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Burning fossil fuels is a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), and, greenhouse gas emissions (water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O)) are the principle cause of man-made climate change. Given this fact, governments throughout the world should be moving away from fossil fuels and investing in, and designing policies that encourage development of, renewable sources of energy. But the British Conservative government, despite public opinion to the contrary, has all but banned the construction of onshore wind turbines and is encouraging fracking in England. The Tories are the only UK political party to offer support for this regressive form of energy production, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens having all promised fracking bans should they gain political office at the next general election.

Hydraulic fracking is the process of releasing gas and oil from shale rock: huge quantities of water, proppant (usually sand) and chemicals are injected at high-pressure into hydrocarbon-bearing rocks, rocks that can be up to a mile down and were once thought to be impermeable. This process of fracturing (or cracking) forces the rocks to crack open, and gas held inside is released and allowed to flow to the surface.

Shale gas is a fossil fuel, and when combusted produces GGE, albeit at around 50% less than coal or oil, but GGE nevertheless. The leading fracking company in Britain is the energy firm Cuadrilla. An organization that according to its website, aims “to be a model company for exploring and developing shale gas in the UK,” they state that they are “acutely aware of the responsibilities this brings, particularly with regard to safety, environmental protection and working with local communities.” Really?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UK Fracking Pauses, Again

October 31, 2018

UK Fracking Pauses, Again

For the second time in two weeks since Cuadrilla started fracking at an exploration site in northwest England—resuming hydraulic fracturing in the UK for the first time in seven years—the company had to stop operations on Monday due to a micro seismic event measuring above the threshold requiring a halt.

Cuadrilla confirmed that a micro seismic event measuring 1.1 on the Richter scale was detected at about 11.30 a.m. local time on Monday, while the team were hydraulically fracturing at the Preston New Road shale gas exploration site in Lancashire, the company said in a statement today.

According to regulations, in case of micro seismic events of 0.50 on the Richter scale or higher, fracking must temporarily be halted and pressure in the well reduced.

“This is the latest micro seismic event to be detected by the organisation’s highly sophisticated monitoring systems and verified by the British Geological Survey (BGS). This will be classed as a ‘red’ event as part of the traffic light system operated by the Oil and Gas Authority but as we have said many times this level is way below anything that can be felt at surface and a very long way from anything that would cause damage or harm,” Cuadrilla said.

“Well integrity has been checked and verified,” the company said, noting that in line with regulations, fracking has paused for 18 hours.

Cuadrilla had paused fracking at the site on Friday morning after a 0.76 on the Richter scale micro seismic event was recorded, the latest of some dozen seismic events since fracking started, but the first that was above the 0.5 threshold.

The seismic event on Monday was the strongest yet to be recorded since Cuadrilla started fracking at the exploration site two weeks ago, on October 15.

Anti-fracking activists say that there have been now 27 seismic events since October 15, Blackpool Gazzette reports.

Frac Sand Shortage Threatens Shale Boom

February 21, 2018

Frac Sand Shortage Threatens Shale Boom

Higher drilling costs could threaten the recent surge in United States shale production.

Halliburton said last week that its earnings could be negatively impacted because of bottlenecks related to the supply of frac sand used in shale drilling. The Wall Street Journal reported that Halliburton’s shares were briefly halted on February 15 after Halliburton’s CFO Chris Weber told an audience at the Credit Suisse Energy Summit that the company’s first quarter earnings could take a hit by a whopping 10 cents per share.

The reason, he said, was because of delays by Canadian rail companies that would slow the delivery of frac sand. Halliburton saw its shares drop by more than 2 percent on a day that saw broader gains to the S&P 500.

Frac sand is integral to growing shale production, increasingly so these days with more and more sand pumped down into a well. Shale drillers have credited the heavy doses of sand with squeezing out more oil and gas from the average well. Demand for frac sand surged from 34 million tons in 2012 to 61.5 million tons in 2014. Consumption fell in the ensuing years as drilling dried up when oil prices collapsed, but frac sand consumption surpassed previous highs in 2017 as drilling resoundingly came back.

