Gas blowout in PA

... And they are saying fracking is safe! Go figure.

 

People die every day in the bathroom. Do you think we should go out and chop down wood and burn it for heat and cooking. I actually do that when camping. Relative to the alternatives its pretty safe. It could be safer though.

 

Errant tree falling doesn't generally kill other people!

The big issue with fracking as I see it, is that the chemical stew they use to push into the rock, the chemical composition of which is unknown (proprietary trade information) both to the public in general, and regulatory agencies. These chemicals are exempt from scurtiny, and exempt from the clean air and clean water acts. This came out of an decision that came out of the Bush Whitehouse, under the direction of Dick Cheney. The principal beneficiary,,,Halliburton!

I am not arguming that the technique should never be used, but rather there should be standards and transprency as to th e practice. If the fracking companies are putting a chemical stew into the ground that in essenc owned by all of us, and gleaning a profit from it, the should, at the very least be subjected to the same scrutiny as any other industrial activity, and it should be demonstrated that it is safe. At the very least, the risk\reward equation should be known to the public.

Natural gas has an important role to play in our future energy choices, as we ( hopefully) transition away from coal and indeed carbon fuels, but to get gas at any (environmental) price is just a continuation of the policy of getting the energy now at a " cheap" price, off loading the real environmental costs to future generations. This, I believe is a morally bankrupt strategy.

Icarus

 

Not quite the problem with getting rid of natural gas. A homeless guy cooking on a campfire let it get out of control last weekend and it destroyed two houses a lot of trees. I cooked on propane camping the weekend before last because of the burn ban. The wild fires are a big problem right now. Logging does kill, and the alternatives to natural gas are trees, massive deforestation and ruin of habitats to cover our population or coal. With the population of North America natural gas is our best choice.

I'm in favor of keeping proprietary information proprietary, except from the regulators that need to know. If the problem was only a dick and a bush we could easily fix this in the current white house. Natural gas was simply put even with the toxins from drilling and mining other substances. This needs to be reformed. Highest priority would be a reform of MMS and regulation of environmental impact passed to epa for oil wells and coal mines. Next a removal of grandfathering old polluting power plants, mines, and refineries. Way down on the list we need to regulate fracking but it needs to be done.

Here we can agree.

Yep. My post was really in response to how awful fracking is. Natural gas is one of the best energy choices and has some of the lowest environmental costs. This does not at all mean that it should not be regulated, bear its full costs, and provide minimal environmental damage. I just thought the post blew things out of proportion. #1 on dangerous legislation was the 1978 bill that gave incentives to build coal and switch out of natural gas for power generation. It was finally reformed partially in the 1990s. Then in the '80s MMS was formed and exempted a great deal of drilling and mining from environmental protection. This admin said it was going to reform it even before bp, and it should be the highest priority.

 

Are you like a honey badger then......

Totally agree. Personal freedom when it doesn't affect other people. Rules and responsibility when you are in the public domain.

 

Please note, I specifically did not include wood burning when I mentioned errant tree cutting danger, in view of the current fire situation in Texas, (and soon to be other places).

That said, just because certain (every) activity has risk, it is false logic to then say, because people get injured in the bath room, we ought to allow undue risk (and unknown risk!) in gas extraction. You want to frack for gas, prove to the public, and the regulators that it is reasonably safe, and those risks are at least known!

Icarus

 

natural gas is nasty, ooh it's so nasty. oh, and it runs backwards?

Sorry, couldn't resist. Love the honey badger.

I've heard some pretty hideous stuff about the compression stations in texas. Is it true that they create more air pollution than all the cars in the same state? If so, NG is a lot less clean than it's purported to be.

 

I didn't mean to sound like you did. I was referring to wood burning on purpose and accident as being much more destructive to the environment than natural gas use including extraction from hydrolyic fracturing. I believed this is what you were answering and did not understand my pov.

If we cut off natural gas what will replace it. More coal? more nuclear? More wood stoves and fire places in the home? Surely we can't heat our homes with solar. Let's make it as safe as possible, but the process has been going on for 50 years. This awful accident is very small compared to accidents in those other sources of energy. I am in support of the frac act, but it has been around since 2009 and congress still hasn't taken a vote. Much of the time this was under a democratic house, senate, and president. It isn't just the bad old republicans. Its politics as usual, congress couldn't even get rid of tax incentives to drill in the gulf after the bp spill. Before fracking was exempted from the clean water act it, the epa never regulated it. Pennsylvania has the authority under current law to regulate Chesapeake energy and should do so. A little background on the frac act for those unfamiliar with it.

