Howarth, Ingraffea Shale Gas Study on Global Warming Discredited by U.S. Department of Energy | Marcellus Drilling News

May 31, 2011

Howarth, Ingraffea Shale Gas Study on Global Warming Discredited by U.S. Department of Energy | Marcellus Drilling News.

Comment from Howarth:

We are working on a more detailed response, but in the meanwhile, I have

sent the following message out to some folks. Feel free to share,

Bob

“We are working hard to try to understand what the DOE/NETL analysis is based upon. This is not easy, as their data are not well documented in the PowerPoint from their talk. Apparently, NETL is working towards publication of a technical report, which one would hope would have far better documentation. But that is not yet available to us. To date, the PowerPoint available to us and to the public has not seen any rigorous, independent peer review.

We have ascertained that the NETL analysis has an estimate for methane emissions from coal that is similar to ours. Therefore, the reasons for the differences between their estimates and ours lie elsewhere. At this point, we believe there are 4 major differences:

1) we believe they have underestimated the fugitive emissions of methane. They apparently assume no emissions from storage and from distribution systems, and their estimate for >transmission losses are far lower than the estimates we developed for losses from transmission, storage, and distribution. Their estimates are also far lower than those from the US EPA, which we also feel are too low (as is discussed in our paper).

2) they have a very high, optimistic estimate for the total amount of gas produced over the life of a well. This has the effect of giving a low estimate for percentage losses from venting and leaks, particularly during the initial well completion period. Only time will tell what the actual production of these wells will be, as the technology is too new to know. However, we used the best available information on estimates of life-time production, thoroughly documented in our paper. The NETL estimates are far higher.

3) they used a global warming potential for methane of 25, based on a 100-year time integral and the old data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We used values of 33 for a 100-year time integral and 105 for a 20-year time integral, based on more recent science (Shindell et al. 2009). Their use of the older science results in significantly down-playing the importance of methane venting and leakage on the climate system.

4) they focused solely on generation of electricity. We included generation of electricity in our study, and the analysis by David Hughes for the Post Carbon Institute took that even further. HOWEVER, only 30% of the natural gas in the US is used for electricity. The other 70% is used in home and commercial heating and for industrial processes. To focus on just electricity provides the most optimistic view of natural gas, as that is the only use where natural gas has an efficiency advantage over other fossil fuels.

This focus on electricity generation by the NETL group is curious, as in their own talk, they emphasized that it was not likely that natural gas from shales would replace coal for electricity generation over coming decades. Rather, they predict a DECREASE in the amount of natural gas used to generate electricity in the US. The development of shale gas is expected largely to replace conventional gas in its current uses, and they predict some increase in the use of gas for industrial purposes. Both the replacement of conventional gas by shale gas and the increased use of gas for industrial purposes will significantly increase the overall methane emissions from the US, and the overall greenhouse gas footprint of our nation. The NETL study chose to ignore these aspects.”

_____________________________________

Robert W. Howarth, Ph.D.

David R. Atkinson Professor of Ecology and

Environmental Biology, Cornell University

Telephone: 1-607-255-6175

E.mail: howarth@cornell.edu

web: http://www.eeb.cornell.edu/howarth/

Filed under Environment, Save the Planet Tagged with carbon footprint, Climate Change, coal, gas drilling, Howarth, hydrofracking, Methane

A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN TO SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TODAY FOR FAILURE TO STUDY “FRACKING”

May 31, 2011

A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN TO SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TODAY FOR FAILURE TO STUDY “FRACKING”.

A.G. SCHNEIDERMAN TO SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TODAY FOR FAILURE TO STUDY “FRACKING”

Demand For Fracking Study In Delaware River Basin Ignored – Even Though Drilling Would Affect NY Watershed And Portions Of 8 New York Counties

Feds Abandon Legally Required Responsibility To Assess Environmental & Public Health Impacts Of Natural Gas Drilling

Schneiderman: Feds Have An Obligation To Protect Public Health & Safety – We Will Force Them To Do So

[En Español]

NEW YORK – Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman announced he will file a lawsuit today against the federal government for its failure to commit to a full environmental review of proposed regulations that would allow natural gas drilling – including the potentially harmful “fracking” technique – in the Delaware River Basin. Last month, the Attorney General notified the federal government that if it did not commit to conducting an environmental review before the regulations authorizing gas drilling are finalized, he would take legal action to compel such a study.

