natural gas drilling rush is on in rural North Dakota. And with it, residents are reporting growing numbers of respiratory ailments, skin lesions, blood oozing from eyes, and the deaths of livestock and pets. Elsewhere, residents of Texas, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming and other states who thought they'd hit the lottery by signing natural gas drilling leases have watched their drinking water turn noxious: slick, brown, foamy, flammable. In December, for the first time, federal regulators scientifically linked hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to the contamination of an aquifer, refuting repeated industry claims that the practice does not pollute drinking water. link |
December 2011: More connections of quakes
resulting from fracking. A string of tremors in Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma
and Texas has raised the notion that efforts to unlock natural gas from shale
rock are the cause
March 2012: Fracking caused Ohio earthquakes - official. A dozen earthquakes in northeastern Ohio were almost
certainly induced by injection of gas-drilling wastewater into the earth, Ohio
oil and gas regulators said Friday as they announced a series of tough new
regulations for drillers - link
Click here for a DOE map of shale deposits in the USA.
Food & Water Watch is a U.S. group tracking
the latest local measures against hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) and
statewide efforts to stop or prevent the practice. (See state measures against fracking here.)
350.org takes on the fracking issue - link
| Marcellus Shale The Marcellus Shale stretches through southern New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The shale contains bubbles of methane, the remains of life that died 400 million years ago. Gas corporations have lusted for the methane in the Marcellus since at least 1967 when one of them plotted with the Atomic Energy Agency to explode a nuclear bomb to unleash it. That idea died, but it’s been reborn in the form of a technology invented by Halliburton Corporation: high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing -“fracking” for short. Fracking uses prodigious amounts of water laced with sand and a startling menu of poisonous chemicals to blast the methane out of the shale. At hyperbaric bomb-like pressures, this technology propels five to seven million gallons of sand-and-chemical-laced water a mile or so down a well bore into the shale. Up comes the methane, along with about a million gallons of wastewater containing the original fracking chemicals and other substances that were also in the shale, among them radioactive elements and carcinogens. There are 400,000 such wells in the United States. Surrounded by rumbling machinery, serviced by tens of thousands of diesel trucks, this nightmare technology for energy release has turned rural areas in 34 U.S. states into toxic industrial zones. In every fracking state but New York, where a moratorium against the process has been in effect since 2010, the gas industry has contaminated ground water, sickened people, poisoned livestock, and killed wildlife. link Marcellus Shale lies under much of northern Appalachia 6,000
to 8,000 feet below the surface; the pores in the shale contain large
quantities of natural
gas. The shale layer becomes thicker from west to east beginning
at about
50 feet in Ohio to more than 100 feet thick in central PA and
NY. Geologists have known about the gas here for years but now
with the
new technologies of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing,
recovering
the gas is now the big new "Shale Play" as the industry refers to it.
There has been gas drilling in the region for over 100 years
in conventional gas plays. But the new drilling process has made the
huge
natural gas reserve in the Marcellus Shale recoverable. Drilling will
most
often be done horizontally in the Marcellus Shale. link |
in other news . . . .
June 2011: E-mails indicate shale gas may be a giant Ponzi schemes - the economics just do not work. The gas may not be as easy and cheap to extract from shale formations deep underground as the companies are saying, according to hundreds of industry emails and internal documents, and an analysis of data from thousands of wells. In the e-mails, energy executives, industry lawyers, state geologists and market analysts voice skepticism about lofty forecasts and question whether companies are intentionally, and even illegally, overstating the productivity of their wells and the size of their reserves. “The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work,” an analyst from IHS Drilling Data, an energy research company, wrote in August 2009. link
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