The Fracking Fantasy
From Gasland to Ukraine - unconventional gas extraction (UGE) represents the greatest threat to our planet and civilisation yet.
This is the first of two of articles on UGE - or fracking. A third will focus on the highly destructive method of oil extraction known as tar sands.
In 2010, a documentary film called Gasland brought the term ‘fracking’ into the public consciousness. It all started in 2008, when film-maker Josh Fox received a letter from a gas company offering him a $100,000 lease on the family holdings to drill for natural gas. This prompted Fox to investigate what was going on. The result was the film.
In the film he uncovers the truth behind an industry that has become largely unregulated — a pattern that has become an all too familiar feature in the US. A sequel was released in 2013.
In this article I’ll be looking at the legacy that has been created by the shale gas industry and what it could mean for the rest of the world as the exploitation of unconventional energy sources continues apace.
Fracking — what is it?
Fracking or ‘hydraulic fracturing’, is a process that involves drilling a borehole into shale rock formations and then forcing a mixture of fluid and a propping agent (usually sand) into the well at high pressure, causing the rocks to fracture, releasing natural gas. But first, some historical background.
As the Natural Resources Defense Council outlines in this article, fracking has its roots in the American Civil War. Colonel Edward A. L. Roberts, who served in the Union Army, observed the impact of explosives on narrow water channels. He later designed ‘an “exploding torpedo” that could be lowered into an oil well and detonated, shattering surrounding rock.’ The result was a dramatic increase in oil flow of up to 1200%. The next development took place in the 1940’s, when high pressure liquid was forced into a well instead of explosives, marking the first use of hydraulic fracturing. Then at the turn of the century:
two key changes helped spark fracking’s current boom. One was the use of a certain type of fracturing fluid: slickwater, a mix of water, sand, and chemicals to make the fluid less viscous. The other innovation was the pairing of fracking with horizontal drilling, a technique that increases the productive potential of each well because it can reach more of the rock formation that contains the oil and gas. These advances, combined with an influx of investment amid high global fossil fuel prices, sent fracking into overdrive. Indeed, of the approximately one million U.S. wells that were fractured between 1940 and 2014, about one-third of those were fractured after 2000.
A report by DeSmog Fracking the Future: How Unconventional Gas Threatens Our Water, Health and Climate tells the wider story of how political and economic manipulation by corrupt federal agencies and corporate lobbyists succeeded in holding America to ransom.
The expansion of the shale gas industry in the US was encouraged by the George W Bush administration. But the rot set in during the Regan era of the 1980’s, as an investigation from the New York Times reveals. Following a conclusion from the US Environmental protection Agency (EPA) that some drillers’ waste from the oil and gas industry at the time was hazardous and should be tightly controlled, Congress effectively ignored the advice. Since then:
More than a quarter-century of efforts by some lawmakers and regulators to force the federal government to police the industry better have been thwarted, as E.P.A. studies have been repeatedly narrowed in scope and important findings have been removed.
The report from the NYT also points out that history could be repeating itself, as the EPA’s report noted (see below). The EPA had been put under pressure to produce a favourable outcome.
The Bush administration was of course particularly culpable in bending over backwards for the oil and gas industry and corruption was widespread within the administration.
One particular favour sticks out. Known as the ‘Halliburton loophole’:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who previously served as Halliburton’s CEO, was instrumental in getting the so-called ‘Halliburton Loophole’ inserted deep within the pages of the infamous 2005 energy bill. This loophole stripped the EPA of its regulatory oversight of hydraulic fracturing in natural gas development, a technique pioneered by Halliburton.
Given that Halliburton would gain enormously from it’s association with fracking, the Cheney/Halliburton link typifies what was going on during the Bush era and the political scene in general.
DeSmog goes on to list the industry exemptions that were won during this period:
Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
Clean Water Act
Clean Air Act
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation,
and Liability Act CERCLA (Superfund Act)
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
(Hazardous Waste Act)
National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
Toxic Release Inventory under the Emergency
Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA)
Another development was the gradual takeover of the shale gas industry by big oil and gas. These corporations have also been involved in intensive lobbying and include the likes of Shell, BP, ExxonMobil amongst others.
As part of a coordinated attack strategy against regulators, environmentalists and critics, the industry formed ‘Energy in Depth’ (EID). This outfit led the crusade against the film Gasland. EID published an article called Debunking DeSmog in an attempt to undermine DeSmog’s report. EID was also critical of the NYT investigation. Of particular interest was a memo that reveals the true nature of EID, and the funding provided by the oil and gas majors.