“Before any decisions on drilling are made, it is our responsibility to follow the facts and understand the public health and safety effects posed by potential natural gas development,” Attorney General Schneiderman said. “The federal government has an obligation to undertake the necessary studies, and as I made clear last month, this office will compel it to do so. The welfare of those living near the Delaware River Basin, as well as the millions of New Yorkers who rely on its pure drinking water each day, will not be ignored.”

In April, just one day before a blowout at a Pennsylvania natural gas drilling site caused gallons of chemical-laced water to spill over neighboring land and into a stream, the Attorney General demanded that the federal government comply with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The law requires federal agencies to conduct a full review of actions that may cause significant environmental impacts.

Despite the legal requirement, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) – with the approval of its supporting federal agencies – proposed regulations allowing natural gas development in the Basin without undertaking any such review. Represented by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Brigadier General Peter A. DeLuca, the involved federal agencies include the Army Corps, the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Schneiderman called on the federal government to comply with its NEPA obligations by suspending its consideration of the proposed regulations and undertaking a full review of all public health and safety risks posed by natural gas development in the Basin. At that time, Schneiderman further called for this review to include an evaluation of the cumulative impacts of widespread fracking within the Basin as well as the alternative of not authorizing natural gas development within the portion of the Basin that includes New York City’s West-of-Hudson watershed.

While the federal agencies determined that natural gas drilling in the Basin would potentially result in significant environmental impacts and that the study of those impacts should be performed, the DRBC’s lead agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, responded last week and made clear that it and the other member agencies would make no such commitment. The determination undermines the NEPA requirement.

As a result, Schneiderman announced today that he is filing a lawsuit in federal District Court in Brooklyn, where General DeLuca’s office is located, to compel an environmental review before regulations authorizing gas drilling are finalized.

The proposed natural gas development regulations allow high-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling (a technique commonly referred to as “fracking”) – within the Basin. Unless studied and subject to strict controls, fracking poses risks to the environment, health, and communities, including the withdrawal of large volumes of water from creeks and streams, potential contamination of drinking water supplies, waste generation, increased noise, dust and air pollution, and potential harms to community infrastructure and character from increased industrial activity. Due to the potential for significant impacts from gas fracking within the Basin, the relevant federal agencies are obligated to comply with NEPA by performing a full review of the impact of the DRBC proposed natural gas development regulations.

The Delaware River Basin includes a portion of the New York City watershed and parts of Broome, Chenango, Delaware, Schoharie, Green, Ulster, Orange and Sullivan Counties. The federally designated Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River (and its tributaries), is a nationally significant fishing, boating and recreational destination. In addition, roughly 58 percent of the land area of New York City’s West-of-Hudson watershed is within the Basin. That portion of the watershed provides most of the drinking water used by over nine million New York residents and visitors.

The DRBC estimates that its proposed regulations would allow 15,000 to 18,000 gas wells to be drilled within the Basin, most of which are expected to be developed by fracking. The regulations were proposed without first conducting an assessment of the environmental impacts related to allowing fracking in the Basin.

The DRBC is a federal-interstate body created through a compact agreed to by the President, Congress, state Legislators and governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. The Commission has legal authority to approve or disapprove activities that may have a substantial effect on the water resources within the 13,500 square mile Delaware River Basin — including over 2,300 square miles in New York. Under federal law, the DRBC and the federal agencies involved in formulating its policies and regulations are subject to NEPA.

This matter is being handled by New York City Watershed Inspector General Philip Bein, New York City Watershed Inspector General Scientist Charles Silver, Ph.D., and Assistant Attorneys General Michael J. Myers, Morgan Costello and Adam Dobson under the supervision of the Attorney General’s Environmental Protection Bureau Chief Lemuel M. Srolovic.

Filed under Official Actions--Legislation, judgments,regulation, Spills-Accidents-Suits, Water Tagged with DRBC, NY Attorney General

Fracking in the Foodshed Martha Goodsell, Christine Applegate

May 31, 2011

https://acrobat.com/#d=RF- gWpS33h7fE1A5ic0iwg.

