Drilling for gas and oil has always been a gamble. In conventional wells the geologists try to identify locations where gas and/or oil collect as they seep through layers of rock. The layers of rock deep in the earth are deformed by the movement of the tectonic plates forming folds and shears that over the millennia create pockets where the liquids and gas pool. Shale gas differs because it is distributed in porous rock and must be given pathways to flow to the well. Enter hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” which makes cracks and props them open so gas can escape. Some places may be better than others to drill, but the bore hole needs only hit a fairly large target layer where shale gas lies trapped and then turn horizontally and follow it for as many as four miles.
Discovery is not the only “crap shoot” in the shale gas business. The profitability of the produced gas is a function of market price and demand. Just now the prices are low. Middle Eastern suppliers, anticipating the success of shale gas and oil have dropped prices to stem the flow of cash into the shale energy sector. To some extent that strategy is working. As new sources around the globe come on line increased competition will make matters worse. The Economist Magazine predicts that there will be blood:
“No wonder that the fight over the finances of America’s shale-oil industry has turned nasty. In one corner are shortsellers, including David Einhorn, a hedge-fund manager whose scalps include Lehman Brothers. They argue that “fracking”—the business of blasting oil out of rocks using water, sand and chemicals—is a bottomless pit into which too much cash has been thrown.
The ingenuity of America’s shale industry is admirable, the state of its finances awful. (click to read more) The Economist 7/4/15
In the other corner are America’s oil pioneers, who say that shale can thrive even though the benchmark American oil price has dropped from over $100 a barrel last year to $57 today. The oilmen are backed by plenty of other investors who are still pumping money into shale firms: some $35 billion of equity and bonds has been raised since December.
Both sides have a point. It makes sense to be cheery about the long-term prospects for shale energy—and to be queasy about today’s bunch of fracking firms (see article).”
Savvy investors arrive early and leave early before the bubble bursts, but the crowd usually buys in late causing the bubble to swell and then burst.
For communities where shale gas is being developed these financial uncertainties are not good news. A bankrupt company won’t be paying out “mailbox” money, and may be tempted to cut corners in the construction of their wells. The industry can’t operate with zero impact; the best that they can promise is to minimize impact and to mitigate the damage they do afterwards. Obviously one can’t count on a bankrupt organization to keep its promises. When the money stops the roughnecks move on, the equipment gets repossessed and the locals are left with the derelicts.
If the prediction that shale gas is an investment bubble is correct, then the big losers will be the regions ravaged by the rush to cash in. The Wall Street bettors will find another game, but the local communities? C’est laissez-faire.
For many of those newly concerned about fracking the amount of information is overwhelming. Hundreds of very good sources exist, and there are hundreds more that are just shrill opinion or propaganda. It’s a chore to sort through it all. I’ve been focused on this for three weeks pretty much full time, and I still find surprising new information.
Food and Water Watch report on Fracking. (click to view)
One of my recent finds is this report by Food and Water Watch, a credible source. The report offers a comprehensive overview and an impressive listing of end notes (320 of them) so scholars and skeptics can check sources.
Survey Article on Fracking (click to view)
Another survey article appeared in Law Street and lists source websites the author used while attempting to write a balanced pro and con review of fracking.
Yesterday (July 20th) I updated the homepage of this site by adding a summary of the fracking issues of specific concern to our area of Bucks County. Although the content is not new, it was scattered in various posts and links on the site and wasn’t a quick read. Page one gives a quick overview and the “read more” drills down for more detail. (pun intended.) It’s a work in process and I will be adding illustrations and links to enrich what’s presented there.
The video portfolio on this site has excellent animated graphics to help you understand and the fracking tour presents actual photographs of all stages of the process so you see the impact on the land and the community.
Thanks to all those who have been emailing links and articles. I now know more than I ever wanted to. But don’t stop. It all gets noted and saved.
Side Bar – Anonymous Propaganda vs. Responsible Opinion
I have spent some time reading pro fracking information to see what I might be missing. There is a lot of very well designed material that’s clearly the product of a professional ad agency. It stands in sharp contrast to the scientific and news sources. Few items have a named author or actually cite sources. They seek to convince the way advertising does with crafted language and phrasing that glosses over the inconvenient facts.
