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In a current article titled, The Wrong Kind of Green, Johann Hari documents how over the last couple of decades, those big “environmental” organizations we always thought were acting in our interests have gradually become “owned” – that is, primarily influenced – by big corporate polluters. It’s reached the point where groups like Sierra Club and NRDC are actively, conspicuously partnering with corporations like Chesapeake and people like T Boone Pickens who are destroying the places we call home across the nation and around the world.
Tuesday, March 9: New York City activists set the record straight on NRDC's real position regarding gas drilling. NRDC wants to prevent it in special places where special people would be affected, but just want it to be "better regulated" everywhere else
Many of us have given our hard-earned money to these organizations to save other places only to find now that they’re promoting shale gas extracted from our own home regions as a “bridge fuel.” The experience of other states across the country proves incontrovertibly that getting this bridge-to-nowhere fuel out of the ground, no matter how well the process is regulated, guarantees the destruction of land, water, air, and human & animal health. It also converts agricultural and forest land into a blighted industrial zone.
We don’t want the industrialization of New York’s rural areas
to be “better regulated.”
We want the only thing that will keep New York’s central regions
beautiful, healthy places to live, farm,
and raise our children and grandchildren.
We want a statewide ban.
Click on image to go to story and comments at indymedia.org
Tags: NRDC, Sierra Club, statewide ban
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Posted in The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse
Home water supply after gas drilling, Hickory, PA
Governor Rendell, Governor Paterson, will you join us?
Mr Grannis? Mr. Gruskin? There’s plenty for all.
I live in Hickory, PA… just to update what is going on here, we had our water sent to an independent lab. The amount of toxic chemicals found were off the chart. We had the DEP come to the house (they are a complete joke!). They took a sample of the water months ago and we have had no report come back from them. My landlord called them and they said it was safe to drink. We still have had no report from them. The same day they took the water sample, I took a picture of our water, you won’t believe it.
From time to time our water quits running so I have to reset the pump, this is when this brown oily water flows through our pipes. Believe it or not, the DEP took three vials of this same water for testing. The lab told us not to drink the water, not to use it for cooking and not to use it for bathing. When you can’t [get] help and you can’t get another water supply because too many people have their pockets padded, what are you to do? We take quick, lukewarm showers (pray for me) we do not drink it and don’t use it for cooking, we buy alot of bottled water.
Here is a picture of the brown water, it’s not always brown but it’s always full of toxins!
It’s strange how people are so scared of the swine flu, but when you talk about how the gas drillers poison our water supply they think you’re crazy or they get mad because they think they can become rich off of a deal with a gas company, money is more important to them than their health. Finally, but too late for them, people’s eyes are starting to open to see the truth.
Thank you and keep up the fight, I know I will, the future of our nation’s health depends on it!Hickory, PA resident, to Damascus Citizens for Sustainability, January 13, 2010
‘Petro-pirates’ robbing Alberta’s resources
Flushing justice down the pipeline with Wiebo Ludwig’s arrest
Published January 14, 2010 by Jack Locke in Viewpoint Corey Pierce
. . . . . Alberta is not a democratic province. It is a province controlled by international corporations that see profit and extraction of natural resources as their prime object.
In order to accomplish their objective, the industry will use its abundant resources to do things that are not very nice. Companies will send crews of desperate men to attack the land and lay waste on anyone who gets in their way. These crews may wear uniforms and call themselves Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Or the petro-pirates may hire private security forces to instigate dirty tricks to dissipate legitimate opposition to the destruction of Alberta’s air, water and land.
There is a great amount of opposition in Alberta to what the Progressive Conservative dynasty allows. There are voices in every Alberta city that oppose the wanton poisonings of citizens who happen to live downwind or adjacent to an oil or gas well.
But Oilberta is a one-industry town. It is run by the bosses of EnCana, Shell and other giant corporations. They have infiltrated every aspect of Alberta society: hospitals, schools and the government. They have put a clamp on dissension and discussion in a most disgraceful way.