In 2018, frac sand demand is expected to top 100 million tons, according to Rystad Energy. “Right now, the market is really stretched thin,” says Thomas Jacob, a senior analyst at IHS Markit, told the FT in December. “Everyone is running at full capacity.”

Much of the frac sand has come from places like Wisconsin, which produces “northern white sand” that is hard and round, helping to create porous fractures in shale wells. It is high quality, but expensive, particularly because it has to be shipped by rail to Texas shale fields.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ohio Court Overturns Law Preventing Cities From Voting on Anti-Fracking Measures

November 2, 2017

Ohio Court Overturns Law Preventing Cities From Voting on Anti-Fracking Measures

In a slight break with previous state policies that have encouraged fracking activity and new pipelines, the Ohio Supreme Court recently struck down a controversial provision restricting citizen efforts to vote locally on these and other issues through the ballot initiative process.

Getting Out (of) the Vote

The state Supreme Court ruling, which came on October 19, is a departure from earlier rulings that prevented the Ohio Community Rights Network from placing county charters and a city ordinance to ban fracking from appearing on ballots. In 2015 the network had expanded beyond municipal ballot initiatives to include new county charters to elevate rights of local residents and ecosystems. Fossil fuel-friendly Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted responded by claiming he possessed “unfettered authority” to remove the county charters from the ballot, regardless of whether they gathered enough signatures.

Central to Husted’s argument was an assertion that local residents do not have the power to vote on laws that challenge the state’s supremacy. Since 2015, Husted, Husted-appointed county boards of elections, and the Ohio Supreme Court have removed a total of 10 proposed fracking-related county charters from Ohio ballots.

To justify keeping the charters off the ballot, the Ohio Supreme Court developed a legal rationale that gave Husted and his boards of elections broad discretion to use what proved to be unpredictable technicalities to prevent all 10 from being voted on, despite petitioners gathering the needed signatures. However, that legal approach was not applied to municipal ballot initiatives, which continued to be proposed, voted on, and in some cases passed.

But at the end of 2016, HB463 passed in a lame duck legislative session and allowed unelected boards of elections to remove municipal initiatives from ballots as well. The bill also granted boards of elections similar unilateral power to strike proposed county charters, freeing them from having to rely on revolving technical arguments.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Welfare Kings? Study Finds Half of New Oil Production Unprofitable Without Government Handouts

October 3, 2017

Welfare Kings? Study Finds Half of New Oil Production Unprofitable Without Government Handouts

Oil derrick with 'welfare' spelled on Scrabble tiles

In fact, forty percent of the Permian basin in Texas would be economically unviable without subsidies, and for the home of Bakken crude production, Williston Basin, that number jumps to 59 percent, according to the researchers.

In addition, the study highlights what this additional fossil fuel production means for impacts to the climate:

“…continued subsidies for oil investment could produce oil (and associated gas) that, once burned, will yield CO2emissions equivalent to nearly 1 percent of the remaining global carbon budget for all sectors of all economies.”

At current oil prices, perhaps the most effective “keep it in the ground” strategy might be to stop subsidizing oil production.

But what happens with these subsidies when the price of oil is over $100 per barrel, as it was several years ago? The authors of the study report that, under such a scenario, government subsidies are simply “transfer payments” to oil investors. The oil would be profitable without the subsidies, which become, at that point, simply free cash for investors.

While this study provides valuable insight into how subsidies affect oil production and the climate, it notes that its conclusions are not unique. The authors point out: “As others have found regardless of the oil price, the majority of taxpayer resources provided to the industry end up as company profits.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fracked Gas LNG Exports Were Centerpiece In Promotion of Panama Canal Expansion, Documents Reveal

July 3, 2016

Fracked Gas LNG Exports Were Centerpiece In Promotion of Panama Canal Expansion, Documents Reveal

At the center of that business, a DeSmog investigation has demonstrated, is a fast-track export lane for gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the United States. The expanded Canal in both depth and width equates to a shortened voyage to Asia and also means the vast majority of liquefied natural gas (LNG) tankers — 9-percent before versus 88-percent now — can now fit through it.

