‘Fracking’: Myth Meets Realties

 

A natural gas rig side by side with homes in Washington County, PA | B. Mark Schmerling

Fractured Lives

Detritus of Pennsylvania's Shale Gas Boom

By Edward Humes

Progressive America Rising via Sierra Club

The supple hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, once known for their grassy woodlands, red barns, and one-stoplight villages, bristle with new landmarks these days: drilling rigs, dark green condensate tanks, fields of iron conduits lumped with hissing valves, and long, flat rectangles carved into hilltops like overgrown swimming pools, brimming with umber wastewater.

Tall metal methane flaring stacks periodically fill the night with fiery glares and jet engine roars. Roadbeds of crushed rock, guarded by No Trespassing signs, lie like fresh sutures across hayfields, deer trails, and backyards, admitting fleets of tanker trucks to the wellheads of America's latest energy revolution.

 
This is the new face of Washington County, the leading edge of the nation's breakneck shale gas boom. Natural gas boosters, President Barack Obama among them, have lauded it as a must-have, 100-year supply of clean, cheap energy that we cannot afford to pass up. However, recent data suggest that supplies of shale gas may last for only 11 years and that the extreme measures needed to recover it may make it a dirtier fuel than coal. But that hasn't slowed the dramatic transformation of gas-rich regions from rural Pennsylvania to urban Fort Worth, Texas.

Driving this juggernaut is the amalgam of industrial technologies collectively known as "hydraulic fracturing," or "fracking," which releases the gases (the main component of which is methane) hidden deep within layers of ancient, splintery shale. With five major shale "plays" concentrated in eight states, and more under development, America has been transformed from a net importer of natural gas into a potential exporter.

Perched atop the 7,000-foot-deep Marcellus Shale formation, which undergirds most of Appalachia, Washington County not only boasts enormous reserves of methane but also leads the state in producing far more frack-worthy "wet gas" products: propane, butane, ethane, and other valuable chemicals that can mean the difference between a money pit and a money gusher. Although central Pennsylvania has more wells, this wet gas makes Washington County, in industry parlance, a "honeypot."

The lure of million-dollar payouts has led many farmers, homeowners, school boards, and town commissions to lease out their subterranean energy wealth. Royalty payments on leases so far have topped half a billion dollars statewide--money that, for some, is literally saving the farm.

"An unprecedented economic impact," Matt Pitzarella has called it. He's spokesman for the leading driller in this part of the state, Texas-based Range Resources, which in 2004 fracked the first successful Marcellus Shale wells--at the time a shot in the dark and now believed to be tapping the second-largest natural gas field in the world. Pitzarella ticks off stories of poor families who hit the gas-lease lottery and are now able to afford college tuition, new cars, and home makeovers.

But unlocking half-billion-year-old hydrocarbon deposits carries a price, and not everyone shares in the bonanza. For every new shale well, 4 million to 8 million gallons of water, laced with potentially poisonous chemicals, are pumped into the ground under explosive pressure--a violent geological assault. And once unleashed, the gas requires a vast industrial architecture to be processed and moved from the wells to the world. Imagine the pipes, compressors, ponds, pits, refineries, and meters each shale well in Pennsylvania demands, planted next to horse farms, cornfields, houses, and schools. Then multiply by 5,000.

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Obama vs. McCain on Nukes, Energy Plans

Photo: First US Nuke Plant at Shippingport, Beaver County PA

Obama Urges
Incentives for
Renewables

By Molly Ball
Las Vegas Review-Journal

Obama opposes the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, and he used the local issue to slam McCain.

"He wants to build 45 new nuclear reactors when they don't have a plan to store the waste anywhere besides right here," he said.

The federal government, Obama said, should provide incentives for the development of wind, solar and other types of renewable energy.

"But Washington hasn't done that," he said. "What Washington has done is what Washington always does: peddled cheap gimmicks that get politicians through to the next election."



McCain has proposed a $300 million prize for development of battery technology for cars, an idea Obama ridiculed.

"When John F. Kennedy decided that we were going to put a man on the moon, he didn't put a bounty up for some rocket scientist to win," he said. "He put the full resources of the United States government behind the project and called on the ingenuity of the American people."