. . . . .
I have lived 15 km downwind of a gas plant. I can tell you stories about the clouds of toxic chemicals that are emitted in the dark of night, while country children sleep in their beds. I can tell you how the Alberta government watchdog agency prohibited me from speaking at a public hearing over whether to allow Shell Canada to expand its Caroline gas plant. I can tell you how the government of Alberta intercepted my private communications for at least four months in 1999.
Nobody likes explosions of pipelines. Nobody likes to have a seismic crew destroy the ageless aquifers that provide drinking water for cattle and country folk. Nobody likes to have a gas well spewing harmful vapours into the air. But people do like automobiles, and they like to receive unnaturally healthy returns on investment. Ah, there’s the rub.
The situation in Alberta will continue for some time to come. So long as birds are found dead on tarsand tailings ponds, so long as drinking water ignites in the rural homes of Albertans, so long as the government permits these atrocities, not much will change.
All that Ludwig wanted was a decent place to live, free from the dangers of modern life. A simple rural existence, subsistence. You’d think it could be found in remote Hythe, Alta. But obviously not.
The idea of sustainable development, respect of citizens and nature and a just society are words not often heard in Alberta’s highest offices. And even if they are heard, they are meaningless in the current political environment.
. . . . .
As a large, cold nation we should develop a national policy that protects the land for future generations, one that protects our natural resources. Depletion of our life’s blood will only ensure a miserable future for our children.
Even if our governments allow for the exhaustion of our non-renewable resources, they must not prohibit legitimate debate on the subject. The word tyranny should have no place in the Canadian lexicon. Yet, the repeated arrest of Ludwig is a sad example of justice being flushed down the pipeline.
Read full piece at Fast Forward Weekly
Tags: Alberta, Canada, pipelines, police
Have you noticed how often the industry and its sympathizers repeat the refrain that fracking happens so far below the water table from which drinking water is drawn that there’s no danger of frack fluids getting into drinking water? This despite the evidence that stuff really does get around, even if they don’t understand how.
There’s another way drinking water gets contaminated: surface spills. Spilled substances can seep down to groundwater. Or, as at Buckeye Creek, a town’s drinking water can be contaminated by spills that find their way into surface waters.
In late November the Sootypaws website and blog posted an extensive update on the mysterious spill at Buckeye Creek, in Doddridge County, WV.
Make yourself a cup of coffee and settle in for an excellent and thorough account of what is known.
Timeline and links to more
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Tags: Buckeye Creek, Doddridge County, WV
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Posted in The Fox is Guarding the Henhouse
Activists for statewide ban on toxic waste producing gas drilling disrupt DEC dSGEIS hearing in NYC
(New York City, 11/10) A burgeoning movement to counter proposals for a two-tiered standard of environmental protection from shale gas drilling in New York State erupted in the first New York City DEC hearing on the proposed State regulations. The filled-to-capacity hearing began – as usual – with elected officials testifying, with clear intent that they would leave before listening to the hours of testimony for a statewide ban by New York City residents. But as Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler introduced his divisive approach of protecting only a small portion of the State’s vast environment, a city representative of the movement for a statewide ban on the dangerous practice walked up onto the stage.
Taking the stage, Alex Johnson, a life-long resident of New York City, declared to much applause, “We want a statewide ban. We don’t need hearings to regulate this. Gas drilling is dangerous and we need to ban it. We stand with thousands of New Yorkers –and most of you here tonight– in demanding a statewide ban on the use of the destructive fossil fuel extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing in New York’s Marcellus and other shales.”
Alluding to the rally for a statewide ban and the simultaneous press conference by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer to ban drilling in the “New York City watershed” Johnson emphasized, “We reject the divisive call for a ban for New York City’s water by slippery politicians and corporate environmental organizations. We call on elected officials to represent the clear opinions of experts and citizens that this process is too dangerous to allow anywhere in New York State.”