In the UK, one of the biggest gas companies is Centrica. Hidden in the middle of a document called Energy Security is this paragraph (this page has now been deleted):
We continue to monitor developments in shale gas as its production expands in North America. Centrica is not currently involved in the extraction of shale gas. Should we decide to invest in extracting shale gas at a later stage, we will apply the same rigour to managing and minimising the adverse impacts as we do with all other areas of our operations.
Also noted:
In November 2011, Centrica signed a strategic agreement with Statoil ASA worth £13bn for the supply of 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to the UK. Sufficient gas to meet around 5% of total UK annual demand, enough for 3.5 million homes.
As noted by DeSmog, Statoil is involved in shale gas production in the US. But this Mail online article revealed that Centrica, British Gas’ parent company, had a subsidiary in the US called Direct Energy, with the aim of tapping into the shale market. But in 2021, Centrica announced its sale of Direct Energy to NRG Energy Inc. for $3.625billion. Prior to this, in 2020, Centrica had relinquished its 25% stake in in Cuadrilla’s shale gas licence PEDL165, which covered drilling in the Bowland shale formation (see below).
The initial drilling phase involves sinking a vertical well to a depth determined by the location of shale rock formations. This could range from several hundred to several thousand metres below the surface. The next stage is to drill horizontally through the shale rock formation to about 1000m. A well casing needs to be installed to seal the well from surrounding formations and to add stability to the well.
The fluids injected into the well consist of a mixture of 98% water and sand and about 2% chemical additives. The extremely high pressure blasts the shale rock apart creating fractures that can run up to a few hundred metres into the rock. The propping agent (sand) holds the fractures open allowing the gas to be released into the well. Wells are generally constructed in the form of groups of wells or well pads, consisting of at least 6 or more wells.
The chemical constituents of fracking fluids can vary depending on the operation but can include friction reducers, surfactants, corrosion inhibitors, biocides, stabilizers and lubricants. As some of the chemicals used in the fracking process are not disclosed, it can be difficult to establish an accurate assessment. However in a report published in 2011 by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Shale gas: an updated assessment of climate change and environmental impacts, is an overview of the hydraulic fracturing process from construction to extraction at the time the industry was expanding in the US. It evaluated the potential impacts of shale gas exploitation in the UK.
The resources required by a typical well will vary. But a large quantity of water is required by the process:
the entire multi-stage fracturing operation for a single well requires around 9,000–29,000m3 (9–29 megalitres) of water and, with chemical additives of up to 2% by volume, around 180–580m3 of chemical additives (or 180–580 tonnes based on relative density of one).
For all fracturing operations carried out on a six well pad, a total of 54,000–174,000m3 (54–174megalitres) of water would be required for a first hydraulic fracturing procedure and some 1,000–3,500m3 of chemicals (or 1,000–3,500tonnes based on relative density of one).
The effectiveness of the process will depend on water availability and this may involve transportation by truck. Chemicals will be brought on site and mixed with water to produce the fracking fluid.
Once the initial fracking process has been completed, the fluid will return to the surface as ‘flowback’. The amount recovered can vary. According to estimates:
each well on a multi-well pad will generate between 1,300–23,000m3 of flowback waste fluid containing water, fracturing chemicals and subsurface contaminants mobilized during the process, including toxic organic compounds, heavy metals and naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs). Similarly, any flowback fluid that is not recovered remains underground where there is concern that it is, or may become, a source of contamination to other formations including aquifers. Volumes remaining underground are equivalent to the inverse of volumes recovered, i.e. 1,300–23,000m3/well.
Clearly there are significant environmental and health & safety issues associated with these operations. The Tyndall Report identifies the following risks and impacts:
contamination of groundwater by fracturing fluids/mobilised contaminants arising from: wellbore/casing failure; and/or subsurface migration;
pollution of land and surface water (and potentially groundwater via surface route) arising from: spillage of fracturing additives and spillage/tank rupture/storm water overflow from liquid waste storage, lagoons/pits containing cuttings/drilling mud or flowback water;
water consumption/abstraction;
waste water treatment;
land and landscape impacts;
impacts arising during construction: noise/light pollution during well drilling/completion; flaring/venting; and local traffic impacts.
The report points out that:
US Federal law currently exempts the underground injection of fluids for hydraulic fracturing purposes from regulation, there is no information on the identity and concentration of substances in hydraulic fracturing formulations.
However some chemicals are listed and notably, EU regulations would be stricter than the US. The reference point here would be the European chemicals Agency (ECHA).
As the report notes:
Altogether, the toxicity profile of the flowback fluid is likely to be of greater concern than that of the fracturing fluid itself, and is likely to be considered as hazardous waste in the UK. …[this] would tend to suggest mobilisation and presence of elevated concentrations of:
• heavy metals (of varying types);
• radioactivity and NORMs;
• total dissolved solids; and
• perhaps, hydrocarbons including benzenes (unclear whether this represents mobilised hydrocarbons or fracturing additives).
