NC Fracking Study Nears Completion

It is arguably an ill-conceived and poorly timed study on the feasibility of shale gas extraction via hydraulic fracturing (fracking). The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has the unenviable task of heading the study given too little time and too few funds. The final report is required by May of this year. While input at public hearings has been predominantly unfavorable toward legalization of fracking, no observer following the progress of this process will be surprised if the final report is anything but favorable.

No one in the pro fracking camp wants to appear to have their minds already made up in favor of scrapping current state laws prohibiting horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing. But while the perception of prudence (i.e., “We’ll drill, but only if it’s safe”) is the goal of “legislative speak,” there is little evidence to convict the fracking proponents on Jones Street of forethought, caution or objectivity. Indeed, the blatant disregard for decorum by the ruling party, especially in the (mis)conduct of multiple special sessions, reveals an “ends justifies the means” and “winner take all” bravado unmatched by previous legislative bodies. The Speaker of the House has been anything but shy or discreet in proclaiming that he will strike wherever and whenever he has the means to overturn the Governor’s veto of S709 (a.k.a. Drill, Baby, Drill bill). While hyping shale gas as a “bridge fuel toward energy independence,” the majority party continues to dismantle bridges of cooperation that reach across the aisle and build the public trust.

The truth is this fossil fuel energy source touted as being cheap, clean, abundant and made in America for Americans is coming up short on all counts. It turns out that because of the huge amount of gas wells fracked over the past few years, there is a large reserve that has driven down the price of natural gas to all time lows. If you think that’s good news, it’s not. It means drilling companies are now curtailing production in order to raise prices. The only way to be profitable is to ultimately create a global market that inflates the gas balloon. Once American dependence on gas is established, it’s no longer cheap. Here’s more bad news. In the mean time the profitable markets are all foreign. That’s right; Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) burned by the Chinese will ironically be “Made in America.” So much for cheap home grown gas to fuel America’s energy independence. The new “Saudi Arabia of Gas” will be selling it to the highest bidder.

As for clean, research studies are showing what a skeptical public has always realized. You can’t believe what you see on gas industry TV commercials. While natural gas burns cleaner than coal, the large volume of methane that escapes into the air and ground water throughout the extraction, storage and transport process puts it atop the potent polluters list. Could better technology, best management practices and more stringent regulation, monitoring and enforcement lessen the pollution? Most certainly, but it would take a big bite out of industry profits, and for some smaller players signal “game over”. An already under regulated industry (think Halliburton Loophole) continues to balk at increased regulation.

What about abundance? Does a national 100 year supply (40 in NC) of gas sound too good to be true? We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that estimates of supply have been overly optimistic and skewed as well. Take a moment to read at least the Conclusion to this eye opening article in The Oil Drum.

As the study remains on the fast track with the final set of public meetings and input scheduled for March, and as fracking proponents gamble on NC’s energy, economic and environmental future with a pro drilling stacked deck there is good reason to call for caution. All citizens who are concerned about this issue should attend an upcoming meeting and speak up, or send written comments to DENR. Now is also a good time to drop an email or make a phone call to the Speaker of the House encouraging him and his colleagues to slow down. We still have much to learn about how to do it right… or not do it at all. And the gas isn’t going anywhere soon. It can wait, and so can we.

– Gary Simpson

A Well-Informed Public is a Pain in the…Gas

You’ll never find that statement or anything close to it attached to public relations ads and commercials from the natural gas industry. The pharmaceutical industry must be green with envy. It spends half of its TV commercial time disclosing the dangerous and sometimes deadly side effects of the latest wonder drug. Yet, the natural gas industry is given carte blanche to conduct and promote its business as though fracking for shale gas is all sweetness and light with no sour dark side.