Fracking in the Foodshed Martha Goodsell, Christine Applegate NYRAD presentation May, 2011

Filed under agriculture, Water Tagged with agricultural impact, air pollution, Christine Applegate, economic impact, food, hydrofracking, Martha Goodsell, soil contamination, water contamination

The Greenhorns, a movie that celebrates the Young Farmer Movement. June 18, Andes, NY

May 31, 2011

Please join us for a great night of food, drinks, film and conversation: 7pm, Saturday, June 18th at The Andes Hotel, in lovely Andes, NY,

when CDOG hosts a screening of The Greenhorns,

a movie that celebrates the Young Farmer Movement.

Ken Jaffe, of Slope Farms in Meredith, will introduce the film;

the filmmakers will open a conversation about the future of upstate farming and the foodshed.

Dinner reservations are available from 4:30 on,

snacks and drinks throughout, or just come for the movie.

Suggested $10 donation benefits the National Young Farmers Coalition.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Please forward widely,

thanks!

Andes Hotel and Restaurant

The Greenhorns

Slope Farms Beef: Main : About The Beef

Filed under agriculture, events

Gas storage plan must be stopped | Star-Gazette | stargazette.com

May 31, 2011

Gas storage plan must be stopped | Star-Gazette | stargazette.com.

My husband, Bill, and I have attended several recent meetings dealing with the potential use by Inergy Corporation of depleted salt mines at the U.S. Salt Company in Watkins Glen for the storage of liquefied petroleum gas.

As some of us have learned more about the potential for damage that looms over our beautiful Finger Lakes, a groundswell has begun. The Watkins Glen High School auditorium was filled to overflowing at the meeting on April 14. Although Inergy had been invited to attend this meeting, it chose instead to sponsor one of its own the previous evening at the Community Center in Watkins Glen. It, too, drew a large crowd — but alas, questions from the audience were not entertained.

By the time the second meeting was over, we were struck by this fact: The speakers at the second meeting at the high school volunteered their time to protect our communities. Speakers included Cornell University and Hobart and William and Smith professors who have studied the properties of Seneca Lake for many years and are gravely concerned about the potential effect of the gas storage proposal. The speakers the night before at the Community Center represented a huge corporation whose goal, of course, is profit. For the most part, although they insisted they were our “neighbors,” their homes are far from here.

Subsequent informational meetings were held for concerned citizens at the Damiani Winery and at Glenora Wine Cellars.

The emerging information is terrifying if you love the Finger Lakes for its vineyards, for its lakes, for its rolling farmland and for its unmatched beauty and quietude. This project has the potential to change the entire nature of the region.

It only became clear in the last several months what Inergy’s plans entail. Although at its meeting it highlighted only two caverns to be used for storage of LP gas, that alone would create the need for a 14-acre brine pond it proposes building at the junction of Routes 14 and 14A. But there are many more depleted caverns under U.S. Salt, and Inergy has been quoted as bragging that this site will become the gas storage hub of the entire Northeast.

As one speaker asked at Glenora — and I paraphrase, “Why would we risk losing the millions of dollars in tourist trade that we have worked so hard to attract? Why would we risk all the jobs of the people employed by that industry? Why would we risk pollution of the waters of beautiful Seneca Lake that supplies drinking water to 100,000 people? Why would we risk having our wells polluted by leaking gas? Why would we risk having our property values plummet? And why would we face the risk of a catastrophic accident that could take lives and force us from our homes?”

We think now that the only way we will be able to delay or stop the initiative that Inergy proposes is if residents of our beautiful Finger Lakes say, “No, we do not want to become the hub of gas storage in the Northeast!” We want preserve our land for the rest of our lives, and for the lives of our children and grandchildren.

Moffett is a Watkins Glen resident.

Filed under Local Control

Groundwater Depletion Is Detected by Grace Satellites – NYTimes.com

May 31, 2011

Groundwater Depletion Is Detected by Grace Satellites – NYTimes.com.

Groundwater Depletion Is Detected From Space

By FELICITY BARRINGER

Published: May 30, 2011

IRVINE, Calif. — Scientists have been using small variations in the Earth’s gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet’s main sources of fresh water.

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Ann Johansson for The New York Times

MONITOR Jay S. Famiglietti of the University of California Center for Hydrologic Modeling found that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet.

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They found problems in places as disparate as North Africa, northern India, northeastern China and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley in California, heartland of that state’s $30 billion agricultural industry.