Pollution pathways are described in this diagram:
Groundwater contamination is of great concern and clearly constitutes possible pollution risks. These include:
• catastrophic failure or full/partial loss of integrity of the wellbore (during construction, hydraulic fracturing, production or after decommissioning); and
• migration of contaminants from the target fracture formation through subsurface pathways including: the outside of the wellbore itself; other wellbores (such as incomplete, poorly constructed, or older/poorly plugged wellbores); fractures created during the hydraulic fracturing process; or natural cracks, fissures and interconnected pore spaces.
Owing to its importance as both a source of drinking water and as source for rivers and wetlands, preventing its pollution is vital. If it becomes contaminated and pollution runs deep it can lead to long-term deterioration.
The report concludes:
Given that the development of shale gas requires the construction of multiple wells/well pads, the probability of an adverse event leading to contamination increases accordingly. As such, the likelihood of pollution incidents associated with wider development of shale increase from the ‘possible’ end of the spectrum at the level of a well pad through to the ‘probable’ as the number of wells and pads increases.
Gas migration is a problem and there have been several documented cases of this happening in the US. Riverkeeper has be monitoring the situation in the Marcellus shale region of the US. Causes of gas migration include poor well-casing construction and ground migration from released gas during drilling. There has been documented cases of explosions occurring, causing fatalities in some cases.
In 2016, the EPA published a long awaited comprehensive research study into the fracking industry. These are the key conclusions of the study:
Water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing in times or areas of low water availability, particularly in areas with limited or declining groundwater resources;
Spills during the management of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;
Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;
Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;
Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water resources;
Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing waste water in unlined pits, resulting in contamination of groundwater resources.
These infographics depict what’s going on:
The UK perspective
The main focal point for shale gas exploitation was located in north west England where the Bowland shale formation is located. Caudrilla Resources had been drilling exploratory wells in this area and fracking had taken place at two locations.
According to Caudrilla, there are 5660bcm (billion cubic metres) of potential reserves. In the Caudrilla Resources license area, an estimated 800 wells may need to be developed in order to exploit fully the shale gas reserves available. Such a setup would require 80 well pads of 10 wells per pad. In the UK, in order to achieve meaningful production (about 10% market share) up to 3000 wells would be required.
The incidence of seismic events in relation to fracking activities has been given a great deal of exposure. It was this that shut down operations in the UK. An article in Scientific American details that seismic activities can be caused by any underground activity that involves injection of fluids. That includes some conventional oil and gas wells as well as fracking.
In the UK, drilling near Blackpool was halted by Caudrilla Resources for a period, following which the British Geological Survey (BGS) concluded there was a link between fracking and earthquakes in the region.
However, as the Tyndall Report notes — in connection with the Blackpool incident:
seismic events can be caused by hydraulic fracturing and, whilst these are unlikely to be of a sufficient magnitude to cause structural damage on the surface, structural damage to the wellbore itself (and in all likelihood other wellbores in the vicinity) is possible and has been documented in this case.
After Caudrilla moved to a new location at Preston New Road, in the Fylde, Lancashire, fracking was halted in 2019, ending 3 years of exploratory drilling. As Drill or Drop reported, a moratorium:
introduced in England in November 2019 and still in force, was a response to seismic activity induced by fracking at Cuadrilla’s shale gas site at Preston New Road, near Blackpool.
On August bank holiday in 2019, the company’s operations caused the UK’s strongest fracking-induced earth tremor, measuring 2.9ML. It was felt across the region and there were nearly 200 reports of damage to buildings made to the British Geological Survey.
According to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 8 months before the moratorium was declared:
The UK’s strong regulatory regime is ensuring hydraulic fracturing only happens in a safe and environmentally responsible way. Measures are in place to ensure on-site safety, prevent environmental contamination, mitigate seismic activity, and minimise greenhouse gas emissions.
And then goes on to say:
Shale gas has the potential to be a safe, secure and affordable supply of energy with carbon emissions levels that are consistent with the carbon budgets defined in our Climate Change Act and our international obligations.
Given that there was abundant evidence warning of problems ahead, it would appear that the UK Government was willfully misinformed. All the relevant evidence was published by the former Oil and Gas Authority, now the North Sea Transition Authority.