Many New Yorkers in the audience applauded and continued to speak out. Wendy Malcom of the Safe Water Movement stood up in the audience calling for recognition that the DEC hearing was merely to facilitate drilling. “Don’t Frack New York State,” Ms. Malcom chanted. “Groups across the state including the Haudenosaunee Iroquois Confederation declared they would not participate in the drilling hearing because the DEC is using the hearings to promote gas drilling. Our communities and the planet are facing a climate catastrophe that requires Governor Paterson to ban gas drilling and promote a transition to 100% renewables within 10 years.”
Fifty-one (51) organizations across New York State (many based in New York City) have declared their support of a statewide ban as expressed in the recently released petition.
Johnson shouted as he was being escorted that “the DEC is mandated to facilitate even environmentally disastrous gas exploration and drilling in our State. Governor Paterson can ban this process. The electorate must reclaim control over the commons, to protect our water supplies from irreversible contamination, and to develop sustainable energy alternatives.”
The intervention by the twenty activists was met with much applause. Some were escorted from the hearing place.
For more information, go to www.un-naturalgas.org
For interviews, call: Laura Sheinkopf, 516.314.0011
To NYC statewide drilling ban activists -
from your fellow fighters upstate,
t h a n k y o u
See it November 19, 7pm at the Bouck Auditorium, SUNY Cobleskill. The Student Environmental Action Coalition presents: A Snowmobile for George. “A rambunctious road trip reveals the toll that environmental deregulation has had on the lives of ordinary people.”
Tags: film
Unnatural Gas: The Inflated Promise of a Not-So-Clean Fuel
Meanwhile, in competing with Big Coal for the affections of Congress, the newly formed America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) launched an $80 million advertising and lobbying campaign earlier this year to promote its “clean, abundant, American, reliable, and versatile” product. As climate bills work their way through Congress, ANGA’s efforts appear to be paying off.
Risking our water so we can burn more natural gas will not be the planet’s miracle climate cure. For the United States to achieve necessary reductions in greenhouse emissions – estimated at more than 80 percent – will require not more energy production, even if somewhat cleaner, but deep cuts in energy consumption.
Coal must be phased out as quickly as possible, but more gas won’t accomplish that. While electric utilities’ gas consumption doubled from 1996 to 2007, coal use continued its steady climb.
What if, with shale drilling, we could achieve another doubling of gas-fired electricity generation, but this time eliminate an equivalent amount of coal-fired generation? Even that steep escalation of gas drilling would cut the utility industry’s carbon emissions by only 12 percent and the nation’s total carbon emissions by just 5 percent, based on Energy Department figures.
Financier T. Boone Pickens recommends running our vehicles on natural gas. But substituting natural gas for gasoline in all vehicles would reduce the nation’s total carbon emissions by less than 9 percent. Converting all gasoline-powered vehicles would consume more natural gas than electric utilities, homes and businesses combined. Consequences for the nation’s water would be disastrous.
Natural gas is being hailed by some, including Pickens, as a high-energy “bridge” to a renewable future, and by others as sufficiently climate-friendly to be a “destination” fuel. But as gas’ environmental drawbacks become more evident, it’s looking more like a bridge to nowhere.
Read the entire piece at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/04-5
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From the Chesapeake Bay Foundation blog:
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My Road Trip to Frackville, Heart of the Drilling Boom
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Published at http://www.windturbinesyndrome.com/?p=4264
September 26, 2009
Dear Dr. Pierpont,
I would like to thank you for making time to read this. Also, for your excellent work on WTS. It is so similar to VAD Vibroacoustic Disease caused by low frequency noise. Initially identified in the aeronautical field, by military pilots and aircrew. I am sure you are aware of Vieques, Puerto Rico studies. The Navy bought the end of this small island for artillery practice. Poor people lived at the other end of the island. They have since suffered high cancer rates, heart problems, internal problems, and low birth weights.
I live in Texas, the state with the most gas wells (95,000+). The gas from the wells is piped to compressor stations. Our county has 130 or more compressor stations. The low frequency noise travels up to 5 miles radius, thereby overlapping.
