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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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A decade ago layers of shale lying deep underground supplied only 1 percent of America’s natural gas. Today they provide 30 percent. Drillers are rushing to hydraulically fracture, or “frack,” shales in a growing list of U.S. states. That is good news for national energy security, as well as for the global climate, because burning gas emits less carbon dioxide than burning coal. The benefits come with risks, however, that state and federal governments have yet to grapple with.
Public fears are growing about contamination of drinking-water supplies from the chemicals used in fracking and from the methane gas itself. Field tests show that those worries are not unfounded. A Duke University study published in May found that methane levels in dozens of drinking-water wells within a kilometer (3,280 feet) of new fracking sites were 17 times higher than in wells farther away. Yet states have let companies proceed without adequate regulations. They must begin to provide more effective oversight, and the federal government should step in, too.
Nowhere is the rush to frack, or the uproar, greater than in New York. In July, Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a ban on fracking. The State Department of Environmental Conservation released an environmental impact statement and was to propose regulations in October. After a public comment period, which will end in early December, the department plans to issue regulations, and drilling most likely will begin. Fracking is already widespread in Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania.
All these states are flying blind. A long list of technical questions remains unanswered about the ways the practice could contaminate drinking water, the extent to which it already has, and what the industry could do to reduce the risks. To fill this gap, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is now conducting comprehensive field research. Preliminary results are due in late 2012. Until then, states should put the brakes on the drillers. In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie set an example in August when he vetoed a bill that would permanently ban fracking, then approved a one-year moratorium so his state could consider the results of federal studies. The EPA, for its part, could speed up its work.
In addition to bringing some rigor to the debate over fracking, the federal government needs to establish common standards. Many in the gas industry say they are already sufficiently regulated by states, but this assurance is inadequate. For example, Pennsylvania regulators propose to extend a well operator’s liability for water quality out to 2,500 feet from a well, even though horizontal bores from the central well can stretch as far as 5,000 feet.
Scientific advisory panels at the Department of Energy and the EPA have enumerated ways the industry could improve and have called for modest steps, such as establishing maximum contaminant levels allowed in water for all the chemicals used in fracking. Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all. In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton—exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Congress needs to close this so-called Halliburton loophole, as a bill co-sponsored by New York State Representative Maurice Hinchey would do. The FRAC Act would also mandate public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking across the nation.
Even the incomplete data we now have suggest specific safety measures. First, the weakest link in preventing groundwater contamination is the concrete casing inside well bores [see “The Truth about Fracking,” by Chris Mooney]. Inspection of casings should be legally required. Second, the toxic fluid that is a major by-product of fracking is routinely stored in open pits, which can overflow or leach into the soil. It should be stored in tanks instead. Third, gas companies should inject tracers with the fracking fluid so inspectors can easily see whether any of the fluid ends up in the water streaming from residents’ faucets. Finally, companies or municipalities should have to test aquifers and drinking-water wells for chemicals before drilling begins and then as long as gas extraction continues, so changes in groundwater are obvious.
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25 Comments
Add CommentWest Virginia is one of the states that is giving natural gas extraction on the fracking of the shell "no-holds-barred" access anywhere they want to drill, even knowing that it was the natural gas fracking that killed all the fish at the river on the Pa and WV border. If you want to know what natural gas fracking does to the water, come to West Virginia; we have billions of gallons of natural gas fracking waste water polluted rivers, streams, wells, and lakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan you light your tap water on fire?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A
Rock at that depth is denser than water. The fracking water will move upward until it meets the water table. Throw a rock into a pond, does it float?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRock, or soil for that matter, at ANY depth is denser than water. 62.4 pcf for water vs 80 pcf for very soft soil. Is "fracking water" really any different from drilling mud ( which is usually a mixture of bentonite clay with water)? I find it hard to believe that there is enough fracking fluid produced due to exploration at any point source or group of point sources to contaminate a river.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in the south central part of West Virginia, Neil5150, and I've lived around MTR and stripping all my life, and now fracking. I am very familiar with the orange water from the coal mines and the antifreeze green colored water. Here, our water doesn't have a chance to catch on fire; all the methane causes it to blow up before it gets to the house.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour tap water catches on fire, but we still hold the record for being #1 in the nation in chronic childhood diseases because of the MTR and fracking. A person would think that the rest of the country has forgot about Pa. and West Virginia and all the death, destruction, poverty and war coal, oil, and natural gas has brought to us. I think they just don't care as long as we provide them heat and electricity for their big houses down in Virginia and out in California.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe global energy companies are clearly out of control.
TransCanada (Alberta Tar Sands + cross-USA Keystone pipeline) has taken 34 USA landowners to court and threatened them with taking their land rights by eminent domain - BEFORE they even have approval for building their pipeline across the USA. [reported in NY Times]
They say: "Take our money or we'll take your land".