Groundwater protection was covered by the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Groundwater Directives. How this would manifest post-Brexit is unclear. The Tyndall report notes that in the EU:
The experience of the UK suggests that, for control of environmental risks from ‘abnormal’ operations, domestic regulation on well design and construction may be used instead of permitting under the Groundwater Directive. As there is no harmonised regulation on well design and construction in the EU, any Member State doing the same will be relying on its domestic regulation. This means that the risks associated with abnormal operations, such as from full or partial loss of well integrity, may not be consistently controlled across Europe and may rely on procedures and regulations operating in the Member State concerned, where these may or may not offer an adequate standard of risk control.
As for chemicals used in the fracking process, these are controlled by the European Chemicals and Health Agency (ECHA) under the REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals) Regulations. The European Commission states that:
shale gas operators are not allowed to use a substance which does not fulfil REACH requirements in their activities. Shale gas operators must in any case comply with requirements applicable to downstream users under Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 on REACH. Should they fail to comply with such requirements, they would face penalties for non-compliance from Member State enforcement authorities.’ The EC also notes that ‘it is up to Member State enforcement authorities to ensure that shale gas exploration and exploitation projects fully comply with REACH requirements and subject operators to penalties in case of non-compliance. The Commission has not been informed so far of cases of non-compliance by shale gas operators.
As the Tyndall Report concludes:
…in the EU, control of risks and impacts may be delegated to Member State domestic regulation, interpretation and enforcement — a situation that is not dissimilar to that which is blamed for many of the problems in the US.
Greenhouse gas reduction myth
A major argument propagated by the pro-gas lobby is the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions — particularly in relation to shale gas as an alternative to coal. In 2011, the paper Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations was published. The overall conclusion was that shale gas greenhouse gas emissions were considerably higher than coal:
Summing all estimated losses, we calculate that during the life cycle of an average shale-gas well, 3.6 to 7.9% of the total production of the well is emitted to the atmosphere as methane (Table below). This is at least 30% more and perhaps more than twice as great as the life-cycle methane emissions we estimate for conventional gas, 1.7% to 6%.
Considering the 20-year horizon, the GHG footprint for shale gas is at least 20% greater than and perhaps more than twice as great as that for coal when expressed per quantity of energy available during combustion. Over the 100-year frame, the GHG footprint is comparable to that for coal: the low-end shale-gas emissions are 18% lower than deep-mined coal, and the high-end shale-gas emissions are 15% greater than surface-mined coal emissions (Fig. 1b). For the 20 year horizon, the GHG footprint of shale gas is at least 50% greater than for oil, and perhaps 2.5 times greater. At the 100-year time scale, the footprint for shale gas is similar to or 35% greater than for oil.
The conclusion is clear:
The large GHG footprint of shale gas undercuts the logic of its use as a bridging fuel over coming decades, if the goal is to reduce global warming. We do not intend that our study be used to justify the continued use of either oil or coal, but rather to demonstrate that substituting shale gas for these other fossil fuels may not have the desired effect of mitigating climate warming.
Following the Tyndall Centre’s landmark report, the researchers published an additional report, Has US Shale Gas Reduced CO2 Emissions?
Much of the paper presents statistical evidence relating to the emissions consequences of fuel switching in the US energy system, with the main focus on the substitution of coal with gas, with an increase in wind power also. However some valid observations are made:
It suggests that emissions avoided due to fuel switching in the US power sector may be up to 50% of the total reduction in US energy system CO2 emission since their peak in 2005. As discussed in our previous work (Broderick, et al. 2011), without a meaningful cap on global carbon emissions, the exploitation of new shale gas reserves is likely to increase total emissions. For this not to be the case, consumption of displaced fuels must be reduced globally and remain suppressed indefinitely; in effect, displaced coal must stay in the ground. Neither the availability of shale gas, nor other policies that transfer power generation away from coal, guarantee this in and of themselves. However, renewable capacity does not directly release carbon dioxide emissions during generation.
Whilst there appears to have been a recent shift in US electricity generation that may have realised localised CO2 emissions reductions, it is not clear that there have been substantial net reductions globally. The calculations presented here suggest that more than half of the potential emissions avoided in the US power sector may actually have been exported as coal.
The paper adds:
Demand for energy is increasing globally and if this continues to be supplied by fossil fuels then dangerous interference with the climate is increasingly likely. Were an abrupt, internationally simultaneous, fuel switch from coal to gas to occur, the remaining safe carbon budget may be consumed less quickly. In the ‘real world’ these conditions are unlikely to coincide. The analysis presented in this report suggests that localised fuel switching may not in fact realise the scale of benefits promised by simple comparison of emissions intensity statistics.
In 2014, Robert W. Howarth (one of the authors of the initial Cornell paper) published this paper A bridge to nowhere: methane emissions and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas. The report draws on the 2011 paper and expands its focus to account for additional research since 2011 with an emphasis the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of shale gas.