Our director, Charles Morgan, has been diagnosed with VAD by a Dr. Wright in Indiana. Feel so bad for him. Sometimes he drives 150 miles just to sleep. His eardrums have burst twice. He has very bad headaches and burning in his veins.
We have tried all means to get to get Noise Law (1982) given to states re-enacted, to no avail. We have tried to get school districts to have a noise assessment. We have been to Austin to see Representatives and Senators. We are not trying to stop big oil & gas, just get them to give up some of those billions in profit and do the responsible thing by enclosing, or using noise abatement, on these compressor stations. Yes, even the rural ones. To protect us and the wildlife.
Could I be so bold to ask if you could do a paper or write something on this subject you know so much about? Please help us! I wear earphones and take [redacted] medicine, and can’t afford to move away.
Enclosed please find our brochure. Thank you again for your time.
Sincerely
Sharon Ward, Secretary
Fairfield, TX 75840
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What kind of system allows an industry to run amok and ruin peoples’ lives and health?
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Tags: compressor station, noise pollution, Texas, VAD, vibroacousic disease
Remember this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/world/asia/19mud.html?_r=1&ref=world
Well, never let it be said that the energy industries won’t find a way to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear:
At http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,501061211-1565620,00.html
It’s tough to put a positive spin on the massive eruption of mud that has displaced more than 12,000 people and buried a large swath of eastern Java in roiling, putrid sludge. But PT Lapindo Brantas, the Indonesian mining company widely blamed for releasing the reservoir of pressurized mud following a drilling accident last May, has come up with a novel form of damage control: sponsoring a sinetron, or Indonesian soap opera, on Surabaya TV station JTV. The 13-part series, Gali Lubang, Tutup Lubang (Digging a Hole, Filling a Hole), is a love story set among refugees left homeless by the mud volcano. “We wanted to show a real story about human interest,” says JTV executive producer Awi Setiawan, who adds that Lapindo paid about $3,300 per episode.It may cost Lapindo far more to dig itself out of this particular corporate hole, however. On Nov. 22 at least 11 people were killed by a gas pipeline explosion caused when a dike built to contain the mud flow collapsed—the latest in a string of public debacles for the company, which is part of a conglomerate controlled by the family of Aburizal Bakrie, the country’s influential Welfare Minister. In the past two months, Lapindo’s corporate parent, PT Energi Mega Persada, has unsuccessfully attempted to unload the beleaguered mining business twice: first, to another Bakrie Group subsidiary for the princely sum of $2; then to the British Virgin Islands-based investment firm Freehold Group. The latter deal collapsed last week after a public outcry, with many Indonesians fearing that the sale might prefigure an attempt by a new owner to declare Lapindo bankrupt, potentially leaving the government to pay for a disaster that one environmental group estimates has already caused $3.6 billion in damage.
Thus far, the soap opera hasn’t been enough to dispel that worry, or polish Lapindo’s befouled image. But with the mud still erupting at a rate of 120,000 cu m per day and all efforts to stanch the flow failing, there may be plenty of time for a sequel.
Tags: Brantas, deaths, Indonesia, mud spill, pipelines
CDOG Responds to NPR’s Un-Natural Gas Propaganda Campaign
In September, NPR’s Morning Edition broadcast a 3 day series on the issue of extracting natural gas from stone, the content of which suggested NPR is now just another Naturalgas Propaganda Resource. Below are links to the 3 days of NPR’s un-natural gas promotion, with a CDOG response below each link.
Link to Day 1, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/22/2009 Rediscovering Natural Gas by Hitting Rock Bottom
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113043935
CDOG Response to Day 1:
In your 09/22/09 Morning Edition story, Rediscovering Natural Gas by Hitting Rock Bottom, NPR framed the issue as gas drillers being nice small independent entrepreneurs struggling against an energy market dominated by big oil and big coal. That’s false. Those little gas drilling wildcatters are controlled by big oil and gas corporations, which use them to limit liabilities (evade deep pocketed corporation responsibility for purposeful pollution). The not so small “independent” Nornew, positioning itself over the Marcellus shale here in New York, is actually a subsidiary of the international O&G corporation Norse Energy, based in Norway.Your report focused upon increased estimates of possible gas quantities, without providing evidence of the quality deficits, like the water wells now being destroyed in Pennsylvania by this form of drilling.