The classic "deal you cannot refuse".
Almost like organized crime, eh?
Point 1
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy this logic there should be no water in the ground, or for that matter... no liquids or gasses of any kind
Clearly that is not right.
There are different kinds of rock. Some types of rock water moves through easily and some do not.
Just because water is in the ground does not mean that it is connected in anyway to something you might drink. Most oil and gas wells are drilled at 5000 feet or more. In water in shale is effectively trapped in place it does not move. (typically less than a foot a year.)
The article:
"Fracking is already widespread in Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania.
All these states are flying blind. "
This is statement is not true. All of these states have laws regarding fracking, but some are admittedly better than others.
Why should states be in charge of their own laws regarding fracking?
Geology
The federal Government likes to make blanketing laws, but the geology is drastically different from state to state. It is not possible or piratical to deal with fracking at the federal level.
States that have a history of oil production have laws and regulatory agencies in place. In areas where drilling is new it is understandable that they have some catching up to do, but those areas can basically copy regulatory agencies of other states.
The East Coast region has some issues to work out, but their problems should not translate to areas that already have it figured out.
The fact that this article is in Scientific America is an absolute joke. There is no neutrality nor does the author appear to understand the topic.
"Public fears are growing about contamination of drinking-water supplies from the chemicals used in fracking and from the methane gas itself." This statement is true, and it is because of garbage articles like this one.
I really doubt that the author of the article even read the article from duke.
From the duke article:
"Based on our data(Table 2), we found no evidence for contamination of the shallow wells near active drilling sites from deep brines and/or fracturing
fluids."
Requirements mentioned such as eliminating open pits and installing closed tanks, pre-testing of water wells, greater setbacks, more rigorous oversight and testing in general, all sound good. And even if it was possible to guarantee a well casing won't fail; which it isn't (refer to Society of Petroleum Engineers; SPE 64733 Dusseault, et al), the aspect of fracking that cannot be controlled at all is the migration of gases and fluids through the natural and induced (by fracking) fractures, fissures and joints in the naturally fractured shale. (Refer to Geoffrey Thyne, Garfield Co study 2008, Paul Rubin, HydroQuest, Marc Durand, Univ of Quebec, Jacobi, report for NYSERDA, 2000). Fluids will migrate from the greater pressures where the shale is located to the lesser pressures towards the surface and connect with and contaminate aquifers and wells with toxic fluids, heavy metals and radioactive material which resides with the shale. Because this aspect of shale fracking cannot be mitigated, it tends to be summarily dismissed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Unfortunately, these recommendations do not address the biggest loophole of all. In 2005 Congress—at the behest of then Vice President Dick Cheney, a former CEO of gas driller Halliburton — exempted fracking from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is so poorly written, it's almost difficult to believe. I'd like to take it apart piece by piece but let's begin with this claim.
You indicate here that hydraulic fracturing was somehow "exempted" from the SDWA. This is but one of the many half-truths and misleading statements used by the anti-fracking industry. That it's always mentioned with VP Cheney's name is an attempt to inflame rage among those with hatred for Cheney and redirect that rage toward hydraulic fracturing.
In fact, hydraulic fracturing was NEVER part of the SDWA, not part of the intention of the bill, and not regulated under the SDWA by the EPA, with the exception, post 1997, of certain specific coalbed methane activities in Alabama. So please tell us, how can something that was never regulated under the SDWA be "exempted from regulation under the SDWA?" In fact, nothing at all changed in the regulatory regime or in the oil field due to this 2005 congressional action. So why do you lie to us and say that it did?
Please look at the following:
US Dept. of Energy, 2001 -
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/factsheets/policy/Policy001.pdf
"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has held that hydraulic fracture stimulation of a production well does not fall under the purview of Underground Injection Control (UIC) regulations, which were issued in the early 1980's."
HISTORY OF LITIGATION CONCERNING HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
TO PRODUCE COALBED METHANE
IOGCC Legal and Regulatory Affairs Committee
January 2009
http://www.iogcc.state.ok.us/Websites/iogcc/Images/Marvin%20Rogers%20Paper%20of%20History%20of%20LEAF%20Case%20Jan.%202009.pdf
"LEAF further alleged that the SDWA required regulation under federal guidelines over hydraulic fracturing operations. In 1995, EPA denied the petition because it determined that hydraulic fracturing did not fall within the definition of "underground injection" under the SDWA. EPA had concluded that methane gas production wells, which are also used for hydraulic fracturing of the coalbeds, are not required to be regulated under the SDWA because the principal function of these wells is not the underground emplacement of fluids; their principal function is to produce coalbed methane gas."