Emails and documents obtained under open records law show that LNG exports have, for the past several years, served as a centerpiece for promotion of the Canal’s expansion by the U.S. Gulf of Mexico-based Port of Lake Charles.

And the oil and gas industry, while awaiting the Canal expansion project’s completion, lobbied for and achieved passage of a federal bill that expanded the water depth of a key Gulf-based port set to feed the fracked gas export boom.

Control of the Panama Canal by U.S. big business and Wall Street has, for over a century, served as a focal point of U.S. foreign policy in the Americas.

While no longer in de facto control of the isthmus as it was during the days of the Panama Canal Zone, Jill Biden’s presence as part of an official Presidential Delegation at the expanded Canal’s opening ceremony symbolized the importance of the waterway and de jure role of the U.S. government in pushing for its expansion over the past several years. So too did the attendance of the U.S. military’s Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

And in turn, the reported participation of LNG exports giant Cheniere Energy at the kick-off serves as a portrayal of the importance of the Canal’s expansion to the oil and gas industry. The Panama Canal Authority estimates that 20 million tons of LNG may pass through on an annual basis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 9

June 4, 2016

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 9

LB012416A

There are—almost always—at least two sides to any story of significance and potential impact upon others. The greater the impact and potential for a range of outcomes, the more certain one can be that there are more than a handful of factors, considerations, and perspectives to be accounted for if the issue at hand is to be both understood and resolved effectively.

Ignoring the “other side” of the issue may be effective if one prefers their narrative to remain unchallenged and to provide reassurance to fellow believers, but beyond that, it’s hard to understand what the benefit might be to those seeking information if what’s shared is inaccurate or purposely incomplete.

From the second article I’ve been referencing throughout this series:

In the USA, hydraulic fracturing has taken petroleum production to its highest level since 1972, and oil imports to their lowest level since 1995. America now exports crude oil, natural gas and refined products.
The fracking genie cannot be put back in the bottle. In fact, it is being adopted all over the world, opening new shale oil and gas fields, prolonging the life of conventional fields, leaving less energy in the ground, and giving the world another century or more of abundant, reliable, affordable petroleum. That’s plenty of time to develop new energy technologies that actually work without mandates and enormous subsidies.

FACTS OFFER A DIFFERENT TAKE

But in the real world where facts are actually important, a different story is told. Two days before the above-referenced article was published, we had this:

[N]ow, over 1.5 years into the price collapse, production declines in shale oil are finally starting to appear as low oil prices have slashed company investments in new supply, and production begins to decline from existing wells….
The array of spending cuts and production declines announced by dozens of separate companies may be difficult to wrap one’s head around.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Faced With a Fracking Giant, This Small Town Just Legalized Civil Disobedience

May 19, 2016

Faced With a Fracking Giant, This Small Town Just Legalized Civil Disobedience

A new first-in-the-nation law will shield residents from arrest as they use direct action to stop fracking-wastewater injection wells.

A tiny community sitting on a 27-square-mile piece of Western Pennsylvania wanted to send a big message to the energy company planning to deposit toxic fracking wastewater under its neighborhoods. And its 700 residents wanted it to be perfectly legal for them to loudly object.

Grant Township had seen what happens when people nationwide take to the streets to protest bullying corporations: Arrests. Lots of them.

So Grant Township planned ahead. Two weeks ago, it passed a law that protects its residents from arrest if they protest Pennsylvania General Energy Company’s (PGE) creation of an injection well.

Residents believe this law is the first in the United States to legalize nonviolent civil disobedience against toxic wastewater injection wells. “We’re doing it to safeguard the residents and protect as many people as possible,” Township Supervisor Stacy Long said.