Jay S. Famiglietti, director of the University of California’s Center for Hydrologic Modeling here, said the center’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, known as Grace, relies on the interplay of two nine-year-old twin satellites that monitor each other while orbiting the Earth, thereby producing some of the most precise data ever on the planet’s gravitational variations. The results are redefining the field of hydrology, which itself has grown more critical as climate change and population growth draw down the world’s fresh water supplies.

Grace sees “all of the change in ice, all of the change in snow and water storage, all of the surface water, all of the soil moisture, all of the groundwater,” Dr. Famiglietti explained.

Yet even as the data signal looming shortages, policy makers have been relatively wary of embracing the findings. California water managers, for example, have been somewhat skeptical of a recent finding by Dr. Famiglietti that from October 2003 to March 2010, aquifers under the state’s Central Valley were drawn down by 25 million acre-feet — almost enough to fill Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir.

Greg Zlotnick, a board member of the Association of California Water Agencies, said that the managers feared that the data could be marshaled to someone else’s advantage in California’s tug of war over scarce water supplies.

“There’s a lot of paranoia about policy wonks saying, ‘We’ve got to regulate the heck out of you,’ ” he said.

There are other sensitivities in arid regions around the world where groundwater basins are often shared by unfriendly neighbors — India and Pakistan, Tunisia and Libya or Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories — that are prone to suspecting one another of excessive use of this shared resource.

Water politics was hardly on Dr. Famiglietti’s mind when he first heard about Grace. In 1992, applying for a job at the University of Texas, he was interviewed by Clark R. Wilson, a geophysicist there who described a planned experiment to measure variations in Earth’s gravitational field.

“I walked into his office and he pulled out a piece of paper saying: I’m trying to figure out how distribution of water makes the Earth wobble,” said Dr. Famiglietti. “This was 1992. I was blown away. I instantly fell in love with the guy. I said, ‘This is unbelievable, this is amazing, it opens up this whole area.’ ”

Back then the Grace experiment was still waiting in a queue of NASA projects. But he and Matt Rodell, a Ph.D. candidate under his supervision, threw themselves into investigating whether Grace would work, a so-called “proof of concept” exercise which turned out to show that Grace data were reliable and could support groundwater studies.

“It was a wide-open field we came into,” said Dr. Rodell, now a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “We were like kids in a candy store. There was so much to be done.”

When Grace was conceived by a group of scientists led by Byron D. Tapley, the director of the Center for Space Research at the University of Texas, it was the darling of geodesists, who study variations in the Earth’s size, shape and rotational axis. Climate scientists also were keenly interested in using it to study melting of ice sheets, but hydrologists paid scant attention at first.

But, Dr. Wilson recalled, “Jay jumped on the problem.”

Ten years later, the two satellites were launched from the Russian space facility at Plesetsk on the back of a used intercontinental ballistic missile in a collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Center and began streaming the gravity data back to Earth.

Acquiring the data for general research purposes would have been impossible before the end of the cold war because maps indicating the normal wiggles in Earth’s gravitational field were used for targeting long-range missiles and were therefore classified.

For decades, groundwater measurements in the United States had been made from points on the Earth’s surface — by taking real-time soundings at 1,383 of the United States Geological Survey’s observation wells and daily readings at 5,908 others. Those readings are supplemented by measuring water levels in hundreds of thousands of other wells, trenches and excavations.

The two satellites, each the size of a small car, travel in polar orbits about 135 miles apart. Each bombards the other with microwaves calibrating the distance between them down to intervals of less than the width of a human hair.

If the mass below the path of the leading satellite increases — because, say, the lower Mississippi basin is waterlogged — that satellite speeds up, and the distance between the two grows. Then the mass tugs on both, and the distance shortens. It increases again as the forward satellite moves out of range while the trailing satellite is held back.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 31, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly referred to Matt Rodell as Dr. Modell in some references.

Filed under events

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink | Environment | The Guardian

May 31, 2011

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink | Environment | The Guardian.

Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink

Exclusive: Record rise, despite recession, means 2C target almost out of reach

Fiona Harvey, Environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 29 May 2011 22.00 BST
Article history

Economic recession has failed to curb rising emissions, undermining hope of keeping global warming to safe levels Photograph: Dave Reede/All Canada Photos/Corbis

Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach, according to unpublished estimates from the International Energy Agency.