The FRAC Act under attack - Global warming - Salon.com

 

No one here at least is advocating cut off natural gas, what we are talking about is a specific extraction technique.

I would also argue that we can indeed heat our homes ( and cool) with solar. For example, in the grey Pacific NW we heat our house ~30% on average with simple passive solar. (On n annual basis) Nothing exotic, and in fact you can't tell our house from any other, except the south facing sun porch has roof glass. We also heat ~75% our hot water with a simple, not very efficient flat plate collector.

In A/C climes, ground source heat pumps, hot water recovery heat pumps certainly can be run on PV. (resistance electric heat is a no/no for PV as it is orders of magnitude more efficient to use solar to heat directly.

So like so many things, it is not all or nothing!

Icarus

 

I'd be surprised if it's more pollution than all the cars in the state (maybe on a GHG basis?), but it is a larger source of pollution than most realize.

NG is less clean than it's purported to be, yes. It's clean to burn, but you have to do a lot to get to that step, similar to oil refining. The industry's advertising leads one to believe that it just magically comes out of the ground in a pure state.

Regarding fracking, it has been estimated to release more GHG than conventional techniques.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/greeninc/Howarth2011.pdf

 

by reading these posts you would think that any company who had a pump and drill could just go out and "frack".... these companies DID get approved for Fracking from "regulators" who issued the permits to do it in the first place. the practice has also been approved by these same "regulators" or it would never have been allowed at all more or less permits issued to do it.

yes it has risks, these have been weighed by the folks who actually know what they are talking about and looking at not by public opion of thoes who know neither.

 

You cannot assume that because the system is regulated, that it is regulated properly.

Testimony raises questions on review of Pennsylvania gas-well permit bids - Business - The Buffalo News

And now there's been an order that any potential violation at gas drilling sites must go through an appointee of the governor:

Punishments of Shale drillers now need OK from top - BusinessWeek

 

I doubt it for the state but the fracking and pumping from the huge field around DFW does produce more CO2 and particulate air pollution in the DFW area than cars.

 

A great deal of our natural gas does come from fraking. I am for testing and regulating, but not a moratorium. The pipelines from canada and mexico are don't really have more capacity, so any short fall means importation of lng. If there really are big hazzards lets take the hit, but a moratorium on fracking will cause a big price spike in natural gas. Most of the problems seem to be related to bad techniques. Texas will be fine, but I can see California electricity prices doubling or rolling black outs. I hope we don't go back to the '78 congressional legislation worried about our importation of natual gas encouraging more coal plants to be built.

Hot water is a very small part of it. I don't think the north east where this fracking pollution happened is moving very fast on green building. Many new homes here use geothermal and passive solar. This isn't happening very fast. Let's make fracking safer not shut it down,

 

At one time it was common to use diesel fuel as a working fluid, especially to remove cuttings. We simply do not need, have no requirement for, and should not use, chemicals that can cause so much damage to aquifers

The assumption is always that casing is perfect and no leakage can occur. As has been proven with chemical trace analysis, and even natural gas escaping into well water sources, that is a very poor assumption

The profits are enormous (Dogfriend, managed to change my correction dictionary from UK english to American english), and there is little impact on net results if safer alternatives are used

 

To Austin and Striker,

I am not advocating a moratorium on either the use of gas, nor even he process fraking. What I am suggesting is that at the very least we (the population) should have a right to know what the chemicals used are, what the risks are, what the rewards are and what regulations are in place to prevent accidents, and what are the consequences if there is an accident. We also need to know who the regulators are and what their credentials are.

Anything less is not acceptble.

Icarus

 

Thanks Icarus,

Then we are in agreement.

In answer to your questions, I believe the EPA and safety officials have a complete list of chemicals, but not the proportions or exactly which of these chemicals are in each well. Natural gas itself is toxic so it really comes down to whether these toxic substances are used safely and kept to a minimum of polluting water, earth, or land.
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/minres/oilgas/new_forms/marcellus/Reports/Frac%20list%206-30-2010.pdf

These things can be and should be made safer. As of now the state regulators are responsible. These state agencies have been criticized, and IMHO with merrit, for doing a poor job at protecting the environment. Fracking had been going on for years while subject to the CWA, and the EPA had not regulated things at all. EPA is doing a study. EPA also has not regulated air pollutants from these wells and that is certainly in their jurisdiction and should be done. There is a great deal of politics involved and drilling companies point to lower ghg emissions to counter claims of other potentially more dangerous pollutants.

 

The EPA MAY know what the chemicals are, but I don't think the public knows, or can even be permitted to know! This is what I object to.

Transparency is essential for an informed choice!

Icarus