By contrast, the science discusses the limits and uncertainties. It cites sources and explains how the authors arrived at their findings, and the articles appear in journals and publications that are reviewed by informed peers.
The advocacy literature unabashedly presents a viewpoint and often uses language that characterizes the drillers and the energy industry negatively. But the big difference between the ad copy and these activist articles is that the authors put their personal and/or orginazitions’ names on the product. Most quote authorities by name and cite print sources. Although they are making a case, there is no pretense otherwise.
We are in the way. The Marcellus Shale development to the west has created a demand for more pipelines to carry gas east to export terminals and urban markets. These big pipes cut wide swaths through natural areas and disrupt developed areas. PA State Representative Steve Santasiero forsees that pipeline zoning presents a big challenge for municipalities, and possibly a more immediate one that fracking.
If you want to get an idea why visit State Impact – Pennslyvania and read their excellent article on the regulatory mess and the consequent challenges faced by municipalities.
Flyer Announcing 8/3 Update and Supervisors’ Visit
We’re asking everyone to come out on Monday August 3 to hear an update on our efforts to prevent premature adoption of the jointure drilling zone ordinance. We’ll meet at six (6PM) at the Wrightstown Friends Meeting at 535 Durham Road, PA 413 North. After a short update there will be time for comments and questions. Then at seven (7PM) all will go over to the Wrightstown Municipal Building (2203 Second Street Pike) for the Supervisors’ Meeting that starts at 7:30PM. As before a few people will present our concerns.
We’ve been in touch with the Supervisors and anticipate a good reception and discussion. It’s clear that they are not eager to see fracking come to our area. We want to be a resource and provide support for a good strategy to deal with the threat fracking represents to our quiet enjoyment of our beautiful Bucks County homes and surroundings.
One of our contributors discovered “Explore a Fracking Operation – Virtually” – a website that lets you see photographs of the various stages of fracking operations. Those who have not traveled to the regions where fracking is done may be surprised at the scale of this industry. Well drilling and fracking requires hundreds of heavy vehicles and a logistics reminicent of a large scale military mobilization. Check it out by clicking the illustration below:
Screenshot of FrackTracker Website.
You will find another excellent website at R-CAUSE.net. Like this site, it seeks to inform its constituency about the risks of fracking. Although New York has banned fracking, there continue to be threats to water and air in the Rochester and Corning areas.
No one can or will guarantee that a gas well will never leak. You can find industry video narrated by one of those deep Walter Cronkite-like voices that tell you about the extraordinary precautions drillers take to protect the aquifer from migration of nasty stuff between layers.
You can even cherry-pick to find industry statistics claiming that leakage is very rare, less than one percent (not true). But you won’t find anybody putting their money on the line that the well they want to drill into your aquifer won’t someday spoil your well water.
You will find that extraordinary measures have been taken to shield drillers from liability and regulatory culpability. Exemptions have been carved out of the body of law intended to protect the environment. You will also find plenty of examples where the industry has obtained gag orders and non-disclosure settlements hoping to keep a lid on public knowledge of mistakes. There are even some egregious examples of perverse use of baseless law suits and even phony criminal charges to discourage public participation showcasing problems with drilling. As the cops say, “you can beat the wrap, but you can’t beat the ride.” (The “ride” is the whole process of being arrested and charged.) Even if one is obviously innocent of doing wrong, legal defense is costly and even if you win you end up out-of-pocket.
What’s behind all this? Independent peer-reviewed studies as well as industry studies show that at least six percent (6%) of fracking wells leak early in their life cycle. I strongly suspect that all wells will leak eventually – maybe not in 10 or 20 years, but in 100?
Let’s stick with what we know for the moment. Drilling puts a large hole through half a mile of ancient rock formations to reach the gas rich layer under Bucks County. It’s deeper elsewhere. At the surface level, where the aquifer is, at least three concentric steel casings line the bore hole. Cement under pressure is forced into the space between the outer casing and the rock to prevent gas and/or liquid from traveling vertically outside of the casing and moving between geologic layers. This cement is supposed to keep the nasty stuff out of the drinking water layers.