The shock rise means the goal of preventing a temperature rise of more than 2 degrees Celsius – which scientists say is the threshold for potentially “dangerous climate change” – is likely to be just “a nice Utopia”, according to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA. It also shows the most serious global recession for 80 years has had only a minimal effect on emissions, contrary to some predictions.

Last year, a record 30.6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide poured into the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuel – a rise of 1.6Gt on 2009, according to estimates from the IEA regarded as the gold standard for emissions data.

“I am very worried. This is the worst news on emissions,” Birol told the Guardian. “It is becoming extremely challenging to remain below 2 degrees. The prospect is getting bleaker. That is what the numbers say.”

Professor Lord Stern of the London School of Economics, the author of the influential Stern Report into the economics of climate change for the Treasury in 2006, warned that if the pattern continued, the results would be dire. “These figures indicate that [emissions] are now close to being back on a ‘business as usual’ path. According to the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s] projections, such a path … would mean around a 50% chance of a rise in global average temperature of more than 4C by 2100,” he said.

“Such warming would disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict. That is a risk any sane person would seek to drastically reduce.”

Birol said disaster could yet be averted, if governments heed the warning. “If we have bold, decisive and urgent action, very soon, we still have a chance of succeeding,” he said.

The IEA has calculated that if the world is to escape the most damaging effects of global warming, annual energy-related emissions should be no more than 32Gt by 2020. If this year’s emissions rise by as much as they did in 2010, that limit will be exceeded nine years ahead of schedule, making it all but impossible to hold warming to a manageable degree.

Emissions from energy fell slightly between 2008 and 2009, from 29.3Gt to 29Gt, due to the financial crisis. A small rise was predicted for 2010 as economies recovered, but the scale of the increase has shocked the IEA. “I was expecting a rebound, but not such a strong one,” said Birol, who is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts on energy.

John Sauven, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, said time was running out. “This news should shock the world. Yet even now politicians in each of the great powers are eyeing up extraordinary and risky ways to extract the world’s last remaining reserves of fossil fuels – even from under the melting ice of the Arctic. You don’t put out a fire with gasoline. It will now be up to us to stop them.”

Most of the rise – about three-quarters – has come from developing countries, as rapidly emerging economies have weathered the financial crisis and the recession that has gripped most of the developed world.

But he added that, while the emissions data was bad enough news, there were other factors that made it even less likely that the world would meet its greenhouse gas targets.

• About 80% of the power stations likely to be in use in 2020 are either already built or under construction, the IEA found. Most of these are fossil fuel power stations unlikely to be taken out of service early, so they will continue to pour out carbon – possibly into the mid-century. The emissions from these stations amount to about 11.2Gt, out of a total of 13.7Gt from the electricity sector. These “locked-in” emissions mean savings must be found elsewhere.

“It means the room for manoeuvre is shrinking,” warned Birol.

• Another factor that suggests emissions will continue their climb is the crisis in the nuclear power industry. Following the tsunami damage at Fukushima, Japan and Germany have called a halt to their reactor programmes, and other countries are reconsidering nuclear power.

“People may not like nuclear, but it is one of the major technologies for generating electricity without carbon dioxide,” said Birol. The gap left by scaling back the world’s nuclear ambitions is unlikely to be filled entirely by renewable energy, meaning an increased reliance on fossil fuels.

• Added to that, the United Nations-led negotiations on a new global treaty on climate change have stalled. “The significance of climate change in international policy debates is much less pronounced than it was a few years ago,” said Birol.

He urged governments to take action urgently. “This should be a wake-up call. A chance [of staying below 2 degrees] would be if we had a legally binding international agreement or major moves on clean energy technologies, energy efficiency and other technologies.”

Governments are to meet next week in Bonn for the next round of the UN talks, but little progress is expected.

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, said the global emissions figures showed that the link between rising GDP and rising emissions had not been broken. “The only people who will be surprised by this are people who have not been reading the situation properly,” he said.

Forthcoming research led by Sir David will show the west has only managed to reduce emissions by relying on imports from countries such as China.

Another telling message from the IEA’s estimates is the relatively small effect that the recession – the worst since the 1930s – had on emissions. Initially, the agency had hoped the resulting reduction in emissions could be maintained, helping to give the world a “breathing space” and set countries on a low-carbon path. The new estimates suggest that opportunity may have been missed.