Long said legalizing direct action is a response to the ongoing problem of rural residents seeing their voices excluded from discussions between state governments and big corporations on issues that have local ramifications.

Like so many other people in communities dealing with fracking and its waste, residents worry the injected wastewater will leak into their drinking-water sources.

PGE wants to repurpose an existing well in Grant Township into a Class II disposal well. These wells are used to deposit toxic wastewater deep underground. The wastewater is a byproduct of oil and gas drilling and can contain toxic metals, benzene, and radioactive materials, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates 180,000 Class II injection wells currently operate, injecting more than 2 billion gallons of brine a day. About 20 percent are disposal wells.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Groundwater Contamination from Fracking Changes over Time: Study

May 7, 2016

Groundwater Contamination from Fracking Changes over Time: Study

Texas study finds quality fluctuates as nearby industry evolves.

Water

A new Texas study is the first to measure groundwater quality from private water wells before, during, and after the expansion of fracking. Water photo via Shutterstock.

A new Texas study has found that horizontal oil wells fractured by the injection of high volumes of chemicals, sand, and water contaminate nearby water wells with a variety of heavy metals and toxic chemicals that fluctuate over time.

In the last decade, North America’s $40-billion fracking industry has punctured uneconomic or ”unconventional” rock formations from British Columbia to Texas with long lateral wells that extend for miles underground.

Then they blast open the surrounding formation with injections of water, chemicals, sand, fluids, or hydrocarbons. But industry can’t always control the direction of the fractures.

”In our most recent study, we found that as more unconventional wells were drilled and stimulated, more drilling-related contaminants were found in the groundwater,” study author Zacariah L. Hildenbrand told The Tyee.

Dichloromethane, an industry chemical and potential human carcinogen, was found in quantities above safe drinking water levels in water wells on highly fracked landscapes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the chemical ”poses health risks to anyone who breathes the air when this compound is present.”

Hildenbrand, a native of the Okanagan Valley, is a scientist (and cancer biologist by training) with the Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation at the University of Texas in Arlington.

The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, is the first to measure groundwater quality from private water wells before, during, and after the expansion of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracking.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Movement to Stop Fossil Fuel Development Is Winning

May 5, 2016

The Movement to Stop Fossil Fuel Development Is Winning

Colorado’s high court today struck down the rights of Coloradans to enact local fracking bans. It’s no surprise, given the massive sway of the oil and gas industry in the state. The suit was brought against Longmont (which passed a popular fracking ban in 2012) by Gov. John Hickenlooper and his industry cronies. While it’s easy to be discouraged by this decision, the fact is, it will help activate citizens to pass statewide ballot measures to ban fracking in November.

And let’s not forget: The movement to stop fossil fuel development just keeps winning.

On Earth Day, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo put a stop to the Constitution pipeline, a dangerous project to shipped fracked gas from Pennsylvania into New York, intersecting almost 300 bodies of water. His action sent a clear message that protecting the safety of the state’s drinking water was more important than expanding Big Oil’s profits. And the move didn’t come out of nowhere; the same grassroots pressure that successfully pushed Cuomo to ban fracking in 2014 pushed him to reject this dirty fracked gas pipeline.

It wasn’t just Earth Day that brought good news for the planet. Two days before, the Kinder Morgan energy behemoth canceled a gas pipeline that would have run through parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The company faced stiff opposition from activists and residents of the towns where the pipeline would have been constructed.

While it’s good to see Big Oil pull the plug on a bad idea, citizens must put pressure on their elected officials to make sure fossil fuels stay in the ground. That’s what the residents of Prince George’s County in Maryland did this month, convincing the county council to pass a resolution banning fracking. The vote was unanimous.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Gov. Cuomo Rejects the Constitution Pipeline, Huge Win for the Anti-Fracking Movement

April 25, 2016

Gov. Cuomo Rejects the Constitution Pipeline, Huge Win for the Anti-Fracking Movement

In a win for climate activists and the anti-fracking movement, and a blow to fossil fuel polluters and the federal regulatory agencies that enable them, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) denied a key permit to companies seeking to build a 124-mile fracked gas pipeline.

