It's like some in the gas industry are living in a different universe from the rest of us, when it comes to the risks from shale gas extraction via fracking. Call it the "Spin Zone."
At a Wall Street Journal conference last week, Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon told attendees he's unaware of any problems resulting from the thousands of fracking wells drilled in Fort Worth, Texas in recent years. McClendon peevishly referred to the fracking-related air pollution concerns I raised at the conference as "environmental nonsense."
Well, read on. Then decide who's talking "nonsense":
- In December 2011, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) reported that oil and gas operations in the Dallas-Fort Worth region emit more smog-causing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than all cars, trucks, buses and other mobile sources in the area combined. This wasn't true before the fracking boom: TCEQ's data shows that VOCs from oil and gas production have increased 60 percent since 2006.
- Ozone, a corrosive gas that can exacerbate asthma and other respiratory diseases, is created when VOCs from petroleum operations mix with heat and sunlight. In 2011, Dallas-Fort Worth violated federal ozone standards on more days than anywhere else in Texas. Dallas-Fort Worth is a "particularly extreme" example of higher air pollution in Texas, according to David Allen, a chemical engineering professor and state air-quality program director.
- In 2010, TCEQ found elevated levels of benzene around 21 gas fields out of the 94 it tested in the Barnett Shale. According to TCEQ toxicologist Shannon Ethridge, their monitors in the Barnett Shale pulled up "some of the highest benzene concentrations we have monitored in the state."
- In Texas, which had about 93,000 natural-gas wells in 2011, up from around 58,000 a dozen years ago, a hospital system in six counties with some of the heaviest drilling, including the Barnett Shale region, found that "children in the community ages 6-9 are three times more likely to have asthma than the average for that age group in the State of Texas." According to Baylor University, in 2009, childhood asthma rates in the Tarrant County area of the Barnett were more than double the national average, prompting a new study to evaluate asthma and pollution sources.
Up north in the Mountain States, the problem is just as serious:
- According to a 2012 study from the Colorado School of Public Health, cancer risks were 66 percent higher for residents living less than half a mile from oil and gas wells than for those living farther away, with benzene being the major contributor to the increased risk. This same study reminds us that chronic exposure to ozone, prevalent at gas production sites, can lead to asthma and pulmonary diseases, particularly in children and the aged.
- A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found elevated levels of methane coming from well sites in Northeastern Colorado. NOAA scientists say initial results from another study show high concentrations of butane, ethane and propane in Erie, east of Boulder, where hundreds of natural-gas wells are operating." "We are finding a huge amount of methane and other chemicals coming out of the natural-gas fields," said Russell Schnell, a NOAA scientist in Boulder. NOAA estimates that gas producers in this area are losing about 4 percent of gas to the atmosphere -- not including losses in the pipeline and distribution system.
- Levels of ozone in Wyoming's fracking country are higher than in Los Angeles (Wyoming levels have been as high as 124 parts per billion, two-thirds higher than the federal EPA's maximum healthy limit). In 2009, Wyoming's environmental agency concluded "that elevated ozone at the Boulder [Wyoming] monitor is primarily due to local emissions from oil and gas (O&G) development activities: drilling, production, storage, transport, and treating."
Finally, let's not forget the 2011 Duke University study proving that drinking water wells near fracking sites have 17 times more methane than wells not located near fracking, and that this extra methane has a chemical fingerprint which shows it's coming from deep drilling. Fracking operations have generated billions of gallons of radiation-laced toxic wastewater that weren't managed properly and fracking has forced families to abandon their homes after they were poisoned by dangerous levels of arsenic, benzene and toluene.
Most drillers remain in deep denial, routinely choosing to circle the wagons rather than acknowledge environmental and public health problems. As one Wall Street Journal conference blogger pointedly observed, after I suggested that the gas companies deny problems and demonize critics, McClendon's next move was, well, to deny and demonize. To be fair, other pro-fracking conference panelists like former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell were somewhat more critical of the industry, arguing that the gas companies must accept blame for rushing fracking and relying on "cowboy" drillers.
