The Daily Dispatch

In addition to causing general environmental degradation, earthquakes and poisoned water, it appears that hydraulic fracturing also leaks methane at dangerous levels not previously suspected.

Fracking study sends alert about leakage of potent greenhouse gas. [Pete Spotts | CSMonitor.com] - A new study finds that fracking is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas, from a Colorado field at a higher rate than estimates suggested. Researchers must determine if the field is an anomaly or part of a bigger problem.

From Gung-Ho to Uh-Oh: Charting the Government’s Moves on Fracking. [Lena Groeger | ProPublica] - Fracking has only recently become a household word, but government involvement with the drilling technique goes back decades. ProPublica’s chart traces officials’ moves, and levels of caution, over time.

Read more and see the chart.

Here’s your movie (and book) of the week.

The World According To Monsanto is a 2008 documentary film made by investigative journalist Marie-Monique Robin. She spent three years looking into the history and the current activities of this multi-national agricultural giant.

She has also written an accompanying book of the same title, which won the Rachel Carson Prize. The story she tells is not pretty.

Robin reports that, following its long history of manufacturing hazardous chemicals and lethal herbicides, Monsanto is now marketing itself as a “life sciences” company, seemingly convinced about the virtues of sustainable development. However, Monsanto now controls the majority of the yield of the world’s genetically modified corn and soy–ingredients found in more than 95 percent of American households–and its alarming legal and political tactics to maintain this monopoly are the subject of worldwide concern.

I tend toward equanimity, but this shocking exposé has caused me great alarm. Monsanto has a well-documented past of rigging safety studies to cover up harm (both real and potential). They hold great sway over our government. They are systematically and intentionally destroying bio-diversity on our planet, along with the way of life and livelihood of millions.

I urge you to read this book, or to watch the film, or both – and please help spread the word. It may already be too late to mitigate some of the effects of this treachery, but we must do what we can. Look for more information here in the coming days on how to fight back.

Links and Video Embed

The World According To Monsanto (Book at Amazon)

The World According To Monsanto (Google Video)

The World According To Monsanto (You Tube Series)

The Unholy Alliance: Monsanto, Dupont & Obama. [Ronnie Cummins | The Huffington Post] - On the campaign trail, President Obama affirms that agribusiness cannot be trusted with the policy and regulatory powers of government, but in office, he’s let Monsanto, Dupont and the other pesticide and genetic engineering companies know they’ll have plenty of friends and supporters within his administration.

“We have to have a president who understands how to get an economy going again. He [Obama] does not. He plays 90 rounds of golf when you have 25 million people out of work. He says gasoline prices doubled during his presidency. He says don’t build a Keystone pipeline.”

- Mitt Romney, Florida Debate, 23 January 2012

I am utterly amazed that this sort of argument in favor of Keystone XL goes unchallenged. The fact is that the project would likely increase our gasoline prices. The oil that would be produced from the project would be exported,  because that’s where the money is to be made. Take a look at this from a December 31st USA Today report, noting that fuel is now the largest U.S. export, and that we are now a net fuel exporter.

There’s at least one domestic downside to America’s growing role as a fuel exporter. Experts say the trend helps explain why U.S. motorists are paying more for gasoline. The more fuel that’s sent overseas, the less of a supply cushion there is at home.

Keystone XL is not expected to lower gasoline prices in the United States, nor would it help us move toward “energy independence.” It would, however, help to increase the profits of Big Oil while despoiling environmentally fragile areas and contributing to global warming.

The question remains whether Rmoney is ignorant, cynical or just a big fat liar.

Federal Agency Cancels Water Delivery to Pa. Town. [ABC News] - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.

Did renewables overtake nuclear power in 2011? Sort of. [The Washington Post] - In 2011, for the first time in decades, the United States got more of its energy from renewable sources than it did from nuclear power. Not only that, but renewables are growing much faster than any other energy source.

12 simple ways to go green in 2012 [CSMonitor.com] - If many people resolve to make their lives just a little greener in 2012 it could make a huge difference.

Good morning. We have a bit more on the subject of hydraulic fracturing today.

Hydrofracked: One man’s quest for answers. [High Country News] – Louis Meeks is an alfalfa farmer in Pavillion, Wyoming. For decades after returning from his service in Vietnam, his well provided the cleanest water for miles around. Then, something happened.

For 35 years, he drew it clear and sweet from a well near the front door of the plain, eight-room ranch house that he and his wife, Donna, own. The water was so good that neighbors used to pull off the road to fill plastic jugs for themselves. But in the spring of 2005, Meeks’ water turned fetid. His tap ran cloudy, and the filmy water shimmered with rainbow swirls. The scent was sharp, like gasoline.

Read the full story from Abrahm Lustgarten here.

Also, I ran across this essay by John Kemp of Reuters, who basically argues that we shouldn’t worry about the risks posed by fracking, because the natural gas companies have been despoiling our environment and poisoning us for years anyway. Nothing new here. Move along.

Here are a few more articles of interest.

An Inside Look At A Fracking Well. [The Denver Post]

How Fracking Might Have Led To An Ohio Earthquake. [CSMonitor.com]

Chinese and French firms pour $4.5 billion into U.S. shale. [Reuters]

Happy Fracking!

As noted here yesterday, officials from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources have ordered several fluid-injection wells to be shut down after a series of earthquakes hit the area near Youngstown over the past year. The suspicion is that the injections of wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) process is linked to the increased seismic activity. The latest quake occurred on New Year’s Eve. Its epicenter was 5 miles northwest of Youngstown and 55 miles east-southeast of Cleveland, and at 4.0 magnitude, it was forty times stronger than the ten others that preceded it in 2011.

