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Men with Cabot Oil and Gas work on a natural gas valve at a hydraulic fracturing site in South Montrose, Penn. Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, stimulates gas production by injecting wells with high volumes of chemical-laced water in order to free up pockets of natural gas below.
A university study asserts that the problems caused by the gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," arise because drilling operations aren't doing it right. The process itself isn't to blame, according to the study, released today by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.
The report is likely to add new fuel to a blazing controversy over fracking. Researchers reviewed the evidence contained in the reports of groundwater contamination from three prominent shale-rock formations where the process is employed: the Barnett Shale in North Texas, the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, New York and other areas of Appalachia; and the Haynesville Shale in western Louisiana and northeast Texas.
The groundwater contamination is graphically portrayed in the documentary "Gasland," which showed residents near shale-gas operations setting their drinking water on fire as it came out of the tap. Worries about such contamination have sparked political resistance to fracking, leading some states and countries to hold up new drilling operations.
At the same time, shale gas is seen as an increasingly important domestic energy source. About a quarter of U.S.-produced natural gas currently comes from shale, and that proportion is projected to rise to nearly half by 2035. Last month, President Barack Obama suggested that the natural gas industry could support 600,000 jobs in America by the end of the decade, in large part due to the rise of hydraulic fracturing. In its latest budget request, the White House proposed new studies by the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure that fracking is done safely.
Mike Groll / AP
People take part in a rally against hydraulic fracturing at the Legislative Office Building in Albany, N.Y., on Jan. 23. New York state legislators are considering a number of bills to limit fracking.
"It's a game-changer in terms of the energy balance," study leader Chip Groat, associate director of the Energy Institute, told journalists today. He and other scientists discussed the report in Vancouver, Canada, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Where does fracking go wrong?
Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling deep into shale beds, then injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to shatter layers of rock — liberating trapped pockets of natural gas. The gas is captured for energy use, but the water and other byproducts have to be cleaned up. The procedure has been used since the 1950s, but it's become far more widely applied in recent years due to advances in horizontal-drilling technologies.
The researchers concluded that many of the reports of contamination can be traced to above-ground spills or other mishandling of the wastewater, Groat said. Other causes of the contamination include underground casing failures or poor cement jobs. "These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing," Groat said in a news release.
In the reports reviewed by the researchers, "we found no direct evidence that hydraulic fracturing itself ... was a cause for concern," he told journalists at the AAAS meeting. He acknowledged, however, that shale gas development "can be bungled" due to problems with drilling and extraction techniques used closer to the surface.
Such problems are most likely behind the water-on-fire phenomena documented in "Gasland." But it's difficult to identify precisely what the problem was or what the long-term effect will be without before-and-after data, Groat said.
"We really feel hobbled in a lot of these [cases] by the lack of baseline information," he observed.
Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Ray Kemble delivers fresh water on Jan. 18 to family members whose water was contaminated due to a shale-gas drilling operation hydraulic fracturing in Dimock, Pa.
Today's release of the final report follows up on a preliminary version that was issued last fall. In addition to discussing the causes of contamination, the report evaluated the ability of states to enforce existing regulations, and analyzed the public perceptions surrounding fracking.
Among the other findings:
- Natural gas found in water wells within some shale gas areas, such as the Marcellus Shale, can be traced to natural sources. The report said the gas was probably present before the onset of shale gas operations.
- Some states have actively addressed the regulatory issues surrounding shale gas, but most regulations were written before the process became widespread. In those cases, regulations may need to updated to reflect new situations. However, "there isn't the need for new regulatory frameworks," Groat said.
- News coverage of the controversy has been "decidedly negative," and few media reports mention the scientific research related to the process.
- Surface spills of the fluids used in the fracking process were judged to pose a greater risk to groundwater sources than the fracking itself.
The Energy Institute said its report was conducted using general university funds, but received assistance from the Environmental Defense Fund in developing the scope of work and the methodology for the study. The EDF said it reviewed drafts of the report during the course of the project but did not contribute to its conclusions.