Filed under Save the Planet

The Fractured Ethics of Fracking

May 31, 2011 1 Comment

The William G. McGowan Charitable Fund.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

The Fractured Ethics of Fracking

By Larry Kahaner

Shareholders of two large gas producers — ExxonMobil, and Chevron – voted yesterday not to require company officials to disclose more information about the growing practice known as fracking. Short for ‘hydraulic fracturing,’ the idea behind fracking is that companies drill down and then push under great pressure liquids sideways into oil and gas-rich shale rock. Millions of gallons of water, mixed with brine or chemicals, is injected into the shale and the resulting pressure fractures the rock layers which releases natural gas or oil. A proppant, usually sand, is injected into the fractures to keep the fissures open and the oil or gas flowing.

The practice is controversial because the chemicals, mixed with water, may find their way into aquifers which supply drinking water. Oil companies say that fracking is safe and poses no threat to drinking water. Although fracking has been used since the late 1940s, it has attracted attention lately because of its growing use in teasing out natural gas from virgin areas.

Right now, few groups are calling for an outright ban on fracking. What some shareholders – at least those who put the question before yesterday’s meetings – and others want is for companies to issue full disclosure about individual fracking operations and the chemicals used during the process. Some companies counter that they already abide by environmental laws and regulations and that further disclosure is not necessary.

Exxon and Chevron had urged shareholders to vote against disclosure. Even so, 30 percent of ExxonMobil shareholders and 41 percent of Chevron shareholders voted for increased disclosure. ExxonMobil spokeswoman Karen Matusic, quoted in Platts, before yesterday’s vote said that while the company supports the disclosure of chemical composition of hydraulic fracturing fluid, management has urged shareholders to vote against the activists’ resolution. “We believe state-level oversight of oil and gas operations, including hydraulic fracturing, is the most effective approach for protecting human health and the environment, since it best accounts for local geology and other local factors,” she said.

The voting was non-binding, no matter what the outcome, but I can see no reason why oil producers should not release everything they know about their fracking operations to shareholders, who, ultimately, own the company. Indeed, if fracking turns out to be a dangerous practice, shareholders will bear the financial loss as did BP shareholders after the company spilled millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Beyond their financial interest, shareholders deserve to know if the companies they support through their share ownership are good environmental stewards. I’m dismayed that shareholders voted down full disclosure. On the other hand, shareholders rarely vote against their company’s recommendations because most of them just fill in the box that says: “I agree with management.” (Who has time to read proxy statements?)

I can appreciate the paperwork burden involved in releasing additional data especially when opposing lawyers will be poring over every word trying to find the basis for lawsuits. One law firm, Ashcraft and Gerel, already has a webpage devoted to fracking litigation. There’s also concern among drillers that releasing information about the specific chemicals used at certain wells would be giving away proprietary data to competitors. (Many drillers have registered their wells and chemicals at a websitehosted by the Ground Water Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. However, it does not include all chemicals because of these proprietary concerns. Also, it only includes 80 percent of U.S. shale gas production.)

Some people I’ve spoken to in the oil and gas exploration industry say, off the record, that very little is actually proprietary and that competitors know pretty well what others are doing as far as trying new chemical mixes. Others vehemently hide, on business grounds, the recipes for their chemical concoctions even from government agencies investigating the deaths of animals who drank these potions and keeled over.

In the end, these are simply distractions. If fracking is safe, as the oil companies claim, then why hide any details from shareholders and the public? People’s lives and health are at stake and that supersedes trade secrets.

—

Don’t forget; you can become a follower of this blog by using your existing Google, Twitter or Yahoo! logon.

—

Larry Kahaner has been a business journalist for more than 20 years, a former Business Week Washington correspondent, and the author of many books about business ethics including: Values Prosperity and the Talmud: Business Lessons from the Ancient Rabbis; Competitive Intelligence: How to Gather, Analyze, and Use Information to Move Your Business to the Top; and Say It and Live It; The 50 Corporate Mission Statements that Hit the Mark, (co-author).

Filed under events Tagged with Chevron, ExxonMobil, investment

BBC News – Blackpool Shale Gas drilling suspended after quake

May 31, 2011

BBC News – Blackpool Shale Gas drilling suspended after quake.

31 May 2011 Last updated at 07:48 ET

Blackpool Shale Gas drilling suspended after quake

Shale gas drilling is controversial

Shale gas test drilling in Lancashire has been suspended following an earthquake on the Fylde coast.