The Constitution Pipeline Project—a joint venture between four oil and gas companies—was proposed to transport fracked natural gas from Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania through Broome, Chenango, Delaware and Schoharie counties in New York to existing interstate pipelines. The pipeline route would have crossed hundreds of streams and wetlands, including those supplying drinking water to families along the proposed route. Using the power granted under the Clean Water Act, DEC officials rejected the companies’ permit application, citing damage the project would do to water supplies along the pipeline route.

“Today is an incredible Earth Day! Thank you again to Governor Cuomo and the Department of Environmental Conservation for putting the protection of our precious water and the public health and safety of New Yorkers ahead of the special interests of the oil and gas industry,” Mark Ruffalo, advisory body member of New Yorkers Against Fracking, said. “This is what real climate leadership looks like.”

The nonprofit environmental law organization Earthjustice has been staunchly opposed to the project and represented a coalition of groups—Catskill Mountainkeeper, Riverkeeper, Clean Air Council, Delaware-Otsego Audubon Society, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, and the Pennsylvania and Atlantic chapters of Sierra Club—in pipeline approval proceedings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC.)

Last month FERC gave the go-ahead to pipeline developers to clear-cut 20 miles of treesalong the pipeline’s planned route through Pennsylvania. Pointing to the fact that New York State had not yet issued a permit, Earthjustice and other environmental groups called FERC’s move premature and illegal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘People should be terrified fracking is spreading’ – Australian MP who set river on fire to RT

April 24, 2016

‘People should be terrified fracking is spreading’ – Australian MP who set river on fire to RT

Fracking should be banned as a “global threat” as it causes methane leaks contaminating water in the communities near gas wells, says an Australian MP who literally set a river ablaze to draw attention to the adverse effects of the practice.

The companies that extract coal seam gas via fracking are duping people into believing that their technology is safe, while in reality it has contributed greatly to the pollution of sites like Condamine river located in the Australian state of Queensland just near the fracking site, Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham said in an interview to RT.

“This gas is leaking out of the ground because of the fracking. They have thousands of gas wells around this river, around this site. They drill, they frack, but the gas isn’t just flowing up their gas wells, it’s coming through the ground,” he said, stressing that Origin Energy company, that operate the wells, “should be condemned for polluting one of our most important rivers.”

Speaking of how to prevent the fracking industry from damaging the environment, he said that Australia should ban fracking as an unsafe practice altogether.

“What we are waiting in Australia is a moratorium on fracking,” he said, adding that fracking should be viewed as a global threat and its spreading should make people around the world “terrified.”

Earlier this month, Buckingham came to Chinchilla, in southwest Queensland, while campaigning against fracking as part of the Green’s party’s agenda. To show the dire effect on nature caused by the technology, Buckingham set the Condamine river on fire with a kitchen lighter and later unloaded the video on the web.

‘Industries should be fixing problems instead of doing propaganda’

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Top Shale Fracking Executive: We Won’t Frack the Rich

April 24, 2016

Top Shale Fracking Executive: We Won’t Frack the Rich

“’We heard Range Resources say it sites its shale gas wells away from large homes where wealthy people live and who might have the money to fight such drilling and fracking operations,’ said Patrick Grenter, an attorney and Center for Coalfield Justice executive director, who attended the lawyers’ forum,” the Post-Gazette reported. “A handful of attorneys in the audience confirmed that account,” and added that the Range Resources official had prefaced his remarks by saying “To be frank”.

The comments were made by Terry Bossert, Range Resources’s vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs, during a presentation at the Pennsylvania Bar Institute’s Environmental Law Forum on April 7. In 2004, Range Resources was the first company to drill in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale – but it has racked up a string of environmental violations so severe that state regulators slapped it with a record-breaking $4.15 million fine in 2014, followed the next year by an $8.9 million fine over a different incident.