This is the fundamental weakness of the drilling system. Think about the cement you see in sidewalks, driveways, and foundations. It cracks. Cement is rigid and very strong in compression, but it doesn’t have good tensile strength. It doesn’t necessarily bond permanently to other materials. Voids, where there is no concrete seal, may be left when concrete is pumped into the annulus or gap around the well casing. It’s not like the footing for a house; you can’t look and see. Even with no disturbances cracks can open as the cement cures or long after it’s fully set. But there are disturbances. Seismic events happen regularly. The earth moves.
The drilling process itself involves huge rotating drill bits that pound and vibrate to chip the rock and open the hole. Boring generates heat that is carried away from the bit by the flow of drilling mud, a wet slurry pumped down the drill pipe bathing the cutting bit and carrying the chips and heat back up and out. So there is are temperature changes. Steel and cement don’t expand at the same rate. Drilling itself vibrates the upper casings components and the earth as the bore hole is extended downward. Time is money and sometimes drilling operators don’t wait long enough for the fresh cement to cure to full strength, fracturing the “green” cement as they resume drilling. Rust forms on the mild steel casings as dampness, chemicals, and natural acids do their work. The annulus space outside the casing isn’t clean. All of these conditions act to break the bonds between the casing and the cement, and loosen the cement from the bore hole walls.
Repeated fracking cycles subject the casing and the cement seal to strain. It’s hard to imagine that a steel pipe half a mile long doesn’t flex and move under these extreme pressure changes. The same hydraulic forces that are fracturing rock where the lateral pipe is perforated are also trying to fracture the seal around the well casing. Blowouts sometimes happen.
The casings come in sections and thread together. For more than fifty years the joints have been a problem when put under pressure. Engineers have optimized the shape an pitch of threads and used sealants. In spite of considerable experience and ingenuity, casing joints still fail.
Then there is outright reckless disregard for the consequences of leaks. Drillers have paid huge fines and settlements for blatant disregard for good practice and regulations. Critics say that inspection and enforcement is understaffed and too lax. Drillers sometimes even refuse to allow inspectors onto the drill site.
None of the precautions taken by even the most ethical drillers can ensure that a bore hole once created can be sealed permanently. Consequently every new well increases the probability of contamination of the aquifer forever. That probability starts with the first well at one-in-twenty odds (1:20) and the odds get worse over time. Each new well adds another leak possibility. It’s like playing repeated rounds of Russian roulette first with one gun, then two, and so on.
This is not a game we should want to play. The more I know about fracking, the more it looks like a bargain with the Devil. No matter how appealing the cheap energy is, in the long run we lose.
[revised for clarity and to update links 7/10/15, 7/11/15.]
Attorney Matt McHugh who prepared the proposed drilling ordinance was quoted as saying that “there are no known deposits of natural gas or oil in any of the three townships…” Until someone actually makes a producing well, deposits are termed “undiscovered” but that does NOT mean they aren’t known to be there. Back in 2011 the USGS did a study of the South Newark Basin Shale formation which included data from one well never put into production. James Coleman, a researcher for the U.S.G.S said, “We think there’s a 90 percent probability that there’s gas in the South Newark Basin and that gas is between 363 billion cubic feet and 1,698 billion cubic feet.”
Coleman was speaking to Susan Phillips of State Impact who wrote an excellent article you’ll find on the StateImpact site. I’d say the odds are only slightly less than a sure thing that somebody will want to drill in Bucks if given the opportunity.
