Natural gas doesn't deserve squeaky clean image
Follow along as I walk us up the steep learning curve about natural gas that Earthjustice, the environmental community and the nation are navigating. The curve suddenly steepened a few years ago when natural gas advocates started promoting their fuel as a refreshing alternative to coal and oil, and a bridge to a clean energy future.
If we have learned anything along the way, it is this: the clean reputation of natural gas is good PR, but lousy science.
For decades, Earthjustice has worked to protect special places on our public lands from being pockmarked by gas development. Our litigation has helped protect such treasures as the Wyoming Range south of the Tetons, Otero Mesa in southern New Mexico, the Roan Plateau in western Colorado, and some of the spectacular red rock country near Arches and Canyonlands National Parks in Utah.
Despite some improvements by the Obama administration in leasing and drilling policies, we are forced to keep fighting some of these battles. We’ve come to know that gas development can fragment wildlife habitat and industrialize a pristine landscape, and we’ve worked on federal and state rules to reduce those impacts.
We have also learned that gas development can make people sick. Air pollution from concentrated gas development has become a leading public health problem in many western communities. Pinedale, Wyoming, for example, population 6,000, has code red ozone days from intense gas development, sending children indoors and asthmatics to the hospitals. As gas development has spread to the east, communities in Pennsylvania are being hit with the same thing. Earthjustice sued the EPA to force it to adopt long-overdue air pollution controls on gas production, and the agency is now working on a proposal to at least begin that critical task.
The pursuit of natural gas in places like Pennsylvania wouldn’t be practical without a relatively new – and environmentally destructive – extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Practically in the blink of an eye, rapid deployment of fracking technology has enabled gas to be produced from previously inaccessible shale formations which underlie much of the nation – Texas, Louisiana, the Rockies and a wide swath of eastern states, including Pennsylvania and New York. Pennsylvania alone has more than 75,000 wells (as of 2009).
Fracking has all the air quality problems of extracting by conventional means, plus a host of water quality and health concerns from the use of toxic chemicals in the fracking process and the production of vast quantities of polluted water with little or no treatment available before it is returned to the environment. We are deeply engaged in reducing the impacts of fracking with litigation, policy advocacy, and some savvy communications strategies.
But here comes the kicker. Gas has been widely touted as clean, less polluting than coal or oil, and an answer to addressing climate change.
There’s no question that burning gas doesn’t load us up with mercury, fill our lungs with soot, or cause acid rain, like coal, and burning gas produces less carbon than coal or oil. In some cases, environmental groups have stood shoulder to shoulder with the gas industry and promoted new taxpayer subsidies for developing more gas resources. The centerpiece of President Obama’s current energy and climate policy is a “Clean Energy Standard” that would count gas as clean energy.
But the closer scientists look, the more we learn about the methane emissions from gas production. Methane, the main component of natural gas, is a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide in forcing climate change. Several recent studies examine methane leakage and venting during gas drilling, production and transportation, and compare the life cycle climate impact of developing and using gas with the life cycle impact of coal. The studies indicate that if methane leaks and venting are not prevented, gas may be almost as carbon-intensive as coal.
One last twist: gas power is an important back-up for intermittently producing renewables like wind and solar, but if gas is developed when the price is artificially low, gas can displace renewables, squeezing them out of the market. A Reuters story last week said it all: “A widening shale gas revolution is killing the economics of renewable energy, even as falling costs allow wind and solar to overtake fossil fuels in niche areas.”
So, while we work to transition away from coal, we cannot let another fossil fuel to become locked in for generations, nor let it choke off the blossoming market for renewables. Here at Earthjustice we are working on cases that will force more studies of methane impacts and better controls over those releases, pressing to end exemptions from federal law and outright subsidies, and working to use federal and state laws to get gas right. I hope you will join us in this important work.
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Hey Trip and others. I have something that should be looked into about energy and natural gas. Its not the insane zero point scifi stuff but real tech thats been around since WW2. People need to know this and I want to know why none of the eco awareness websites and publications are covering it. I am talking about high tech anaerobic digestion such as the ORB system (www.facebook.com/ORBsystem)
So far publications and would be environmentalists have been ignoring it. Why is something safe, cost effective, clean and reliable that can supply upwards of 2/3 of all natural gas needed in the world being ignored?
Why is this not at the forefront of things that should be done and the center of the plans put forth by all these so called environmentalists?
What about all that natural gas that was stored in the North Slope after the oil was removed and extracted? Environmental law prevented burn off and so it was stored. Why frack when you can tap this transitional source?
The 'Real Problem" with pollution and environmental destruction is OVER-POPULATION. The population continues to grow exponentially in the U.S., and illegal immigration from Mexico adds so much more. This fact is seldom even mentioned and seems to be regarded as a "secret." I don't care how much everyone "conserves" or what industries we try to control better. If we do not limit our population expansion (world-wide and nationally) we are doomed. Yet certain churches keep attacking family planning and even birth control. Their leaders are just off their rockers. They call their position "pro-life." What is "pro-life" about polluting and poisoning people and crowding them into mega-cities (strings of adjacent cities that in some cases, as in Phoenix, AZ, are as big as states like Rhode Island.
We can try to make everyone ride bicycles instead of use motor vehicles, but of course they cannot because cities haven't been laid out for them, and too many people are not even in shape to use them. And even if we could pull this (the change to only bicycles) off, we would still have problems with the population exploding.