"Rock at that depth is denser than water. The fracking water will move upward until it meets the water table. Throw a rock into a pond, does it float?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting theory. So tell us, why is the natural gas there then?
"Fracking is already widespread in Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll these states are flying blind. "
So you're telling us that Texas, where hydraulic fracturing has been going on since 1949, and high volume, horizontal shale gas frac jobs since 1984, is "flying blind?" What the heck are you talking about?
"For example, Pennsylvania regulators propose to extend a well operator’s liability for water quality out to 2,500 feet from a well, even though horizontal bores from the central well can stretch as far as 5,000 feet."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you're claiming that in Pennsylvania, if someone is beyond a certain distance, they can damage your water quality and they have no liability and you can't sue them??
Could you please show us the Pennsylvania law that says this?
http://www.cst.net/geoscience/oil-business/99-ben-franklin-discovers-qburning-waterq-in-1764
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“When I passed through New Jersey in 1764, I heard it several times mentioned, that, by applying a lighted candle near the surface of some of their rivers, a sudden flame would catch and spread on the water, continuing to burn for near half a minute.” – Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Priestly, 1774.
I just returned from a road trip to several northern PA counties, including Bradford and Sullivan.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe drilling boom manifests there as a mass industrialization of rural scenic countryside and small town America. The numbers of large tractor trailer rigs on the secondary roads, and the number of pieces of machinery assistant to the slickwater hydrofracturing process either in transit or sitting roadside awaiting site transfer is staggering. . . . It's like a used car lot interpreted by Fellini.
The people who blithely say that this is merely a preliminary stage and once this is completed things will restore to 'normalcy' remind me of the argument that "once the cast comes off the back will be fine"----when the reality is that the person afterward continues lifelong to have some pain, some compromise to full range of motion, some limitation in activities once enjoyed, and an unending awareness of a part once invisible to them. Chronic results. Not necessarily desirable ones.
PA has not done an Environmental Impact Study: you can't even put up a small structure most places without first submitting a ground/groundwater analysis to ensure that the building won't cause harm and is safely constructed.
But the gas companies can drill and frack and frack-------industrialize the land------- and the final result is one based largely on speculation or opinion but not legitimate scientific research.
Regardless all the arguments pro/con the shale natural gas utilization--------one thing is crystal clear: we do NOT know what the environmental damages will be for us, and our descendants. What the effects may be 20, 30, or 100+ years from now have not been effectively evaluated.
Safe water, safe air, safe soil are the necessary prerequisites to health . . ...and primary to all other concerns. That primacy should be dictatorial to all processes which carry a risk of contamination.
We need to know the risk before we act.
According to EIA website preliminary data for 2010 shows shale gas at about 16% of domestic production - not 30%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The drilling boom manifests there as a mass industrialization of rural scenic countryside and small town America. The numbers of large tractor trailer rigs on the secondary roads, and the number of pieces of machinery assistant to the slickwater hydrofracturing process either in transit or sitting roadside awaiting site transfer is staggering."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's called "people working, building valuable infrastructure for our nation's energy needs."
To criticize a construction project because it's messy and noisy in the middle of construction is just dumb. You're weepy and sentimental over "rural scenic countryside and small town America?" I grew up in just such a scenario. It's nothing to weep over, I assure you, to live in an economic dead zone where all the young people move out and the county increasingly looks like a giant rest home where old-timers live out their last days in poverty. Your romantic view of the bucolic scene you describe indicates to me that you are a city boy, is that true?
To assert that we don't know the risk to the best extent we can is untrue. Many states, including PA, have had oil & gas production for over 100 years already. That was 100 years of oil & gas BEFORE the "rural scenic countryside and small town America" you're trying to romanticize here.
Benjaminlately and rcsalmon - I couldn't have said it better. It is truly a shame that a publication such as "Scientific American" has chosen to repeat a lot of the bogus rhetoric and claims surrounding fracing without doing any research into their validity. Did the authors of this editorial not do any basic research to read the numerous counter claims to the articles they cited as being authoritative works on this issue? As scientists, is it not our duty to thoroughly research and analyze all of the evidence before reaching a conclusion? It seems that the editors of this publication have forgotten what science is truly about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a point on the New Jersey issue. The reality of moves in that state are largely symbolic. There are only a handful of acres, perhaps 6-12 acres, in the state were there is any potential to recover Nat Gas. The Marcellus Shale barely touches NJ. Of course the moves by politicians on a national issue make for great press and attention, but the point is relatively moot.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat said, I do agree with the need to evaluate the procedures and practices exercised in order to extricate this natural resource. If there are legitimate, scientific concerns, procedures must be developed to ensure the smallest environmental impacts possible. The raw potential of natural gas production are too valuable and essential as fuel source to enact outright bans. We need to seek resources and develop a domestic industry to firm up our national security.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. We must ensure the former.
will anyone who believes this is a good idea please call me asap...I still have that bridge for sale....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe editorial asks for fracking to be "proved safe" This is an impossible standard nothing can be proved safe for nothing is safe even sitting at home in your living room a meteor could kill you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat can be done is compare costs and benefits. Purchsers of natural gas in the US are now benefiting to the extent of over $100 Billion per year from the lower price of natural gas as a consequence of fracking.