Notes from the 7/7/15 Briefing at Newtown Friends Meeting
“Attorney Matt McHugh of Grim, Biehn and Thatcher in Perkasie said the ordinance [to create an gas & oil fracking zone in Wrightstown, Newtown Township and Upper Makefield] will likely be voted on by all three governing bodies in the next month or two.” (front page news, Bucks County Courier Times 7/7/15)
Tonight 70 people gathered at the Newtown Quaker Meeting to hear about this proposed ordinance. Some key points emerged:
Outrage that no public comment has been invited
FHA lending guidelines prohibit financing for homes within 300 feet of a property with “an active or planned drilling site;” homeowner’s insurance mandated by lenders may exclude properties with a gas lease or a gas well; mortgages can be denied because of drilling on a neighbor’s property
Most of the water in Lower Bucks County is drawn from aquifers, which once contaminated by fracking fluid leaks, spills, overflows or surface runoff can never be recovered. As one woman said, “You can get energy from other sources, but you can’t live without water. Our property [in Wrightstown] would be worthless.”
The average water use for a single fracking well is 4.4 million gallons, only 15% of which is recycled fracking fluid
Spent fracking wells continue to degrade and leach forever
Oil and gas jobs and money are boom-and-bust, but the costs to the community last forever.
There is no reason for urgency in passing an ordinance. Most of Bucks County is already covered under the Delaware River Basin Moratorium until January 1, 2018. There’s no pressure to act in haste on the proposed ordinance.
After the meeting at the Newtown Quaker Meeting, about 100 people attended the Newtown Township Planning Board meeting. At the end of the public comment period, the Chairperson urged us to communicate with the Township Supervisors who have the power to make the final decision.
ACT NOW
Come to the Newtown Township Supervisor’s Meeting on , July 8 at 7:30pm and voice your opinion
Can’t attend? Make a phone call (215-968-2800 ext. 8, then ext. 3 to speak with Olivia Kivenko, Administrative Assistant to the Town Manager) or write a short, handwritten note to Newtown Township Supervisors, 100 Municipal Drive, Newtown, PA 18940 and say we want at least a one-year study period with public participation before any gas & oil drilling ordinance is considered for a vote
Attend, write, call the Wrightstown Supervisors (meetings on the 1st and 3rd Mondays of every month at 7:30pm, 2203 Second Street Pike). Ask Wrightstown to withdraw their request for an ordinance to create a gas and oil drilling zone.
Check the coverage in the Bucks Courier-Times (you may need to subscribe ($1 promo), to see the whole article.)
In a June 1st, 2015 article StateImpact reports on the gas well fire that sent flame so high into the air that the flames were visible for miles above the tree tops. Kati Coleneri reports, “Fires at two wells in Dunkard Township, Greene County burned for several days before they could be extinguished, but it took more than one week to find the remains of Ian McKee, 27, a contractor with Texas-based Cameron International who was killed in the blast.”
Katie Colaneri/ StateImpact Pennsylvania. A fire broke out on a Chevron natural gas well pad in Dunkard Township, Greene County, Pa. on Feb. 11, 2014.
Reports like this underscore the hazards of drilling anywhere near where people work or play. The $940,000 fine and the $5,000,000 settlement with McKee’s family dramatize the magnitude of the risks. Little wonder that insurance companies and mortgage lenders shy away from drilling sites. It also underscores how woefully inadequate the proposed ordinance being considered by the Jointure would be if enacted. It provides for unspecified insurance, and a maximum $50,000 financial security, described as laughable by critics.
As a former firefighter I confess I have no idea how to fight such a blaze. I don’t imagine that the first responders of our local communities do either. Well fires often require special teams to be flown in who are equipped with tools and techniques to snuff the flames and cut the flow.
I was shocked to see that PA State investigators were denied access to the site for two days and that there was no penalty assessed for doing so. What protections does state DEP oversight offer if a company with apparent violations can prevent the regulators from inspecting? It suggests that the gas industry has way too much influence in Harrisburgh.
FRACKING: A STORY OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES & COLLATERAL DAMAGES
I don’t believe that the gas and oil industry intends to destroy our quality of life and our communities. This industry provides a good yield for our pension funds and portfolios—and makes a decent return for their investors. They provide fuel to keep us warm in the winter, fuel to power our electronic devices, fuel to drive our cars to the grocery store and our children to school, fuel to transport food from faraway places so we can enjoy strawberries in Dec. in Pennsylvania. They provide the fertilizers to grow our crops. They provide “mail box money” for landowners who allow them to drill on their properties. They provide jobs.
