Methane Contamination from Fracking

I just ran across an interesting study that might be relevant to Mitchell's section. The study was done by a team from Duke University and was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately, it found potentially dangerous concentrations of methane in water-wells near fracking sites. However, the good news is that there was no evidence of any leaked fracking fluid, and the study's conclusions urge caution but are hardly damning. They call for "greater stewardship, data, and - possibly - regulation . . . to ensure the sustainable future of shale-gas extraction and to improve public confidence in its use."

Here's the abstract:

OUTLINE

Here is a brief, general division of labor for the final project. As discussed, we are going to break down the assignment into three broad parts. The first will try to answer the question. "What is Fracking?"

Secondly, Mitchell will look into the safety and environmental concerns of the process. Is it safe?

Finally, I will look at Fracking in the political realm, trying to answer, "Is it good public policy?"

Initial Outline for First Section

Here is a (very) rough outline that I came up with when I started to think about what questions I wanted to address in my section. 

• Description of the process
• How is fracking done?
• What technologies are used?
• What technologies are on the horizon?
• In what situations is fracking necessary? Why?
• History of fracking
• Potential Supplies
• What does fracking unlock?
• What are the locations and sizes of the plays in the US?
• What effect will these supplies have on the possibility of American energy independence?
• What will be the economic effects of exploiting these supplies?

Let me know if you can think of anything else I should look at or if there is anything in the outline that you think I should leave out. I know that the last 2 bullet points especially could overlap with Blaise's section, but I wasn't sure if he was focusing solely on Ohio or not and I think it's important to address those issues somewhere in the paper. 

Update on work, etc.

As Blaise will post shortly, we've arrived at a rough division of labor, in which I'm assigned the question of whether fracking is safe. We'll approach the question not from the angle of trying to find the ultimate answer, but of trying to understand the factors involved and the various groups arguing pro and con.

So here's a link to a newsweak article which discusses the safety problem we've heard about in class: above-ground spills of the fracking liquids caused not by the fracking process itself but by human error:

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/08/19/a-toxic-spew.html

The basic gist of the story is this:

A woman named Cathy Behr was nearly killed after what she described as contact with spilled fracking chemicals. The company blamed for this, Weatherford, was unable to give Newsweek a yes-or-no answer as to whether they might be to blame. In the wake of this incident, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission tightened regulatory controls over fracking in August 2008. On the non-governmental environmental groups involved in this process was the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, which we may be able to tap for more information. Newsweek speaks oddly, and, if you ask me, somewhat dishonestly about the contents of fracking liquid, calling the stuff 'largely unregulated' and 'secret', but then admitting that the EPA, which has access to the recipes, found fracking liquids safe for water in 2004. Fracking fluids, typically used far below the water table, are exempt from the Safe Drinking Water act of 2005. There is concern that under current laws companies might not be required to file any paperwork with the government when spills occur, as happened in this case when 130 gallons of ZetaFlow, a fracking mix, were spilled.

On Why Fracking is Controversial

Fracking, as established by earlier articles, has been around commercially since at least the 1940's. So why the controversy? This article by the Independent online explains part of the issue:

http://www.iol.co.za/business/companies/shell-cites-history-to-allay-karoo-fears-1.1063899

As the article explains, while fracking has been around for some time, there are some major new developments with fracking. Recently, there's been a move toward using synthetic liquids formed from natural gas to help with the extraction of gas, and in some cases the synthetic liquids are gelled by using additional chemicals. This goes significantly beyond the early sorts of fracking.

The Case for Fracking

Here is a short presentation produced by the American Petroleum Institute (the main US trade association for the oil and natural gas industry) that presents a pretty compelling argument in favor of fracking. Of course given the source, this report is probably at least slightly biased, but I think it still provides plenty of great information. However, we must be sure to look at opposing viewpoints as well.

Anyway, here is the presentation, and - after the break - a summary of what I thought were the most pertinent points it contained.

API Report

Legal Issues With Fracking

Here's a short history of fracking, from the online Journal of Petroleum Technology:

Hydraulic Fracturing: History of an Enduring Technology.

It runs about sixteen pages.