In 2011 the industry milked this double standard exemption for all it’s worth with glowing ads/commercials touting natural gas as the panacea to America’s energy needs, economic woes and climate change concerns. This time-consuming and expensive promotional propaganda is fueled not by choice, but by necessity. While many politicians of varying stripes and wide-eyed owners of land covering shale gas have taken the bait hook, line, and sinker, much of the general public won’t touch fracking with a ten-foot pole. What the industry won’t tell us and denies when confronted by reality is, nevertheless, being seen, heard, smelled, tasted and otherwise felt by ever expanding numbers of victims directly affected by fracking’s collateral damage. With their quality of life gone and their survival in jeopardy, they are becoming the warning label that the industry won’t print. (See: http://www.cwfnc.org/water-and-energy/fracking/carol-and-carolyn/.)

While the industry is literally gaining ground in terms of land acquisitions and leases, it continues to lose a ground swell of public support as wary citizens drill down to expose the dirt about fracking’s underbelly and the industry’s general disregard for everything but profit. A November 18, 2011 report from a federal panel on natural gas drilling underlines such public concern in stating that the industry and the government need to do more to address environmental concerns: “Environmental issues need to be addressed now—especially in terms of waste water, air quality, and community impact,” declared subcommittee chair and MIT Professor, John Deutch. One of the more critical and perhaps unexpected conclusions of the report states: 

If action is not taken to reduce the environmental impact accompanying the very considerable expansion of shale gas production expected across the country—perhaps as many as 100,000 wells over the next several decades—there is a real risk of serious environmental consequences and a loss of public confidence that could delay or stop this activity.

The entire report shows that the panel wants to believe that America’s natural gas resources can be golden and that the industry can be the goose that lays the golden egg. An objective examination of the industry nest, however, reveals what a well informed public already believes. Fracking for natural gas looks and smells like a process producing rotten eggs unfit for public consumption. Such a report should spur the industry on to spend more time and money on cleaning up its act instead of pumping out glossier ad campaigns to polish its image. That would be the proper response. A skeptical public can hope for the best but expect simply more gilding of the lily (or rotten egg in this case). A well-informed public is the industry’s nemesis; a real pain in the gas.

~ Gary Simpson

Hear This: Fracking May Not Bring Economic Rewards After All

“Envirospeak” is a foreign language, unintelligible and despised by most Republican legislators, and some Democrats as well. It is, therefore, ignored by them at best and attacked at worst. Those suspected of speaking it are perceived as “irrational zealots,” “environmental extremists” and no friend of commerce and the economy. It is for this reason that stewards of the earth (and champions of health and wellness) live these days with constant migraines. It comes from beating their heads against a veritable brick political wall when seeking in vain to shed light on the negative environmental and health impacts of certain practices…like fracking for shale gas for instance.

To gain the attention and capture the ear of such legislators, one must learn to converse in their native tongue…“Econospeak.” Because their sun rises and sets on the ringing of the bell on Wall St., at the end of the day everything is about the economy. It’s all about money…making it, holding it and making more of it in a business friendly unfettered market. That’s why an article in Energy Policy Forum describing a “fatal flaw” in an IHS Global Insight report is critical for fracking skeptics to read and share with their Econospeaking legislators and neighbors.

The article exposes a very likely false economic assumption that drives the push for shale gas extraction as a cheap, home grown, for domestic consumption only alternative fuel. WHAT IF natural gas prices skyrocket, fueled by the global export of this homegrown commodity? Suddenly the rosy picture wilts as global economics dictates the game. The warning of the article should cause fracking fans to swallow hard before placing their economic eggs in this fragile basket:

To predicate our own national energy policy on unconventional gas when the track record has yet to be known fully could prove a very risky bet. To assume low gas prices at consistently depressed levels over the next 25 years is naive to the extreme. Without exception and by IHS’s own admission, every benefit claimed in this report drops by the wayside if gas prices rise. And such benefits will plunge from a cliff should exports ramp up prices considerably.

Read the article, as well as those that follow it. Then use your Econospeak voice to spread the word that the natural gas goose will more likely be laying rotten eggs rather than golden if allowed to nest in NC.