The company has also repeatedly been sued by landowners – and not just in Pennsylvania, but also in their home state of Texas. It made international headlines when a gag order – part of a $750,000 settlement agreement between the company and a family over a contaminated 10-acre farm in Mount Pleasant, PA – barred two children from speaking about fracking for life (a ban that the company later repudiated, after the settlement terms were unsealed and made public).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Study: Fracking, Not Just Fracking Wastewater Injection, Causing Earthquakes in Western Canada

March 31, 2016

Study: Fracking, Not Just Fracking Wastewater Injection, Causing Earthquakes in Western Canada

A groundbreaking study published today in Seismological Research Letters has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for oil and gas and earthquakes.

Hydraulic Fracturing and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin” confirms the horizontal drilling technique (which in essence creates an underground mini-earthquake to open up fissures for oil and gas extraction) is responsible for earthquakes, above and beyond what is already canonized in the scientific literature. We already knew that injecting fracking waste into underground wells can cause quakes. But now it’s not just the injections wells, but the fracking procedure itself that can be linked to seismicity.

The study focuses on an area in Canada known as the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), one of Canada’s biggest shale basins and tight oil and gas producing regions.

The researchers “compared the relationship of 12,289 fracking wells and 1,236 wastewater disposal wells to magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes in an area of 454,000 square kilometers near the border between Alberta and British Columbia, between 1985 and 2015,” explained a press release. They “found 39 hydraulic fracturing wells (0.3% of the total of fracking wells studied), and 17 wastewater disposal wells (1% of the disposal wells studied) that could be linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger.”

If that sounds like a fairly small percentage, Atkinson and colleagues readily admit that is the case in the study. Yet they also write that it could portend worse things to come as more and more wells are fracked in the region.

“It is important to acknowledge that associated seismicity occurs for only a small proportion of hydraulic fracturing operations,” they wrote, proceeding to cite another paper written in 2015 by lead author Gail Atkinson — a professor of earth sciences at the University of Western Ontario — and colleagues on the impacts of induced seismicity.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Fracking Contaminates Groundwater: Stanford Study

March 30, 2016

Fracking Contaminates Groundwater: Stanford Study

Another scientific report finds evidence of industry’s impact on public resource.

Drilling photo via Shutterstock.

Another scientific study has confirmed that fracking, the controversial technology that blasts apart low-grade rocks containing molecules of hydrocarbons, can contaminate groundwater.

“We have, for the first time, demonstrated impact to Underground Sources of Drinking Water (USDW) as a result of hydraulic fracturing,” says the study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Researchers from Stanford University published their findings after combing through publicly available data on the drilling, fracking and cementing of scores of tight gas wells in Pavillion, Wyoming.

“Given the high frequency of injection of stimulation fluids into USDWs to support [coalbed methane] extraction and unknown frequency in tight gas formations, it is unlikely that impact to USDWs is limited to the Pavillion Field, requiring investigation elsewhere.”

The scientists matched chemical compounds used in fracking to chemicals found in two groundwater monitoring wells drilled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2008.

No jurisdiction in Canada has yet set up long-term groundwater monitoring wells to track the movement of contaminants from oil and gas drilling into groundwater.

The researchers also discovered that industry fracked directly into aquifers at depths as shallow as 213 metres with highly toxic chemicals, including benzene.

The industry routinely contends that fracking is safe because it is occurring miles underground.

But shallow fracking of coal seams and other formations in Colorado, Wyoming, Alabama and Alberta from the 1980s onward has resulted in lawsuits, public protests and evidence of extensive groundwater contamination.

The new study also found that different companies in Pavillion, Wyoming used acid and hydraulic fracturing treatments at the same depths as water wells in the area. Waste disposal pits contaminated groundwater, too.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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