Fracking emits methane

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Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on October 6, 2012 at 8:23pm

You think you can keep them from fracking your land? Think again. Legally companies can secure mineral rights to extract gas from your land without your permission. You land can be "force pooled". The company can then modify the leases unilaterally, or sell them.

Energy firm uses 'land grabs' to secure fracking rights from reluct...

"The principle of it is insane," said Calvin Tillman, a former mayor of Dish, Texas, a small town north of Fort Worth where drilling has been heavy. "Not only can they take your property, but they don't have to pay you for it."

Chesapeake's use of the Texas law is among the latest examples of how the company executes what it calls a "land grab" -- an aggressive leasing strategy intended to lock up prospective drilling sites and lock out competitors.

Chesapeake has unilaterally altered or backed out of leases. And in Texas and at least three other states, it has exploited little-known laws to force owners to hand over drilling rights and sometimes forfeit profits.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on October 26, 2012 at 12:04am

Fracking controversy abounds. On the one hand in Why Are Environmentalists Taking Anti-Science Positions? Fred Pearce says

On issues ranging from genetically modified crops to nuclear power, environmentalists are increasingly refusing to listen to scientific arguments that challenge standard green positions. This approach risks weakening the environmental movement and empowering climate contrarians.

And yet, recently, the environment movement seems to have been turning up on the wrong side of the scientific argument. We have been making claims that simply do not stand up. We are accused of being anti-science — and not without reason. A few, even close friends, have begun to compare this casual contempt for science with the tactics of climate contrarians.

... shale gas development. The conventional green position is that we should be opposed ...

Yet the voices of those with genuine environmental credentials, but who take a different view, are being drowned out by sometimes abusive and irrational argument.

... let’s look at the latest source of green angst: shale gas and the drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, used to extract it. There are probably good reasons for not developing shale gas in many places. Its extraction can pollute water and cause minor earth tremors, for instance. But at root this is an argument about carbon — a genuinely double-edged issue that needs debating. For there is a good environmental case to be made that shale gas, like nuclear energy, can be part of the solution to climate change. That case should be heard and not shouted down.

Opponents of shale gas rightly say it is a carbon-based fossil fuel. But it is a much less dangerous fossil fuel than coal. Carbon emissions from burning natural gas are roughly half those from burning coal. A switch from coal to shale gas is the main reason why, in 2011, U.S. CO2 emissions fell by almost 2 percent.

... a good argument can be made that a dash to exploit cheap shale gas and undercut this surge in coal would do more to cut carbon emissions than almost anything else.

We don’t have to be slaves to science. There is plenty of room for raising questions about ethics and priorities ...But to indulge in hysterical attacks on any new technology that does not excite our prejudices, or to accuse genuine researchers of being part of a global conspiracy, is dishonest and self-defeating.

We environmentalists should learn to be more humble about our policy prescriptions, more willing to hear competing arguments, and less keen to engage in hectoring and bullying.[emphasis mine]

On the other hand, on the ground reports of what happens to communities and families that sign away their mineral rights to gas companies are nothing but bad news.

Rules for Frackers: A primer on strategies the Gas Industry uses to...

Mortgages can be defaulted, properties can't be sold if the ground water becomes contaminated or methane leaks into the house. Just signing the lease can violate fine print on ones mortgage and be grounds for foreclosure. Promised income fails to materialize because lies were told about the amount of recoverable gas. It's one horror story after another.

So I'm not personally convinced by arguments that environmentalists aren't listening to science here.

Pearce says "Carbon emissions from burning natural gas are roughly half those from burning coal." But simply ignores the greenhouse effect of released methane over the short term and indefinitely thereafter. As long as his "science" only looks at fracking pros, and ignores the cons, he's got no right to accuse environmentalists of refusing to hear competing arguments.

If we compare removing gas from a well for 5 to 30 years, releasing methane during drilling, to the long term greenhouse effect from methane leakage from abandoned wells and increased methane migration because the shale has been permanently rendered more porous, yes we're arguing about carbon. But when we also include permanently rendering an area unusable for habitation because the groundwater's contaminated, we bring up the issue of destroying arable that should be the right of countless future generations. How does a temporary bridge fuel compare to lasting damaging to the biome? When the "science" also takes the future into account, it'll be more plausible to me.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on October 31, 2012 at 12:08pm

The argument that fracked gas is greener than coal is specious. It depends upon the coal alternative staying in the ground. Instead US fracking means that gas is burned and US coal which would have been burned here is exported. So BOTH the gas and the coal get burned, and raise CO2.

US Shale Gas Drives Up Coal Exports

A report by researchers at The University of Manchester has concluded that whilst the US is burning less coal due to shale gas production, millions of tonnes of unused coal are being exported to the UK, Europe and Asia. As a result, the emissions benefits of switching fuels are overstated.

... more than half of the recent emissions reductions in the power sector may be displaced overseas by the trade in coal.

... it is the total quantity of CO₂ from the energy system that matters to the climate. Despite lower-carbon rhetoric, shale gas is still a carbon intensive energy source. We must seriously consider whether a so-called "golden age" would be little more than a gilded cage, locking us into a high-carbon future."

This increases global emissions as the UK, Europe and Asia are burning the coal instead.

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on January 4, 2013 at 12:30pm

Leakage of 9% of natural gas from production fields contradicts claims that fracked gas is a green solution to the energy crisis.

Bridge To Nowhere? NOAA Confirms High Methane Leakage Rate Up To 9%...

… the research team reported new Colorado data that support the earlier work, as well as preliminary results from a field study in the Uinta Basin of Utah suggesting even higher rates of methane leakage — an eye-popping 9% of the total production. That figure is nearly double the cumulative loss rates estimated from industry data — which are already higher in Utah than in Colorado.

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