Not the final word
Scott Anderson, senior policy adviser for the Environmental Defense Fund's energy program, discussed the report in a blog posting published after the report's release. "If the problem isn't hydraulic fracturing, then what is?" the headline asks. Here's some of what Anderson said:
"As has been the case in other inquiries, the University of Texas study did not find any confirmed cases of drinking water contamination due to pathways created by hydraulic fracturing. But this does not mean such contamination is impossible or that hydraulic fracturing chemicals can’t get loose in the environment in other ways (such as through spills of produced water). In fact, the study shines a light on the fact that there are a number of aspects of natural gas development that can pose significant environmental risk. And it highlights the fact that there are a number of ways in which current regulatory oversight is inadequate."
Anderson said the report deserved widespread attention, but was "by no means the final word on these topics."
Groat said the report was based on a review of previously published data rather than fresh field observations. "We did not go out and measure things," he acknowledged.
He said further studies will be conducted into the atmospheric and seismic impact of hydraulic fracturing — two much-debated environmental issues that were not addressed in detail in the newly issued report. The Energy Institute also plans to conduct a detailed case study on groundwater contamination in Texas' Barnett Shale, as well as a field investigation into the effects of shale gas drilling on the water above and below fracturing sites in the Barnett Shale.
"Certainly more work needs to be done," Groat said.
Update for 11:15 p.m. ET Feb. 16: One of my correspondents on Twitter, Pamela Oldham, notes that ConocoPhillips committed itself in 2010 to contribute $1.5 million to the University of Texas at Austin for energy research. The petroleum company said at the time that the Energy Institute would administer the grants, with the money going to UT-Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering and the McCombs School of Business. I'll check on how that squares with the institute's claim that the study was funded from general university accounts.
Oldham also notes that ConocoPhillips was recently named in a civil lawsuit alleging fracking-related water contamination in Texas' Panola County.
Update for 10:20 a.m. ET Feb. 17: Chip Groat, associate director of the Energy Institute and the leader of the study released this week, responded to my inquiry about the ConocoPhillips grant last night with this email:
"Three or four of the large energy companies give money to UT for student support (a recruitment investment) and for research that is spread among various departments. ConocoPhillips has done this, and part of the funding they provided was to the Energy Institute to support the Barnett Shale Case Study which will be a follow-on to the study we reported on today. None of the ConocoPhillips money went into this study [the one released this week]. For the [follow-up] case study, we will use Energy Institute money plus funds from energy companies and governments in the Barnett Shale development area. This is a matter of financial necessity, but we want to spread the funding among organizations with different interests in Barnett Shale development."
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.
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OK, everyone form a circle. Now anyone who doesn't drive the most fuel efficient car they can afford please leave. Anyone who doesn't live within walking distance to work please leave. Anyone who gets electricity from the grid please leave. Anyone who heats their house with natural gas, propane or fuel oil please leave. Ok now anyone left by all means please complain about the big bad wolf oil companies.
Wind and solar is great but the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Wind turbines and solar panels (and hybrid/electric car batteries) need rare earth metals to build. These come from where, all together now class, that's right underground. To get at these we have to mine and mining is almost as evil as oil drilling.
We are our own worst enemy, more people consuming more equals more energy. Dare I say we must conserve and consume less. We must also explore, frack (safely of course), drill domestic oil and gas. Convert commercial trucks to LNG and power plants to NG with a mix of wind and solar. This will create more jobs, not just oil but manufacturing right here in the USA, reduce the trade deficit and posibly even export LNG.
Of course you can chose to believe Gasland, a guy that made a bundle with a $100 camera and no facts or 8-12 years of climate data and call it global warming. Call sand and water with .05% of chemicals( found in everyday household items) in it a toxic stew. Or we can get facts, make choices and live better than any previous generation and still leave the next generation with the same opportunity.
I'm not left or right, I think and vote independently. Try it you'll like it.
Or you can choose to research this issue as much as you can, despite having to heat your house from the grid because you need to go to work for a living.