China has been the only country in the world to limit couples from having more than one child. Why do many Americans think they need five, ten, or even fifteen children? And, of course, the poorest and least educated people, in America and globally, have the most children, creating a burden for all of us collectively.
This issue is "loaded" because of misguided "religious" views. I am not anti-religious or "godless," but I believe the churches are promoting destruction of the planet by even encouraging people to have "as many children as God will give" them.
It is high time to "wake up" to this fundamental problem.
As my old pappy used to say, "There are too many f...ing people in the world."
Conservation Conservation Conservation!!! Use less! Use less! Use less! This should be stressed so much more in America!! We Americans use way more than we need to or fairly should compared to the Whole Rest Of The World!!
Notice of Public Meeting
Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) Natural Gas Subcommittee.fracking
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/resources/fr_notice_0628_0713.pdf
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/index.html
Next meeting in Washington DC is June 28. We need a presence there...
Looking to car pool from eastern Pa.
Roger
rjsphoto@ptd.net
http://www.grist.org/renewable-energy/2011-05-26-how-to-get-to-a-fully-r...
I think clean water is imparitive and in Pennsylvania there are no regulations on how the gas companies can use clean or dispose of dirty water. In western Pennsylvania they are pulling water out of the Monongahelia and the Youghagany and then dumping the dirty water right back in. Soon there will be no water we can swim in or drink. The people in rural Pennsylvania hunt and fish to eat. There won't be any fish or animals there to eat soon. A few rich people are getting paid more for this and the poorer people will suffer again.
Natural Gas (methane) is neither that bad or that good. Among the three common fossil fuels - Coal, Oil and Gas - I call it Fossil Light. Coal, of course, is Fossil Heavy. Gas is frequently found where Coal and Oil are found. The same people/skill sets are involved. The same political methods work. All these fossil fuels can create investment, tax revenue and jobs. But all risk harm.
Whatever the value of gas is, I feel fresh water has a higher value and one is not to be highly risked for the other. Save fracking for future generations when side effects and risks are minimized. Better to obtain gas from existing sources and to maximize the recovery of as much biomethane from landfills as possible. That is the low hanging fruit on the fossil tree. Of course, to the extent that is excludes some of the drilling/mining skills that others in the industry depend on, it is an option mentioned without much enthusiasm. Perhaps the scale of landfill gas recovery is small relative to projected need. That gap can be filled by improved efficiency, elimination of wasted energy and other renewable sources.
I am sick and tired of my Texas state government and the Texas Development Board, which just gave the “frackers” in Texas all the fresh water they need to carry out their explorations. Right now almost the entire state of Texas is under drought conditions, with about three/fourths’ of the state’s land mass under ‘extreme’. Texas is a large state in landmass. Most of Texas is under stage 2 water restrictions and is closely nearing stage 3. Why do entities in power then give away what little fresh water there is to an industry that will fill the water with toxic chemicals, which they do not have to disclose, in order to extrude a gas that also pollutes our air? In a world where water is our most important and precious resource—they want to pollute it with some very nasty chemicals, and give millions of gallons of it away to these dirty “frackers,” which also get government subsidies in taxpayer dollars. Do they want to make all of us sick so we have to pay outrageous medical bills, or blow up our houses so we have to buy new housing, or destroy our fresh water to make it more costly? Is the only game in town the quick, make it while you can money gain game for our lawmakers? Is that the only reason why they want to be in the lawmaker game? It certainly does not seem that they want to be in it for the health, well fair, and safety of Americans. It is time to mobilize, time to strike back, time to protest, write letters and emails, make calls to our so-called Representatives, and fight for what is right. It is easy to understand that we all need energy to run our modern lifestyles, but we cannot drink natural gas, we cannot water our crops with it, and we cannot expect our fresh water fish to live in it. That is where we are headed. And it is for nothing more than money! Our corrupted lawmakers, our lazy and money grubbing Governors, our deaf Washington Senators and insane Washington House members are doing nothing to ensure our safety, our health, or our future. I’m mad as Hell, and I cannot take it anymore!!!
As usual, in the economics of industrial processes in the US, externalized costs (eroded soils, loss of habitat, illness due to polluted water and air, etc.) are never included in the spreadsheets of corporations or governments. The "free" services provided by Mother Nature go right to their bottom lines. Unfortunately, the "free ride" provided by her seems to be coming to an end (flooding, crazy weather, more cancers, etc.). Luckily all these DO contribute to GDP. Party on.
K.
Anything you get by destroying the environment cannot be called clean. The government needs to do a much better job dealing with the gas industry or it will be spending tons of money cleaning up after it, all while we and the environment suffer the consequences. All the pollution and illness this industry is responsible for SHOULD make it easy for the government to make the right choice. But will it?
I wouldn't allow the gas industry access to my land for anything.
Exactly.
Methane (natural gas) is neither clean nor cheap.
Both of these beliefs are being widely promoted and are being widely believed - as far as I can tell, most importantly right now, by the Whitehouse with the current "Clean Energy Standard" (CES) conceptual plan which drifts toward literally calling natural gas "clean" and by the DOE Subcommittee which seems designed to greenwash the process used to extract shale gas - fracking.
Stanley R Scobie, Binghamton, NY
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