In the end, conference attendees weren't buying the drillers' "don't worry, just keep buying more of our gas" message. After my and McClendon's mini-debate, an astonishing 49 percent of this business-friendly audience said that we need federal regulation of the gas industry. Only 7 percent thought the answer to our problems lies with self-regulation by the frackers.
Fracking and its impact on public health, in particular our children's health, is a serious issue that calls for swift action -- action that the gas industry repeatedly tries to block. In New York, for example, the industry recently helped kill a legislative proposal for a public health impact assessment which hundreds of medical professionals had joined community activists and environmentalists in supporting.
Let the gas companies continue to deny fracking's proven link to air and water pollution. The public isn't buying their spin. They know where the "nonsense" is coming from.
Photo credit: Greg Schneider / Genesis Photos
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a mountain of dribble with the smuggest delivery.
There are no f-a-c-t-s in this "article"....sure see a lot of insinuations and presumptions but no facts.
And nobody wants nuclear. So unless you are prepared to pay extremely high energy costs while the poor suffer, you better have a cup of coffee and wake up. Put blame where it belongs.
Yeah, 2011 was a record wildfire year. Let's hope for rain.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/event.php?id=52029
You could see the Texas fires from space.
If your claim has ANY merit, which it does not, then the same or greater levels of ozone non-attainment would have been found in the areas immediately surrounding those wildfires, none of which were in or immediately around DFW.
FEW REALIZE THAT THE WATER AND CHEMICALS USED TO PRESSURIZE ROCKS ACTUALLY CREATES THE NATURAL GAS. A SOLID GAS, KEROGEN, IS LIQUIFIED AND WHEN MIXED WITH THE UNKNOWN CHEMICALS CREATES THE METHANE.
One of the dangers of uncaptured methane is that one of its oxidants is formaldehyde. Formaldehyde exposure, even short lived, two or three hours at high concentrations, eviscerates soft tissue in animals and humans. This could account for the selective, geographic disappearance of bees, frogs, and bats, and mutilation of bovines as well as increases in childhood asthma and autism.
Yeah, they're being slowly embalmed! Formaldehyde is the number one chemical in embalming fluid!
Now we know where the prophecy of "the water turning as red as the blood of a dead man & 1/3 of all living things in the rivers & streams die & 1/3 of all living things in the oceans will die" in Revelation comes from. Life imitating art? Life becoming prophecy. If you haven't read Revelation recently, if ever, get a New Revised Version where it's in plain English & really READ it. Then cross reference with what's going on in the world scientifically & you will be afraid, very afraid.
www.prophecynewswatch.com If you're not already a believer, this will make you take notice.
Does he realize how much fracking you have to do to replace two 1100 MWe nuclear reactors that operate at full power more than 8,000 hours per year?
(Replacing Indian Point with natural gas would require roughly 310 - 350 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day.)
Chesapeake Energy, one of the most active frackers in the country, recently admitted to having donated more than $25 million in tax free contributions to the Sierra Club for the express purpose of campaigning against coal and promoting natural gas. If they had purchased those services from a normal marketing firm, there would have been taxes paid by the recipient company and it would have been a more honest business transaction.
Instead, it was allowed to be portrayed as a civic minded exercise, even though the purpose was to harm a competitor and promote a particular product.
In other words, do not blame "environmentalists" who actually do think that there is real harm being done by fracking and mountaintop removal mining when the real money for the vocal battles is coming from industrial competitors.
Most of the "jobs" created in the gas industry are really just creative math. It takes about 20-40 days to drill a well. When a well is started a few jobs are "created", and when that well is completed those employees move to the next new well where the same few jobs are "created" again. It is the same people doing the same things over and over again, but all those jobs they are "creating" only last about 20-40 days, and then evaporate.
If most of those making claims about gas industry jobs creation understood the truth, then they would be embarrassed to make the idiotic claims they make about how many jobs the natural gas industry is "creating".