The only downside to ripping remnants of gas from stone that the NPR reporter reported was that gas prices are too low, making it difficult for the optimistic “energy independence” drillers to make a profit from their [money] expensive operations. The National Propaganda Radio reporter didn’t report on any of the costs to the public that the drillers externalize. To be truly FOXworthy fair and balanced there was a brief reference to “many environmentalists” after which only an institutionalized, industrialized “environmentalist” position was offered.
Unconventional horizontal hydrofracturing drilling, to extract natural gas from low-permeable stone formations, is environmentally unsound. The Halliburton developed process focused upon solving the industry’s extraction problem… with absolutely no concern for the environmental costs to others, from the industry’s use of it.
The scale of the drilling (number of wells and hydrofractures required), that’s necessary to extract those myriad remnants of gas so tightly bound up within the stone, will over time have a catastrophic cumulative negative environmental and human health impact… polluting air, ground, and water in this desperate process of extraction intended to maintain our fossil fuel dependancy.
All of the enormous quantity of clean fresh water used in the hydrofracture process is permanently removed from the natural water cycle, because the chemicals added to it cannot be fully removed to change the toxic waste, which the process creates, back into the safe drinking water it was before the drillers abused it.
The massive amount of toxic waste created by the drillers, which they either do not leave in the hole, or (Love Canal) bury at the site, is taken to municipal sewage waste treatment plants, through which the chemicals then pass on to be dumped into our rivers… and eventually come out of our faucets.
Link to Day 2, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/23/2009 Who’s Looking At Natural Gas Now? Big Oil
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113080237
CDOG Response to Day 2:
The nice “small independent company” that developed the new production techniques to rip the last remnants of natural gas from stone, having the small guy innovation which NPR falsely claims beat BIG oil, was… Halliburton!If NPR considers Halliburton to be a “mom-and-pop” operation, then what does it consider to be a beastly overlarge corporation?
Those little guy operators that NPR romantically astroturfed are the private contractor gas driller domestic equivalents, here at home, of what Blackwater is where fossil fuels can be found elsewhere.
National Propaganda Radio’s reporting implies that the remnants of natural gas, which the myriad tentacled energy industry has in recent years been so hazardously ripping from the earth, are ENORMOUS; but then NPR claims they’ve been deposits too small scale to have yet attracted large corporations. If the remnant areas were large corporation considered so profit inconsequential, then why has the Millennium Pipeline been built to and now through those areas? Would the vast matrix of gas drilling rigs and pads, packed close together covering the whole landscape from the Catskills for 350 miles or more all the way across the broad breadth of New York State to Lake Erie, which will be necessary for the industry to successfully unconventionally extract all that natural gas trapped down there too tightly within non-porous stone… be small scale?
NPR cloaks the socially irresponsible decisions of individual landowners in American Dream apparel, romanticizing those who place their communities in long-term nightmare jeopardy to personally short-term profit themselves. Is inviting a dangerous marauding invading occupier into your neighborhood a good neighborly thing to do? Is the energy industry’s economic draft persuading farmers to site chemical toxic waste production facilities on their farms the way a sane society would provide farmers an adequate income? Is embracing toxic waste production the way any sane society would provide farmers their only ability to have the healthcare they’ll need when the extraction chemicals used produce the effects they cause?