Although I’ve yet to see conclusive proof from an authoritative source (at least from one that has no side-agenda), the evidence that fracking poses serious risks to the environment and to human health is mounting. It seems prudent that we carefully consider this evidence before allowing new projects to commence, and that we closely monitor current fracking operations for signs of trouble.

What follows is a collection of news stories and resources that I hope you’ll find useful in better understanding the issue. I’ve tried to assemble information that, taken together, represents an honest picture of what we know at this point. There are obviously many questions yet to be answered.

I would also welcome your comments and any suggestions for further reading on the matter.

What is fracking?

In short, fracking is a process that uses fluid injections to create cracks in layers of rock deep underground in order to make it possible to extract fossil fuels, or to increase extraction rates. After the fluids create the fractures, sand or some other particulate is injected as well in order to keep the fractures from closing back up once the injection is stopped. Here’s how Schlumberger Limited, a leading oilfield services provider, describes hydraulic fracturing. “A stimulation treatment routinely performed on oil and gas wells in low-permeability reservoirs. Specially engineered fluids are pumped at high pressure and rate into the reservoir interval to be treated, causing a vertical fracture to open. The wings of the fracture extend away from the wellbore in opposing directions according to the natural stresses within the formation. Proppant, such as grains of sand of a particular size, is mixed with the treatment fluid to keep the fracture open when the treatment is complete. Hydraulic fracturing creates high-conductivity communication with a large area of formation and bypasses any damage that may exist in the near-wellbore area.”

Why is it controversial?

There is evidence to suggest that the process can release hazardous chemicals that eventually find their way into waterways and even into drinking water supplies. There are also the aforementioned concerns about seismic instability that can be caused by the fracking process itself as well as the process of disposing of waste fluids. Mining of sand used in the process may also cause environmental degradation. Of course, there is also the overall concern about climate change caused by continued burning of fossil fuels.

Here’s an excellent article from the BBC that presents a clear explanation of the process and an extremely balanced view of the issues and concerns involved, both economic and environmental.

Additional Recent Reports, Resources and Related Links of Interest

These are simply things that have caught my eye apropos to the subject at hand. I’ll continue to post relevant material on this Weblog as I find it.

Expert: Wastewater well in Ohio triggered quakes. [CLEVELAND (AP)] – A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said Monday.

EPA: Fracking may cause groundwater pollution. [CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP)] – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced in December that fracking may be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

Oklahoma quakes may have been induced by injection. [Oklahoma Geological Survey] – “Clear cases of anthropogenically-triggered seismicity from fluid injection are well documented with correlations between the number of earthquakes in an area and injection, specifically injection pressures, with earthquakes occurring very close to the well.” Still, the study concludes (as have other studies that preceded it) that at present it is “impossible to predict the effects of injection with absolute certainty.”

U.K. firm accepts report findings. [Oil and Gas Investments Bulletin] – A British-based shale exporter, Cuadrilla Resources, stated on November 2 that hydraulic fracturing was, indeed, the impetus for small earthquakes that occurred in Blackpool in northwest England earlier in 2011. Their CEO said “We unequivocally accept the findings of this independent report.”

Scientific study links flammable drinking water to fracking. [ProPublica] - A peer-reviewed study conducted by scientists at Duke University and published last May in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that levels of flammable methane gas in drinking water wells increased to dangerous levels when those water supplies were close to shale gas wells.

Sierra Club calls on Board to protect Starved Rock. [Illinois Chapter Sierra Club] - On December 15, the LaSalle County Zoning Board voted unanimously to recommend giving Mississippi Sand, LLC a special use permit to mine directly adjacent to Starved Rock State Park. The proposed project will mine for frac sand. The Sierra club believes that the location of this proposed mine threatens Starved Rock State Park and the rare brackish wetlands in LaSalle County.

Greetings From Gasland. [Gasland the Movie] – Josh Fox obviously has an agenda that he’s promoting with this film. Some may believe that it’s an extreme agenda. At this point, I do not. Caveat lector. Caveat spectator.

Improving the Safety and Environmental Performance of Hydraulic Fracturing. [U.S. Department of Energy] - Read the recommendations from the Natural Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board. Again, caveat lector.

Ohio officials close wells after quake. [UPI.com] - Ohio officials say they have shut down four fluid-injection wells after a series of small earthquakes in and around Youngstown.

Richard Muller, a Professor of Physics at UC Berkeley, has been one of the leading skeptics concerning the scientific consensus on climate change. In 2004, he publicly supported the findings of McIntyre and McKitrick challenging Michael Mann’s so called “hockey stick” graph (of temperatures over the last millennium) which showed accelerating global warming.

Muller is the founder and chairperson of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, which provides independent analysis of the Earth’s surface temperature records. His most recent study was funded in part by charitable foundations maintained by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. As you may know, the Kochs have donated significant funding to groups lobbying against the acceptance of man-made global warming, and to other right-wing political causes (including the Tea Party).

As it turns out, the findings of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Project were a surprise to Dr. Muller, and no doubt to the Koch brothers as well.

As the BBC reported a few weeks ago, Professor Muller noted “Our biggest surprise was that the new results agreed so closely with the warming values published previously by other teams in the U.S. and the U.K.”

Dr. Muller was also interviewed for a recent report on NBC Nightly News. Here’s what he said.

“The existence of global warming, I think, is pretty much beyond dispute now. I think we have closed the last remaining questions on that.”

There is still much to discover about the effects that we’ll see from global warming in coming decades, and still much debate to come concerning how best to mitigate those effects (and how to deal with the unmitigated ones). We do, however, seem to be beyond the point where honest, reasoning people can continue to deny the problem.