Hydraulic Fracturing - Have We Seen this Movie Before?

10 Aug 2010 – Jeff Erikson

I have been thinking a lot about energy lately. It seems that the issue is impossible to avoid, even if it is not how you make your livelihood. Here in the US, energy headlines this week included BP’s successful “killing” of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, the US Senate deferring a vote on a climate change bill, and the New York State Senate approving a 9-month moratorium on hydraulic fracturing, a drilling method for extracting natural gas from deep rock formations. Add to that the recent announcement that China has now surpassed the US in total energy consumption (though with one fourth the population, the US is still well ahead on a per capita basis), and a recent report by the International Energy Agency that reveals that fossil fuel subsidies by governments outstrip subsidies for alternative energy by ten to one. And you can understand why the scale of the challenge to move to a low-carbon economy is never too far from my thoughts.

And apparently it’s not just me who is thinking – and talking and writing – about energy. Chevron now has a feature on its WillYouJoinUs website called the Chevron Pulse Report which tracks the online energy conversation – in the first quarter of 2010 there were more than 9 million posts on blogs, discussion forums, video sites, social networks and Twitter. Wow!

Indeed energy IS the defining issue of the 21st century. How we deal with it, how quickly (or slowly) we transition to a low carbon economy, will have a greater impact on a greater number of people than any other issue I know of – short of a meteor landing in Nebraska (and we don’t have much influence over that).

So I am particularly troubled by my own uncertain position on exploiting the vast reserves of natural gas in the US by the use of this technique called hydraulic fracturing. There are two very different pictures being presented of the risks and consequences of this method, and I am not sure which to believe. The evidence by both sides is compelling, and frankly I am torn.

Hydraulic fracturing requires an enormous amount of water to be injected at high pressure to create fractures in gas-bearing rock formations deep underground. The water is laced with all kinds of nasties which improve the effectiveness of the fracturing but aren’t particularly healthy to humans – a “toxic soup”, as some have described it. There is a risk of drinking water contamination as the “fracc’ing” solution is piped to the fracture zone, and as the natural gas is piped back up to the surface. A recently released documentary film called Gasland reveals that numerous homes which sit atop extraction sites have had their tap water turned undrinkable – and in a couple of cases flammable!

Sounds like something we should stay away from, yes? But there is another side of the story. Those who favor hydro-fracc’ing remind us that it has been used safely for decades, that the fracture zone is thousands of feet below drinking water aquifers, and there is no hard scientific evidence that the process endangers drinking water.

They rightly point out that natural gas, which is used primarily in power generation, emits about half of the amount of coal does per unit of energy generated. So the more coal plants we can replace with natural gas, the better the climate picture looks. While a 50% reduction in carbon intensity still doesn’t get us near the 80+% that will be required to keep us below the 2 degrees threshold, it can take us a good way down that road. Burning natural gas also emits fewer air pollutants than does coal, has a much smaller footprint on the local landscape, and is safer and healthier to those involved in extraction. And of course it’s a domestic source of energy to excite the energy independencers.

So how safe is hydro-fracc’ing? Are the claims of the natural gas industry that there is no hard evidence linking hydro-fracc’ing to groundwater contamination accurate? Or is the situation depicted in Gasland the real picture? I suspect the real story is somewhere in between. There have been incidents of groundwater contamination, but not nearly as many as the movie would want you to believe. So it seems that, as it is with many – make that all – of our energy sources, there are tradeoffs and risks and uncertainties.

So where does that leave me and my position? The Deepwater Horizon incident has reminded us that if you drill enough wells, something is going to go wrong. And when that occurs it is tragic, a severe injustice to the people who are directly impacted. But it is also tragic when thousands of people have their lives similarly (or more severely) disrupted as a result of climate change. It is not as easy to point the finger at the direct cause or the responsible party, but it is tragic nonetheless. So if I do the math – and it is fuzzy math for sure – I conclude that more people will be more severely affected by runaway climate change than by the potential negative consequences of hydro-fracc’ing.

But that is not to say that the natural gas industry should have its way, which is essentially to accept the scientific uncertainly, lack of transparency and lax regulatory oversight that it currently enjoys (sound familiar?).

If the industry is to succeed, and contribute as it can to the biggest challenge of our time, the natural gas industry, and individual companies and local, state and federal governments should do all they can to mitigate the risk. This includes putting areas below aquifers that serve large populations (e.g. New York City) off limits to drilling. And it includes disclosing what is in the fracc’ing solution (not currently required), and bringing the industry under the auspices of the Clean Water Act and other applicable environmental regulations. Proceed, but proceed with caution.

This is the essence of sustainable development: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. And it is another instance in the business of energy where taking a more cautious, regulated and transparent approach will actually preserve the industry’s license to operate. Another of numerous lessons emerging from the Gulf of Mexico.