In fact our current oil and gas industry is a marvel of ingenuity. What was once a single oil well is now a shaft that can go miles vertically into the earth, with radial arms that turn and run horizontally for 2-4 miles. Who could have imagined such a thing even 10 years ago?
Another high performing profit sector is the chemical industry, which has created chemicals for all sorts of useful purposes. According to the EPA, there are more than 64,000 chemicals that have been created and are in use, chemicals that have not been tested for toxicity and that can be combined in countless new ways. Fracking wells can use a combination of up to 1,000 of these chemicals. All but 60 of these were essentially omitted from the EPA study released in June, 2015.
But what isn’t accounted for are the unintended consequences that are externalized to the surrounding community.
Property owners within a 1-5 mile radius may incur additional cost of insurance to cover losses in case of explosion on a site
Surface water contamination from fracking backflow can affect human health indirectly through consumption of contaminated crops, livestock or wildlife
Deafening noise and glaring lights around drilling rigs can make areas uninhabitable, increasing stress and disrupting sleep patterns
Noxious odors can impact air quality for miles around
Housing values drop and in some cases become worthless because banks will no longer provide a mortgage for their resale
Other industries are harmed like agriculture, tourism, organic farming, hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation
Local enforcement officials and firefighters are overwhelmed with conditions they were never trained to deal with
Well shafts deteriorate over time and shaft leaks can occur in numerous places during drilling, releasing methane “a greenhouse gas 23 times more potent than CO2”
Health impacts can include low birth weight babies, birth defects, and especially the very young and the elderly experience allergies, skin rashes and lesions, asthma, bronchial conditions, and cancers
Each fracking operation requires several million gallons of water, of which only around a quarter is being recovered, depleting water sources, increasing tanker truck traffic on small, local roads, creating disposal problems
Exhaust from heavy truck traffic also contributes ultrafine particles (36 times finer than a grain of sand) laden with metals and hydrocarbons in hundreds of combinations, degrading our air quality and creating lung infections, chronic obstructive lung disease, strokes, ischemic heart disease, and lung cancer
Good paying jobs are created for a year or so and then the drillers and riggers move on to the next community and the next well, leaving only the permanent environmental and health costs for communities and citizens to deal with
Some people think that these impacts are just the price of doing business and enjoying the high quality of life we Americans prize, but people around the world are discovering that greater opportunity and innovation is available from “clean energy” industries like wind, solar, battery storage, and permanent, safe jobs like retrofitting homes and businesses and installing clean energy equipment. One small city in Southern France discovered they could generate more than $3 million/year with just a few wind turbines.
Most people believe that costs should be borne by the companies responsible for creating them, not left for the property owners or taxpayers to pay through their taxes or impacts on their health. As a nation, we are currently subsidizing the fossil fuel industries compared to renewable energy industries by a factor of 5:1. We, the people, have made a Faustian bargain. We can still make a new choice.
There is already national, bi-partisan legislation being considered that could allow a predictable, incremental transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources over a 10-year period. This can be achieved by adding an increasing annual fee to every ton of CO2 at the source and returning all the revenues to American taxpayers on a monthly basis, much like the Home Energy Subsidy that Alaskans currently enjoy.
Wind, solar, and biomass already generate 2.5 – 9 times as many jobs as coal, oil and gas (for every $1 million contribution to GDP). Independent studies show that a Carbon Fee & Citizen Dividend would create more and better jobs (2.1 million new jobs after 10 years), increase GDP by $70-$85 Billion from 2020 on, and save 13,000 lives per year after 10 years due to decreased emissions and improved citizens’ health.
So we have a choice. Bucks County is temporarily protected from oil and gas drilling until 2018 under the Delaware River Basin moratorium. We don’t have to open a door, that once opened, we can’t close. Let’s remember the admonition that we are our brother’s keeper, and that allowing gas and oil drilling in a neighboring town will affect us as well.
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