Link to Day 3, of NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign:
09/24/2009 With Little Clout, Natural Gas Lobby Strikes Out
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113138252
CDOG Response to Day 3:
By Day 3, NPR’s petro dollared propaganda campaign has become more subtle, providing some seemingly innocuous banter at the end, to reluctantly acknowledge the existence of some environmental “concern” regarding the type of drilling required to get the last remnants of gas from rocks that couldn’t be gotten before.That ripping of gas from stone with the Halliburton hydrofracking process is not something that “might cause some contamination.” It has in the past; it does now; and it will whenever and wherever it is used, regardless of how tight, or tighter the un-enforced regulations are typed upon paper. The hydrofracturing process is the underground equivalent of mountaintop removal. Both of those extraction procedures have devastating environmental impacts, with mountaintop removal’s just being more readily apparent, while hydrofracture of low to non-permeable tight-gas bearing rock is insidious… like the cancers that it produces.
Being corporate media, when NPR turned its attention to the “political reality” it too subtly sporting announcer focused upon the gas lobby not having as much game as the coal lobby. The Waxman-Markey Bill is the product of industry bribery, with the biggest bidding bribers being rewarded. Yes, like a losing coach would, former [in the pocket of the gas industry] Colorado Senator Tim Worth “chewed out” the gas industry players… for being too cleaner than coal, when bribing Congress.
The gas industry is not the energy constituency with “the most to gain and the most to offer.” No! Those with the most to gain are we, The People, and those with the most to offer are the other environmentalists, who urge us to focus on serious conservation first, and rapid deployment of pervasive alternative renewable energy solutions, with the relocalization of energy production being necessary to bring our carbon footprints down to a size we can survive in.
National Propaganda Radio is still maintaining the false dichotomy of needing to choose gas or coal, repeating gas industry favorable claims of “some environmentalists” with those “some” being the institutionalized industrialized “environmentalists” who claim these last remnants of gas, which are so environmentally damaging to extract, are needed as a bridge-fuel to transition away from coal.
However, those “environmentalists” have taken the wrong exit, onto a bridge to nowhere. Gas from low to non-permeable stone is not a bridge to “transition” away from fossil fuels, but rather a desperate means to maintain the energy industry’s profits from our fossil fuel addiction dependence.
This nation has often displayed how quick and vigorously it can exert huge human energy devoted to the murder and mayhem of wars purposefully designed to government spend enormous amounts of money earned by working people to provide obscene profits to the most ruthless few. We would not need to choose only between dirty coal that won’t become clean, and the remnants of gas that’s so dirty when extracted, if we as a nation treated climate change as a problem of truly existential graveness, which it is.
What would some other environmentalists have to say?
We should stop spending trillions of dollars to fight wars over oil resources that are being used up by those wars fought over them. We should claw back the trillion dollars stolen by banksters. We should exert the same highly concerted human energy and ample money distribution, normally provided by this society only when engaged in global war, and direct that enormous effort and money into providing solutions for global survival… and make that transition from fossil fuel dependence to renewable energy independence be completed as fast as possible.
This nation, with the capacity to exterminate all life upon the planet with just a 20 minute war, surely has the capacity — if it can find the will — to make our planet sustainable in the years that is needed to be done, rather than waiting decades until it’s too late… and then can’t be done.
David J. Cyr
Delhi, NY
GPNYS SC member – Delaware County
Tags: Natural Gas Alliance, NPR
…of the 17 families [whose water has been affected] I am aware of they are not all seniors-some are younger with children. They are not all within 1000 feet of the Gesford site which was the site where the gas company contaminated the aquifer with methane gas which did not come from the Marcellus but from gas above it- isotopic testing was done. The activities of the gas company have altered the water quality in our valley and above. Today I have bubbles. Others have a film on their dishes and their animals are extremely thirsty all the time. Some families get water from the gas company most buy and haul water in. The gas company has stated that unless DEP orders them to provide water they do not have to. Also DEP does not have an accurate record of who is not drinking their water and why. Water wells are private and not regulated by DEP. So unless the water well owner calls them with a complaint they are unaware of any problems. My question is how can the “on going investigation” be accurate if all the information is not compiled. The missing info could be the key.