Earlier estimates for methane emissions from drilling operations have been shown to be underestimated. Indeed it was discovered that leaks could take place even before fracking commences:
[A] recent Pennsylvania study, which quantified fluxes from discrete locations on the ground by mapping methane plumes from an airplane, found very high emissions from many wells that were still being drilled, had not yet reached the shale formation, and had not yet been hydraulically fractured. These wells represented only 1% of the wells in the area but were responsible for 6–9% of the regional methane flux from all sources. One explanation is that the drill rigs encountered pockets of shallower gas and released this to the atmosphere.
The IPCC (2013) —re-evaluated the GWP of methane:
These more recent GWP values increased the relative warming of methane compared to carbon dioxide by 1.9-fold for the 20-year time period (GWP of 105 vs. 56) and by 1.6-fold for the 100-year time period (GWP of 33 vs. 21). Our conclusion was that for the 20-year time period, shale gas had a larger GHG than coal or oil even at our low-end estimates for methane emission; conventional gas also had a larger GHG than coal or oil at our mean or high-end methane emission estimates, but not at the very low-end range for methane emission (the best-case, low-emission scenario). At the 100-year timescale, the influence of methane was much diminished, yet at our high-end methane emissions, the GHG of both shale gas and conventional gas still exceeded that of coal and oil.
Howarth continues:
The most recent synthesis report from the IPCC in 2013 on the physical science basis of global warming highlights the role of methane in global warming at multiple timescales, using GWP values for 10 years in addition to 20 and 100 years (GWP of 108, 86, and 34, respectively) in their analysis. The report states that “there is no scientific argument for selecting 100 years compared with other choices,” and that “the choice of time horizon . . .. depends on the relative weight assigned to the effects at different times”. The IPCC further concludes that at the 10-year timescale, the current global release of methane from all anthropogenic sources exceeds (slightly) all anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions as agents of global warming; that is, methane emissions are more important (slightly) than carbon dioxide emissions or driving the current rate of global warming. At the 20 year timescale, total global emissions of methane are equivalent to over 80% of global carbon dioxide emissions. And at the 100-year timescale, current global methane emissions are equivalent to slightly less than 30% of carbon dioxide emissions.
The following graph shows the GWP of various gases.
Howarth follows up with a dire warning that if methane emissions aren’t tackled, it could spur irreversible and catastrophic climate change. Taking the shorter timescales into consideration:
the climate system is far more immediately responsive to changes in methane (and other short-lived radiatively active materials in the atmosphere, such as black carbon).
unless emissions of methane and black carbon are reduced immediately, the Earth’s average surface temperature will warm by 1.5°C by about 2030 and by 2.0°C by 2045 to 2050 whether or not carbon dioxide emissions are reduced.
The consequences of inaction are clear:
…the risk of a fundamental change in the Earth’s climate system becomes much greater, possibly leading to runaway feedbacks and even more global warming. Such a result would dwarf any possible benefit from reductions in carbon dioxide emissions over the next few decades (e.g., switching from coal to natural gas, which does reduce carbon dioxide but also increases methane emissions). One of many mechanisms for such catastrophic change is the melting of methane clathrates in the oceans or melting of permafrost in the Arctic.
Put simply, UGE could ultimately end up being the key that unlocks Pandora’s box. If UGE remains unchecked, the overall GWP from methane emissions could create a tipping point that a sees the large scale release of methane from the ocean floor. If that happens then catastrophic climate change will be rendered irreversible. Far from being a bridging fuel towards alternative energy systems, shale gas and other forms of UGE could pose the most serious threat to climate change yet.
The Brussels Connection
In my previous article, I highlighted the lobbying connections involved in pushing natural gas in the EU as a bridging fuel towards renewables, with the express aim of substituting Russian gas supplied to Europe with Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tapped from the shale wells of the US.
In 2012, The European Commission’s Environment Directorate-General (ECEDG) issued a comprehensive in depth report, which outlined the risks related to fracking:
Ensuring the integrity of wells and other equipment throughout the development, operational and their post-abandonment lifetime so as to avoid the risk of surface and/or groundwater contamination
Ensuring that spillages of chemicals and waste waters with potential environmental consequences are avoided during the development and operational lifetime of wells
The potential toxicity of chemical additives and the challenge to develop greener alternatives
The unavoidable requirement for transportation of equipment, materials and wastes to and from the site, resulting in traffic impacts that can be mitigated but not entirely avoided
The report also noted that:
Land use requirements are considerable, occupying about 3.6 hectares per well pad. With multiple installations, this could result in a significant loss or fragmentation of amenities or recreational facilities, valuable farmland or natural habitats
Emissions could affect air quality. Emissions include: Ozone; diesel fumes from pumps; hazardous pollutants from fracturing fluids; fugitive emissions
Noise pollution onsite and from traffic
High risk of surface and groundwater contamination leading to greater cumulative impacts
High water resource use
The report identified considerable gaps in EU legislation. It would appear though that this particular report had been quietly filed away into some dark corner. A year later the EU was playing a different tune. At an EU summit in Brussels it was stated that, ‘EU energy policy must shift towards diversifying supply, with natural shale gas likely to be part of the mix’.