Fracking and other proceedures used to produce natural gas are NOT perfectly safe but no plausible estimate of the environmental costs would find these even $10 Billion per year.
The plausible stories for environmental damage from
fracking do not include enormously costly individual accidents. Fracking oil and gas wells has been done for a generation. By diligent search investigators have now found one plausible incident in which fracking itself has done damage. Even including all the other activities such as the disposal of wastewater and the transport of natural gas by pipeline the environmental and health effects of natural gas production are trivial as compared to the gains.
That does not mean that these environmental and health effects can't be reduced. One method of reducing those costs is to frack with propane rather than water as the Canadian firm Gasfrac has done over 1000 times.
US consumption of natural gas totals about 22 trillion cubic feet per year. The US purchasers of natural gas are benefiting by more than $100 Billion per year. The current price of natural gas on the futures markets is below $4 per 1000 cubic feet. In England in the futures market fnatural gas sells now for $10 per 1000 cubic feet. Without shale gas the US would also be importing LNG and would be paying as much for it (at least) as the English do now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMultiply 22 trillion cubic feet by a saving of $6 per thousand cubic feet and it is evident that a low ball estimate of the gains for purchasers of natural gas in the US is $132 Billion per year.
Clearly 18th Century frakers were at work.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI cannot agree with the Editors' conclusion that "more natural gas could benefit everyone. With basic precautions, we can enjoy both cleaner energy and clean water."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA recent Cornell University study concludes that "...if you do an integration of 20 years following the development of the gas, shale gas is worse than conventional gas and is, in fact, worse than coal and worse than oil..." due to fugitive methane: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April11/GasDrillingDirtier.html
The subsequent Duke University study also highlights the need to refine estimates for greenhouse gas emission associated with shale-gas extraction; and the complexity in understanding the full impact of this industry including health impact of methane and disposal of waste waters...: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/cgc/HydraulicFracturingWhitepaper2011.pdf
The full-on push for gas will only further delay the much needed, global uptake of truly clean, renewable energy sources.
I would like to respond to an earlier comment posted by rcsalmon (on 10/21/11) because the topic of hydrofracking is still very current and critically important. The document that rcsalmon quotes was saying that in 1995 methane gas wells were not required to be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) because they were not principally intended to place fluids underground. This differs from shale gas fracking that injects high volumes of liquid into the ground. In 1995, shale gas fracking with injection of fluids would have been regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Energy Policy Act of 2005 added language to the Safe Water Drinking Act (SWDA) excluding the "underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities" according to the United States Enviromental Protection Agency website at: http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_hydroreg.cfm
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 resulted from the Energy Task Force chaired by Vice President Cheney and the topic of “Safe drinking water hydraulic fracturing” was discussed in the Vice President's office on April 3, 2001 according to a report by the United States General Accounting Office entitled Energy Task Force: Policy Used to Develop the National Energy Policy available at: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03894.pdf.
Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Under the Safe Drinking Water Act - source United States of America. Environmental Protection Agency. Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_hydroreg.cfm
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Several statutes may be leveraged to protect water quality, but EPA's central authority to protect drinking water is drawn from the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The protection of USDWs is focused in the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program, which regulates the subsurface emplacement of fluid. Congress provided for exclusions to UIC authority (SDWA § 1421(d)), however, with the most recent language added via the Energy Policy Act of 2005:
"The term 'underground injection' –
(A) means the subsurface emplacement of fluids by well injection; and
(B) excludes –
(i) the underground injection of natural gas for purposes of storage; and
(ii) the underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations related to oil, gas, or geothermal production activities."
While the SDWA specifically excludes hydraulic fracturing from UIC regulation under SDWA § 1421 (d)(1), the use of diesel fuel during hydraulic fracturing is still regulated by the UIC program. Any service company that performs hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuel must receive prior authorization through the applicable UIC program. For more information on how the UIC regulations apply to hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuels please see EPA's Guidance issued for public comment. The UIC regulations can be found in Title 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations Parts 144-148.
State oil and gas agencies may have additional regulations for hydraulic fracturing. In addition, states or EPA have authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate discharge of produced waters from hydraulic fracturing operations."