A spokeswoman for Cuadrilla, the company carrying out the tests, said drilling was suspended as a precaution after Friday’s 1.5 magnitude quake.

“No fracking will be resumed until the data has been interpreted by ourselves in consultations with the British Geological Survey (BGS),” she added.

On 1 April a 2.2 magnitude tremor also centred on Poulton-le-Fylde.

Shale gas drilling, known as “fracking”, involves shattering hard shale rocks underground to release gas using either hydraulic pressure or tiny explosions.

It has proved a controversial process in the US with environmentalists alleging that shale gas leaking into their drinking supply causes tap water to ignite.

But earlier this month the Commons energy select committee called on ministers to support the process in the UK arguing that environmental problems associated with it in the US could be overcome by tight regulation and good industry practice.

‘Quake risk’The BGS said it was also monitoring fracking as a precaution. There have been two small earthquakes in Lancashire since fracking began in the county in March.

In an analysis of the April quake published on its website the BGS said: “Any process that injects pressurised water into rocks at depth will cause the rock to fracture and possibly produce earthquakes.

“It is well known that injection of water or other fluids during the oil extraction and geothermal engineering, such as Shale gas, processes can result in earthquake activity.”

The BGS said the April tremor took place 1.2 miles (2km) away from the drilling site but said its monitoring instruments were 50 miles (80km) away.

“Instrumentation much closer to the site, as well as a detailed record of dates and times of injection are required to identify any relationship between the injection process and any seismic activity in future,” the BGS said.

Filed under events Tagged with earthquakes, Great Britain, hydrofracking

DEP official: Pennsylvania might have the world’s largest gas reserves – News – Daily Review

May 31, 2011

DEP official: Pennsylvania might have the world’s largest gas reserves – News – Daily Review.\

DEP official: Pennsylvania might have the world’s largest gas reserves

BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN (Staff Writer)

Published: May 28, 2011

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Photo: N/A, License: N/A, Created: 2011:05:27 09:01:28

Review Photo/JAMES LOEWENSTEIN Scott Perry, director of the Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Oil and Gas Management, speaks Friday in Laporte.

LAPORTE – Pennsylvania might be sitting on the largest gas reserves in the world, a Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection official said in Laporte on Friday.

The Marcellus Shale is the second largest natural gas reserve in the world, said Scott Perry, the director of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Oil and Gas Management. And underneath the Marcellus Shale lies another source of natural gas, the Utica Shale, “which is potentially as productive at the Marcellus Shale, maybe even more so,” Perry said.

Together with other existing underground reserves of natural gas in the Commonwealth, “Pennsylvania might be sitting on the largest gas reserves in the world,” Perry said at a meeting of Sullivan County Energy Task Force in Laporte.

Perry also said that the Department of Environmental Protection inspects Marcellus Shale wells “multiple times,” which contradicts an assertion made several weeks ago by Bradford County Commissioner Mark Smith that many Marcellus Shale gas wells are not being inspected by the DEP.

Making sure that gas wells are properly constructed and that gas well sites are properly developed “is a priority for us,” Perry said in an interview after the meeting.

At the meeting, Perry said that the DEP increased the Marcellus Shale permit fees to pay for more gas well inspectors. “If they think we need more people resources, we can increase the fee” again, he said.

Perry also said that the Department of Environmental Protection does not require that Marcellus Shale gas well pads be lined to protect the ground from spills or that berms be constructed at gas well sites to contain large spills.

However, he said that “a substantial number” of companies do voluntarily install a liner on their well pad sites. And, he said, Chesapeake Energy installs both a liner and berms at its newer well sites.

However, companies that are responsible for spills can be fined, and they are also responsible for remediating the site after a spill, he said.

The issue of lining wells and installing berms was raised by Dean Marsh of the Benton area, who said that a gas drilling company, Williams LLC, is getting ready to frack a well near where he lives. While the site is lined, there is no berm, so a substantial spill would flow off the site and could impact a trout stream in the area if there were a heavy rain, Marsh said in an interview.

Perry also said at the meeting that hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” of gas wells has not resulted in contamination of ground water. “I have yet to see an instance where hydraulic fracturing has split open rock and impacted fresh ground water zones,” Perry said.

Friday’s meeting was open to the public.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (57)) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.

Filed under Community Impacts, Spills-Accidents-Suits Tagged with Bradford Co., PA

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