At the summit, David Cameron gave a clear indication as to where the UK’s regulatory framework was headed, stating that, ‘No regulation must get in the way.’ This report from Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE), Fracking Brussels: A who’s who of the EU Shale Gas Lobby reveals the extent of how deeply embedded lobbying is within the EU system.
In the report, FoEE identifies key lobbyists connected to the shale gas industry who actively campaigned for reduced regulation and essentially a free-for-all for the shale gas industry. The report finds that:
Analysis of contact with key Commission directorates involved in the Commission’s impact assessment (DG Environment, Climate Action, Energy, Enterprise and Industry, and Trade) reveals the intensity of the lobby campaign: industry lobby groups sent at least 79 correspondences to the key DGs dealing with shale gas within less than a year. Also the imbalance in the interests represented at the EU level becomes very obvious: based on information obtained by access to documents’ requests, the European Commission met at least 68 times with industry representatives while only six meetings with civil society groups were mentioned. While environmental NGOs have struggled to make their concerns heard within the Commission, industry representatives, including some who are not officially registered in the Commission and Parliament’s joint transparency register for interest representatives, have invited top level officials to dinners and seminars while distorting the evidence to warn of dire consequences for the European economy if shale gas extraction is regulated.
Key lobbyists identified in the report include:
BusinessEurope — the main organisation representing employers in Europe, with 20 million company members in 35 countries.
The International Oil & Gas Producers Association (OGP) — represents the interests of “oil & gas companies, industry associations and major upstream service companies”. According to OGP’s website, these members “produce more than half the world’s oil and about one third of its gas”.
Shale Gas Europe — an industry-funded lobby platform entirely focused on the promotion of the development of the shale gas industry in Europe. The platform is managed by a Brussels-based lobby and consulting firm, FTI Consulting.
European Energy Forum (EEF) — an MEP-industry forum which provides industry representatives, mainly from the big energy companies, with access to members of the European Parliament at organised dinners and networking events.
AmCham EU — The American Chamber of Commerce to the European Union (AmCham EU) lobbies on behalf of 140 US American companies doing business in Europe and has been described by the Economist as “the most effective lobbying force in town”.
Member Countries of course had an important influence on the shale gas debate. The two countries most in favour were the UK and Poland.
The ‘United Kingdom of Fracking Inc’ has been ‘lobbying for the shale gas industry, as revealed by a leaked exchange of letters between the UK government, the UK Permanent Representation to the EU (UKREP), and Commission President José Manuel Barroso.’
David Cameron himself had wrote to Barroso stating:
‘“I believe that the development of unconventional gas in the EU has the potential to improve energy security, provide jobs and growth, cut greenhouse gas emissions and apply downward pressure on energy prices. Our main competitors are already ahead of us in exploiting these resources…
…As you know, the shale industry is at a critical and early stage of its development in Europe. There is clearly merit in providing additional clarity on how the existing comprehensive EU legislative framework applies to shale gas. However, I am not in favour of new legislation where the lengthy time frames and significant uncertainty involved are major causes for concern. The industry in the UK has told us that new EU legislation would immediately delay imminent investment.
I believe the existing EU legislative framework and robust guidance is sufficient to ensure that shale gas activities can be regulated in a safe and sustainable manner.”
Cameron goes on to argue that the EU’s renewable and energy efficiency targets should be scrapped and replaced with a simple GHG emissions reduction target, to enable the “least cost decarbonisation pathway” and to ensure “a level technology playing field”. In other words, shifting the focus from investment in renewables to shale and the costly low carbon options of nuclear and carbon capture and storage (CCS).’
The report goes on to highlight corporate connections between industry and the UK Government:
Lord John Browne, chairman of the shale gas company Cuadrilla and former Chief Executive of BP, works as a non-executive director of the Cabinet Office (the part of the UK government responsible for co-ordination across Government).
Lord David Howell is the father-in-law of the Chancellor George Osborne and was until last year a Foreign Office minister with responsibility for energy policy. He is also President of the British Institute for Energy Economics, an oil and gas lobbying organisation which is funded by Shell and BP.