You might find things like:
"In [some cases when companies were unable to fully list chemicals used], it appears that the companies are injecting fluids containing unknown chemicals about which they may have limited understanding of the potential risks posed to human health and the environment." -U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Minority Staff, Chemicals Used in Hydraulic Fracturing, April 2011
and
The study "Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective" published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal (2011) recommended full disclosure of chemicals used, along with actual monitoring/regulation of these, and advised fracking no longer be exempt from the US Safe Drinking Water Act.
I do agree with you that we need to conserve more.
Kryss,
Thank you. Now we find that not only fracked wells are dangerous, but the high-pressure injection brine disposal wells are as well. Gov. Kasinich (R) of Ohio has declared a moratorium on these wells in Ohio, since they have been linked to earthquakes in the Toledo area. Earthquakes started when injection began; and ended with a 4.0 Richter on December 31. After that, Kasinich said no more after a dozen. But this is all very safe, API says so. And everyone in the industry plays by the rules.
Too bad those trees don't hug back..... all of you would feel better.
George,
Actually, the trees do hug back. They provide the oxygen that you rely on to breathe. So, if you don't like trees, go into a corner and hold your breath.
Also help reduce temp, large amounts of trees can hold weather patterns.
Boils down to money.
gee, it is just too bad that the presence of humans are required to carry out each and every aspect of the fracking process. i suppose if humans hadn't been involved in transporting oil before the exxon-valdez disaster, if humans hadn't been present on the halliburton/bp oil rig which created the horrendous gulf-oil spill disaster, if a human hadn't been present captaining the now listing ship, the concordia, there just would not have been any disaster at all. the logic of this article is rediculously rediculous. the process of hydraulic fracturing, and the amount of hydraulic fracturing today, cannot be compared to the process in the 1950s. it is an entirely different animal! in my opinion, the process of hydraulic fracturing is, in and of itself, an extreme risk to the health of the very environment upon which all life depends. fracking presents irreversible environmental damage risks that are not worth the price that present and future generations will have to pay.
No it and every ill in America is all Obama's fault.
After all, he is our country's CFO.......
This is just one more case of swine flu.
We were all going to die of the swine flu if we don't speed up the vaccine process and reduce safety testing. The us economy will collapse if we don't spend more money than we have on nothing. All automobile manufacturing was about to collapse if the feds don't take over and start manufacturing "the cars we really want". We've been about to have the worst hurricane season in history ever since Katrina because of global warming. The health care system will collapse if the US healthcare bill isn't passed for Christmas, before the next elections. We had Icelandic volcanoes set to destroy europe so all airplanes had to be grounded. The BP Oil spill will create decades of dead marine wildlife and we must stop any new deep water drilling. Libya must be "liberated" using us troops without congressional authority into the hands of completly unknown groups or something mysterious and really bad might happen. Japanese fallout is going to devastate the west coast so we can't ever build a nuclear power plant (whew just in time people were starting to think Chernoble was due to poor equipment under a bankrupt soviet regime and they may have forgotten 3-mile island since nothing really came of that either).
And now we are expected to beleive that if we don't cut our natural gas supply (causing more economic depression, cold homes and the resulting death) we will all die from water contamination?
The civil courts were made for this very purpose. These are cases that need to be looked at individually to decide if one groups profit came at the expense of anothers property. Over reaching, new regulations just add another straw to the collective misery of living under our current batch of central planners. This all goes to show we don't have to continue beleiving these imaginary emergencies and giving up liberties and property rights to solutions that don't solve anything.
Should there be any regulations, or just no new ones because you randomly don't like the idea of more? Even if reasoning based on science and evidence suggests otherwise?
Here are just two academic suggestions...if you care about thinking about it.
The study "Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective" published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal (2011) recommended full disclosure of chemicals used, along with actual monitoring/regulation of these, and advised fracking no longer be exempt from the US Safe Drinking Water Act.
and
The article “Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing” concludes that that "[G]reater stewardship, data, and—possibly—regulation are needed to ensure the sustainable future of shale-gas extraction and to improve public confidence in its use."
