Suppose your country were offered unlimited energy for the rest of your lifetime (and beyond). What would it be worth to you?
The recent discovery of a way to extract natural gas trapped within layers of rock has the energy industry and the politicians excited. In just the past five years, thousands of gas wells have sprung up above shale fields in a giant V shape that covers the entire United States, from New York state down to Louisiana and Texas and back up to Colorado and Wyoming.
This is the fast ticket out of the energy crisis. Natural gas burns cleanly, and we already have a lot of experience with it. The fact that it’s also a greenhouse gas doesn’t bother many Americans. The talk is of 100 years’ worth of energy for the United States. Goodbye, OPEC!
So where’s the catch? Well, see for yourself.
The gas is forced out of little crevices by a high-pressure stream of water, chemicals and sand in a process called horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. However, this can also force some of the gas and chemicals into the groundwater. The industry says everything’s safe, but some of the people who live in “fracked” areas are noticing health problems. Josh Fox interviewed some of them for his award-winning HBO documentary Gasland (2010).
With such enormous potential — both good and bad — fracking has become a major political issue. The Republican presidential candidates have mentioned it (favorably) several times. President Obama also mentioned it (favorably) in his State of the Union address two weeks ago. And the House of Representatives has been discussing whether to subsidize large-scale production of vehicles that will run on natural gas. (The bill is called the New Alternative Transportation to Give Americans Solutions Act, or NAT GAS Act for short. You have to like how they come up with these clever acronyms.)
Last week, though, members of the media, including Josh Fox, were prevented from filming a public hearing on fracking by the House Science Committee. The committee chairman, a Republican, said the hearing was already being webcast and that Fox, along with an ABC News camera crew, was lacking the credentials needed to do additional filming. But while the news crew was simply led outside, Fox was led away in handcuffs by 16 police officers for not turning off his camera.
Is it a conspiracy? Fox would probably think it is. Gasland states that oil and gas drilling within the United States were exempted from government oversight by the previous (Republican) administration. The frackers can use any chemicals they want, and they don’t have to name them. Because local water companies don’t know what chemicals to test for, they don’t detect them.
Slate magazine has pointed out another problem: the claim of 100 years’ worth of natural gas may be greatly exaggerated. Adding up the figures supplied by energy-industry experts, it states, “Only an 11-year supply of natural gas is certain. The other 89 years’ worth has not yet been shown to exist or to be recoverable.” Reserves listed as certain and probable equal a 21-year supply — but that’s at current rates of consumption. If the trucking industry is converted from diesel fuel to natural gas, consumption of gas doubles and the supply lasts half as long.
Most energy sources involve a Faustian bargain: the inevitability of an oil spill, a Fukushima, battery acid, birds chopped up by rotors on wind turbines. There’s enough controversy about fracking now that the environmentalists may get their day in court. Perhaps regulation will be in place by the time the gas runs out.
Language note: the word “frack” has another use. The Canadian writers of the 2004 remake of Battlestar Galactica invented it as a swear word that could be said on US television.