Obama was also critical of McCain's proposals for a summer holiday from the federal gasoline tax and allowing offshore oil drilling. He noted that McCain had admitted that drilling off America's coasts would have only a "psychological impact" in the immediate term.

"In case you were wondering, in Washington-speak, what that means is, 'It polls well,'" Obama said. "It's an example of how Washington tries to convince you that they've done something to make your life better when they really didn't."

Oil companies, he said, already have drilling rights to millions of acres of federal land, "and yet they haven't touched it," Obama said. "John McCain wants to give them more when they're not using what they already have."

The companies ought to pay a fine on drilling rights they're holding but not using, he said.

In the case of the gasoline -tax holiday, he said that when he supported such a measure in Illinois, oil companies simply pocketed the money to pad their profit margins rather than passing on the savings to consumers.

"These are not serious energy policies," Obama said. "I wish we could wave a magic wand and make gas prices go down, but we can't."

In the near term, Obama proposed a second round of stimulus checks to families and a tax cut for workers to help people deal with rising costs. To help pay for it, he called for a tax on oil companies' profits and closing the "Enron loophole" that allows speculators to drive up oil prices.

Over 10 years, Obama said he would devote $150 billion to alternative energy sources, which he said would create "up to five million new jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced."

Republicans responded to Obama's attacks on their candidate by calling him "the Dr. No of energy policy."

Obama has put forward just one concrete proposal on energy, the stimulus checks combined with taxing oil profits, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a conference call with reporters. Meanwhile, he has opposed McCain's many proposals: the gas tax holiday, offshore drilling, more nuclear power and the $300 million prize.

"I am not sure he has done anything other than mirror the inaction of the Democrat majority in the Congress," Burr said.

McCain's economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, defended the concept of offshore drilling's "psychological impact." Futures markets, he said, would respond to the prospect of increased drilling capacity by lowering oil prices right away.

"If the United States makes a strong commitment to additional exploration ... that sends a strong signal to the traders in the market that future supplies will be greater," he said.

After his 14-minute speech, Obama took questions from the audience of about 50 energy workers and conservationists seated in the small conference room at the preserve, which was built to national green building standards of energy efficiency and with sustainable materials.

Local electrician Eddie Gering, 48, thanked Obama for opposing the gasoline-tax holiday, saying he felt the proposal insulted his intelligence as a voter. He wanted to know why nuclear power shouldn't be a bigger part of the nation's energy future.

"The problem that we've got with nuclear energy right now is that we have not figured out how to store the waste in a safe and effective manner," Obama said. "That's why Yucca is such a big issue here in Nevada. The basic theory was, we won't solve the problem, we'll just dump it all in Nevada."

He said he would increase investment in research and development to find a better way to store nuclear material.

"If we can figure that out, then nuclear has some big advantages, the fact that it doesn't produce greenhouse gases being the most important one," he said.

To another question, about government red tape preventing new energy projects from getting off the ground, Obama became philosophical.

"I'm a Democrat, and at times in the past Democrats have gotten so regulation-happy they lose sight of efficiency," he said. "Republicans attack us as wanting government for the sake of government. I want enough government to do what needs to be done, but I also want government to get out of the way where it's blocking progress. I want to streamline government so it's working. I want it to be consumer-friendly."

While he was in town, Obama met briefly with a local family to talk about how his tax plan would affect them, according to the campaign.

Later Tuesday in Los Angeles, Obama raised nearly $5 million at a celebrity-packed fundraiser that was the equivalent of the entertainment industry's coming-out party for the likely Democratic presidential nominee.

"He's my candidate, and I think you have to put your money where your mouth is," said actor Don Cheadle. Actor Dennis Quaid said Obama is "the Superman for everyone."

Obama's campaign refused to say how many millions he and the Democratic National Committee raised at the gala, but Democratic officials put the number at close to $5 million. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the numbers publicly.

Campaign officials severely limited media access to the event at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. No television cameras or photographers were allowed inside.

Obama, who is counting on Hollywood's reliable support for Democrats, appealed to the those in the crowd who might have supported his former foe, Hillary Clinton.

Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com

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