Once they find out they cant afford to pay for energy, and watch public funding for heating run out, they might catch on. Hear about the wind turbines that went up out in Reno Nevada? Yep. They cost 416 thousand dollars. Reno cut its annual energy cost by $ 2,800.00. Not that makes sense.
By the time these things reach their life expectancy of 25 years Reno will still be in the hole. And by the way, one already has to be replaced because it collapsed in a wind gust. Too funny.
Go green!!!!!!!!!!!
These are highly improbable innovations with huge impact potential.
A hydroelectric fuel cell invented in Vietnam is one example. The fuel is fresh or salt water. 2,000 watt generators to power a home are expected to be on the market there in June for $1,600. They will later be used for electric vehicles.
See Moving Beyond Oil and Cheap Green at www.aesopinstitute.org for more information and a few other examples.
"400 Chernobyls?" that opens that website provides an overview of a shockingly likely threat from solar storms that can cause multiple meltdowns of nuclear plants across the planet.
Preventing the worst can accelerate replacement of fossil fuels, sharply boost the economy, and perhaps save many millions of lives.
Washington, DC and New York are both very vulnerable to this little recognized mortal threat.
Confronting it wisely can change the energy landscape far faster than might be readily believed.
It is the scale of the disaster there that the author is referring to, not the specific cause.
Fukushima, as we learn more,of the truth, is at least as terrible, with a probable death toll from cancers worldwide, resulting from that accident at 1 million.
Seattle, California, Oregon and St. Louis have all been receiving fallout that goes largely unreported. Rain is now often radioactive in large parts of the USA.
See the pissinontheroses blog and ENE news to get a true picture of the catastrophe.
The Wright Brothers were considered frauds by many for some years after the flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903. Five years later, then President Teddy Roosevelt had someone visit those bicycle mechanics. When he confirmed that they had flown, overnight the N.Y. Times, Scientific American and the Smithsonian stopped abusing those pioneers of powered flight.
As Socrates said: “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge.”
What more needs to be said.
Stick a fork in this issue, it's done.
If the gas wasn't there, Obama would never have let the EPA move forward with such stringent anti-coal regs.
And coal isn't dead. They're just going to export it to China. Train and dock worker jobs on top of the coal miner jobs.
Fracking is the most evil, even beyond the wars, that W's administration did to this country. Oil companies continue to drill without regard for anyone or anything, continue to not tell us what they are using for chemicals and continue to lie about what is happening. Enough is too much, this needs to be brought to the forefront of every elected official, and if he doesn't want to listen then it's time for a new one.
80,000 fracked wells in Ohio with no ground water contamination.
I know first off in your opinion this is a useless fact because it does not support your argument. And second just like a Climate Change Denier, science that does not agree with your politics is just wrong!
So I imagine d-driller just saw how pointless continuing the dialog.
You can't discuss things with emotional people.
http://www.lancastereaglegazette.com/article/20120403/NEWS01/204030301/Ohio-Environmental-Council-Landowners-should-know-their-rights
http://earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/ohio-and-fracking
In about 2 seconds I found arguments against you, second I could not find this "80,000" wells in Ohio, might be 3,000 from what I could find at the USGS, the people who track this kind of thing. And attacking me is not attacking the article written by the guy whom started this thread. You come up with nothing but an opinion, I have information backing me up. The writer cites more facts and information, and you still attack little 'ole me. You are a coward if you do not come back with anything but more attacks. Bring me facts that support your position not rants.
I do not know if you are simply unaware of the difference, or if you are intentionally stating things that are patently false, but either way you are wrong.
Natural gas? no
Nuclear? no
Oil? no
Coal? no
Bird killing wind farms that require 300 square miles to generate the same power as one nuclear plant?
YESSSS!!!
Gorlov Helical Turbine for free standing, low head wave energy! Yes
It will happen regardless of what happens with respects to fracking or tar sands anyway. We will effectively run out of the stuff in thirty years or less.
124 parts per BILLION? Are you serious?
If the science conflicts with there politics the science has to be wrong!