Early 2014, Prime minister Cameron and his senior ministers had their cabinet meeting in Shell UK offices in Aberdeen, as he announced measures which aimed to make the most of remaining North Sea oil and gas reserves.
The following diagram shows the web of interconnections within the EU.
The report notes a particular tactic used by lobbyists, which can lead to the propagation of pseudo-science:
One of the tactics used by the shale gas lobby in the US, now being applied in Europe, is the use of “frackademia” — academic studies which were commissioned, paid for, or otherwise influenced by the shale gas industry. In many cases the institutions fail to declare this conflict of interests when they publish their findings.
This is a major problem and poses a real threat to genuine scientific research. The aim is of course to obfuscate and distort the realities of UGE and to mislead. Or as the report puts it:
The shale gas industry has established crucial allies among member state governments prepared to support the case for fracking, regardless of the environmental cost. It has distorted evidence and misrepresented scientific research to achieve its goals; manipulating members of the public and paying for science.
After its successful lobby campaign to overturn European initiatives aiming at strengthening environmental legislation, the shale gas lobby has identified the on-going negotiations for a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as an opportunity to make shale gas operations in the EU more profitable. Fossil fuel, chemical and industrial equipment companies which have benefited from the largely unregulated shale gas boom in the US see the TTIP as an opportunity to get rid of “barriers to trade” such as mandatory environmental impact assessments or requirements for community consent.
But with TTIP now defunct, the main trade pact being used in the EU has been the Energy Charter Treaty, covered in some depth in the last article. One thing is abundantly clear, the weight of scientific evidence that is building up against the fossil fuel industry is being ignored. The report concludes:
The body of peer-reviewed scientific studies warning about the inherent dangers of the unconventional fossil fuel industry has grown significantly over the last two years, reinforcing earlier evidence about the intractable and irreversible consequences of drilling and fracking operations, and the health risks for the citizens exposed. This new set of evidence illustrates clearly that the risks of fracking have neither been fully identified nor adequately assessed at the present time.
A further report from FoEE offers some more detail on the role that trade agreements play, through the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clause, which allows corporations to claim damages in secret courts or ‘arbitration panels’ if they deem their profits are adversely affected by changes in regulations or policies that protect communities and the environment.
The report highlights this case from Canada:
Gas and energy firms are staking out claims to Canada’s large shale gas basins. The Utica basin sitting underneath the St. Lawrence River Valley in Quebec, is estimated to contain some 181 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
But public resistance to fracking, as well as growing evidence of water pollution, persuaded Quebec’s government to impose a fracking moratorium in June 2011, banning drilling under the St. Lawrence River until an environmental assessment was completed. Mining rights were revoked — including the licenses of oil and gas company Lone Pine Resources. In 2012, the moratorium was extended to cover all shale gas exploration and development in Quebec.
Lone Pine Resources announced it intended to challenge the moratorium. But instead of going to a Canadian court, the Canadian-based company is using its US-incorporation in Delaware to sue under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which is only available to US and Mexican companies. The company is demanding Cdn$250 million in compensation plus interest from Canada.
Lone Pine claims Quebec’s moratorium is an “arbitrary, capricious, and illegal revocation of [its] valuable right to mine for oil and gas.” The firm says the government acted “with no cognizable public purpose.” Yet the moratorium is only temporary, allowing the environmental impacts to be studied. Milos Barutciski, a lawyer with Bennett Jones, representing Lone Pine, described it as a “capricious administrative action that was done for purely political reasons — exactly what the NAFTA rights are supposed to be protecting investors against.”
Interestingly the report outlines the export potential for the US regarding LNG, highlighting its climate impacts:
LNG is a carbon-intensive fuel, with life-cycle emissions significantly greater than that of natural gas. The energy needed to cool, liquefy, and store natural gas for overseas shipment makes LNG more energy — and more greenhouse-gas-intensive than ordinary natural gas. Opening natural gas reserves to unlimited exports will increase dependency on a fossil fuel with significant climate impacts.
LNG exports require industrial infrastructure including a new network of gas wells, terminals, liquefaction and regasification plants, pipelines, and compressors. This infrastructure has been found to leak methane, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period. Increased exports, therefore, are likely to increase methane emissions and exacerbate climate change.
This is very pertinent as the war in Ukraine drives the expansion of LNG.
There’s another side effect from the industry that is much more difficult to regulate. In the US, Oklahoma is perhaps best known for its prominent position in ‘tornado ally’. But it has increasingly become the focal point for seismic activity.