The gas migration issue is still being investigated-the headlines were misleading stating no fracking fluids found in Dimock water supply….the violation was that the company contaminated the aquifer-fact-they did.
As far as the “promises” we were all promised great compensation- “you’ll see $90,000 a year on as little as 5 acres! or “you won’t be living in this trailer next year. You’ll have a nice new house.” Nothing was ever disclosed to most of us concerning the nature and scope of the industrialization of our community – ONE well was mentioned with the infamous little Christmas tree pipe to mark its location. Drive around our neighborhood- you will see tall vents on water wells, jugs of water behind homes, and disillusioned folks inside the same homes they had 3 years ago. The dwindling royalty checks will soon equal the amount of money some of us spend on buying water…
Tags: Cabot, contamination, DEP, Dimock, Pennsylvania, water wells
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While T Boone Pickens campaigns for the creation of the Natural Gas Nation, otherwise known as the T Boone-Doggle Corporate State, and politicians with a Green Wish sign on without critical examination, careful investors take a view that’s a little more cautious:
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What Could Go Wrong With Shale Plays
Posted: Oct 09, 2009 12:11 PM by Eric Fox
The industry and investment community is all worked up over the various oil and natural gas shale plays in North America, but little attention is given to what could go wrong with these plays.
The first issue is that not very much drilling has been done in some of the most promising shale plays. Since there is very little development and production history, it is difficult to determine the average estimated ultimate recovery (EUR), initial production (IP) rates and decline curves of wells here. Thus any estimates of the total resource potential are unreliable.
Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK), which has 510,000 acres in the Haynesville Shale, uses an average EUR of 6.50 Bcfe, an IP rate of 14.1 million cubic feet equivalent per day, and a first year decline of 85%. However, the oldest Chesapeake Energy well in the Haynesville Shale is only nine months old, and it is difficult to attribute this data to the entire play.
Experience Matters
On the other hand the Barnett Shale, which has a much longer development and production history than the Haynesville Shale, has a more reliable production and decline curve with which to evaluate the assets of exploration and production companies.
The Marcellus Shale also lacks a long history of development, and thus has the same problem as the Haynesville Shale in regards to the reliability of available data. One unique problem for the Marcellus Shale is its immense size. The shale underlies a huge area in terms of square miles, reaching into New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and even New Jersey. Most of the drilling to date has occurred in Pennsylvania, but little is known about most of the other areas.
There is no way to tell currently whether all this acreage will be as productive as the Pennsylvania acreage that has excited the industry. Eventually, the Marcellus Shale will evolve into a core and non-core, or Tier 1, 2 and 3.
Range Resources (NYSE:RRC) is one of the largest players in the Marcellus Shale and has 900,000 acres that are prospective for the Marcellus Shale. Another company that has not moved as far into developing its acreage is Gastar Exploration (NYSE:GST), which has 37,200 net acres under lease. The company plans to drill as many as five wells here by 2010.
Green Protests
Another issue that might cause a problem in the shale plays is the environmental issues associated with hydraulic fracturing, including the use of immense amounts of water and possible pollution when that water is disposed of.
Cabot Oil and Gas (NYSE:COG) recently had two spills of fracturing fluid in the Marcellus Shale that leaked into wetlands and a creek in Pennsylvania. The company was issued a violation notice by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection for violation of several state laws.
Any permanent restrictive regulation on water use in the high growth shale plays might slow down development by making the permitting process cumbersome, or by making it more expensive to drill.
The Bottom Line
The industry and investors are rightly excited about the large amounts of natural gas in the recently discovered shale plays in North America, but this enthusiasm should be tempered by recognition of potential problems that could erupt. (To learn more, see our Oil And Gas Industry Primer.)
By Eric Fox
Eric J. Fox, is the founder of Brittain Capital Management, LLC., which manages the Alesia Fund, LP., a Value oriented long/short investment partnership. You can read more of his views on investments at his blog – Stock Market Prognosticator. Mr. Fox also publishes a paid investment newsletter. Please visit The Unknown Stock Report for more details.