Since the fracking industry exploded in the US, the incidence of earthquake activity has increased dramatically through the injection of waste water from fracking operations into the ground. According to the US Geological survey:
Within the central and eastern United States, the number of earthquakes has increased dramatically over the past few years. Between the years 1973–2008, there was an average of 21 earthquakes of magnitude three and larger in the central and eastern United States. This rate jumped to an average of 99 M3+ earthquakes per year in 2009–2013, and the rate continues to rise. In 2014, alone, there were 659 M3 and larger earthquakes. Most of these earthquakes are in the magnitude 3–4 range, large enough to have been felt by many people, yet small enough to rarely cause damage. There were reports of damage from some of the larger events, including the M5.6 Prague, Oklahoma earthquake and the M5.3 Trinidad, Colorado earthquake.
This article from the Guardian covers many of the concerns surrounding the problem of induced earthquakes:
According to the National Earthquake Information Center (NEIC), which is based in Colorado, in 2014 Oklahoma experienced 585 such quakes. In 2015 there were 842.
“That’s almost a millennium’s worth of earthquakes in two years,” George Choy, a seismologist at the center, told the Guardian on Friday. “When you see that you suspect something is going on.” Choy added: “Even a magnitude four in the right place could cause great damage. The industry in Oklahoma is producing a tremendous amount of wastewater, more than 200 million barrels a month, which is on the way to a trillion a year. “Water is finding its way to the underground faults and there is always that possibility of a big earthquake. We are certainly concerned.”
Last spring, the US Geological Survey (USGS) issued a report declaring that a spate of earthquakes over seven years were man-made, triggered by drilling for oil and gas. Dumping toxic wastewater from the drilling process destabilized faults in the bedrock, according to the report, causing more problems than the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals, or hydraulic fracturing, that is known colloquially as fracking.
UK geology is highly complex. In the US, shale formations tend to be fairly uniform. But that isn’t the case for the UK (and in parts of Europe also). As this Guardian article notes (referring to previous seismic activity):
“Understanding what the current situation is imperative, otherwise how can we say with any confidence in the future what the impact of fracking has been nationwide?” said Professor Richard Davies, at Newcastle University, who led the research which is published in the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology.
“Historically, fracking-related earthquakes have been small, but the UK is criss-crossed by faults — some of which may be critically stressed — and if triggered these could result in earthquakes that people can feel,” said Professor Davies.
And this is what has precisely happened and why fracking has become history in the UK - for now (Scotland has had a indefinite moratorium in place since 2015). Recently the UK Government has been reviewing its position on shale gas, especially in the wake of the war in Ukraine. A study from the BGS, commissioned by the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, came out on 6 July 2022. ‘[a] decision on whether to lift the moratorium would be made “in due course”.’ But the signs are that the moratorium in England won’t be lifted as Kwarteng rejected a petition that was started by Lois Perry, director of the climate science denial group CAR26. She claims that ‘the “climate emergency” is a “scam”.’
Once drilling is over and done, industry claims that well sites can be remediated and everything will be as it was before drilling took place. But history has shown that large scale industrial activity can leave swaths of contamination. The Chicago Tribune offers an interesting perspective.
But one particular problem is emerging. As I noted above, methane leaks from wells could have a high GWP. But abandoned wells can leak methane also. This problem isn’t isolated to fracking as conventional oil and gas wells can also be prone to leakage. But as a study by the University of Vermont shows, fracking can exasperate the problem.
Coal Bed Methane
Montana State University has an excellent FAQ’s page on CBM, which covers just about everything you would want to know about CBM. It tends to focus on the Powder River Basin region of Montana and Wyoming, which in terms of overall production is the most active region in the US as far as CBM extraction is concerned.
The EPA has produced Coalbed Methane Extraction: Detailed Study Report. In order to extract methane gas from coal seams, large quantities of water has to be pumped out. The water is held within the coal under pressure. When the water is extracted, the pressure drops causing a release of gas, which is collected. The following diagram is taken from the EPA report:
The EPA summarises the process:
CBM wells go through the following production stages:
• An early stage, in which large volumes of groundwater are pumped from the seam to reduce the underground pressure and encourage the natural gas to release from the coal seam;
• A stable stage, in which the amount of natural gas produced from the well increases as the amount of groundwater pumped from the coal seam decreases; and
• A late stage, in which the amount of gas produced declines and the amount of groundwater pumped from the coal seam remains low.
The main problem with underground water sources is the high proportion of Total Dissolved Solids. This means a high level of salts, which can impact drinking water, aquatic life and agriculture. It is therefore imperative that care is taken when disposing of this water in order to avoid environmental impacts.
In some cases where the water table is low, fracking may be employed. Here we are looking at the same problems associated with shale gas extraction. In short, any form of UGE is a major threat to the climate.
In a followup article I’ll be looking at UGE from a financial perspective.