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From Environment & Energy Daily, 9/30:
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Boxer, Kerry brace for delicate talks as bill emerges today
The decision by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to seek steeper greenhouse gas emissions cuts than their House counterparts drew mixed reviews from senators yesterday, underscoring the challenges the pair will face after unveiling their climate bill today.
. . . . .
“The draft includes new incentives for natural gas producers that were not in H.R. 2454, the sweeping House-passed energy and climate bill, as well as a modest nuclear energy title that Senate nuclear power backers — such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) — hope to greatly expand.
. . . . .
Plans to include new natural gas incentives drew attention as lawmakers last night began digesting the long-awaited bill.A new “clean energy” provision rewards companies that switch from power sources with higher emissions than the 2007 power sector average — such as coal-fired or oil-fired power plants — to cleaner fuels including gas.
The plan received high marks from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) who said it is a “positive step.”
“Anything we do to promote natural gas would be a very, very smart thing to do,” Landrieu said. “The leaders are hearing from many different parts of the country how much natural gas is out there.”
Landrieu was among nine senators who sent a letter last week to Boxer lobbying for greater incentives for natural gas. Natural gas producers have been aggressively lobbying senators to win greater incentives for the fuel and have garnered support from some swing votes, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.).
Maybe Kerry, Boxer, Landrieu, et al, haven’t seen this article:
Eric Fox: “What could go wrong with shale plays”
Remember this, when you hear those slick commercials touting decades worth of natural gas from tight shales
or this one:
If 2% leaks, the CO2 impact of natural gas is the same as burning coal
or this one:
Must read: “How Neutral is the Potential Gas Committee?”
or this one:
Analyst: Gas shale may be next bubble to burst
But they should get up to speed. Imagine how mortifying it will be if we’ve switched over to natural gas for much of our energy generation and transportation, but somehow, greenhouse gas levels just don’t drop the way those industry-funded studies and think tanks said they would. Imagine how embarrassing it will be when it turns out so much taxpayer money was spent on infrastructure for natural gas delivery and consumption and then the infrastructure investment cost isn’t even paid off before the gas runs out. Can y’all say T Boone-doggle?
Good Day All,
NYS DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis would like to invite you to attend a summit on Environmental Justice, Climate Change and Air Quality in New York State.
Location: US EPA Office located at 290 Broadway, 27th Floor,
Conf. Rm. A, New York, NY 10007
Date: October 7, 2009
Time: 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
The following individuals are scheduled to speak:
* Alan Belensz – Acting Director, Office of Climate Change; NYSDEC; Co- Chair Governor’s Climate Council
* Cecil Corbin-Mark – Deputy Director/Director of Policy Initiative; WEACT
* Robin Schlaff – Special Counsel for Regional Affairs; NYSDEC; Chair of Sea Level Rise Task Force
* Jared Snyder – Assistant Commissioner, Air Resources, Climate Change and Energy; NYS DEC
* Rob Sliwinski – Director, Bureau of Air Quality Planning; NYSDEC
* Elizabeth Yeampierre – Executive Director; UPROSE
Also invited:
-City of New York
-U.S. EPA
Topics to be discussed include:
Climate Justice
Climate Policy and Addressing Climate Impacts in NYS
Air regulations in NYS
Governor Paterson’s Executive Order 24
NYS’s Sea Level Rise Task Force
Community Resilience, Adaptation and Mitigation
Refreshments will be served.
Please RSVP to Keisha Wilkerson at kjwilker@gw.dec.state.ny.us or call at (518) 402-8556
An agenda will follow shortly.
Thank you!
Lisa F. Garcia, Esq.
Chief Advocate for Environmental Justice and Equity
NYS Department of Environmental Conservation
47-40 21st Street
Long Island City, NY 11101-5401
Tel: (518) 402-8556
(718) 482-4009
Fax: (718) 482-4962
“Environmental justice is not an issue we can afford to relegate to the margins. It has to be part of our thinking in every decision we make.” ~ Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator
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