So despite regulations and regulators, energy companies are using unsafe practices in hydrofracking. They shift the cost to individuals, and to our government (our tax dollars). So our utility bill looks cheap, but we pay more in other ways.
Compare TOTAL costs of energy, and we see Renewables are cheaper than Fossil energy or Nuclear. And, oh yeah, they are RENEWABLE.
You should go to school. You appear to be very uneducated.
I read the report today - it's almost entirely in draft form. And the problems are already known to the industry - gas wells leak methane into groundwater as they age. Sooner or later all of them do because they rust out.
Think about it simply. A quote from this article "Hydraulic fracturing involves drilling deep into shale beds, then injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to shatter layers of rock — liberating trapped pockets of natural gas" we (the consumers)/they are shooting chemicals into the ground under high pressure to free natural gas. How is that not going to cause disturbances and health problems to humans and the environment. People are going to look back at this in 100 years and say "dam that was not smart". Invest in cleaner renewable energy and get jobs there.
feisty, do you even have the slightest clue of what a "commodities market" is?
when a contract for delivery is made, who do you think it goes to in the first place? (answer, the highest bidder)
Thank you, fellow reader, for going over my input here because it’s absolutely true-to-word and heart-felt. There are a few key facts and ideologies that must be known by all Americans concerning this environmental and energy security HAZARD. As of February 26, 2012:
Take every pound of America’s natural gas, every gallon of America’s crude oils, AND EVERY LOG from our forests!
THEY ARE TRYING TO GET PERMITS NOW. STOP THEM OR OUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL SUFFER AT THE HAND OF COUNTRIES THAT WILL DESTROY OUR NATION WITH OUR OWN NATURAL RESOURCES.
LTITTLE@COCC.EDU
University of Texas study. Go figure! This study came from the Big Oil state. I would like to see other states conduct non bias studies of their own.
What if WATER would be removed from the fracking process?? In shallow wells, oil companies sometimes use microwave energy directed from klystrons on the surface. No water issue, still the problem of using fossil fuels, so the global warming issue still exists.
We have the technology to send small powerful klystrons DOWN the well instead of using water, but without push the oil companies have no reason whatsoever to make any changes when they are being held unaccountable umaking mistakes. The United States invented klystrons, should we give our own technology a boost to let the world have a chance to save what will be an even more valuable resource? CLEAN WATER!!
To the Anti- Global Warming folks. Get a grip. Stop accepting the word of those who depend on continuing the status quo. Humans can figure out other energy sources. One source? Use all these deep wells for "Geothermal" energy. The energy companies have a nice clean holes to places that would assure them of great temperature differentials that we could use for sources of energy! We just have to make sure they do THAT safely!! They already wasted the energy to drill the holes.
Alan Boyle, this "story" you wrote is 100 percent misleading and dangerous.
You did not even mention the "halliburton loophole" that prevents the EPA from regulating drinking water in relation to fracking. You did not tell your readers that fracking companies are allowed to keep "trade secrets" about what chemicals they use in the process.
And most importantly, because you are a journalist and you are supposed to report NEWS, not pre-packaged press-release study "results," you ought to know that the NEWS here is not "study finds blah blah blah" -- the NEWS in this case is that the fracking industry is donating millions of dollars to that university. Therefore, the study is bull@!$%#. Period, end of sentence.
Your whole "blog post" or story or whatever you call that -- it needs to be rewritten. The way it stands now would lead one to conclude that fracking isn't dangerous and that the study isn't underwritten by fracking money. (You must be smart enough to understand that a donation like that, for "future follow-up studies" -- this is just a technicality, obviously -- would have influenced the nature and the scope of the current study?)
Also, the study isn't even a "study." It just pulled together already existing data, which comes from the FRACKING COMPANIES themselves! So the data for the study is total bull@!$%# in the first place.
How dare you give this study credibility by writing about it in this way?
That's a bold headline for such a superficial report Mr.Boyle. Let's see... a study paid at least in part (if indirectly), by gas industry funding 'didn't go out and make a lot of measurements' but instead relied upon 'earlier work' claims that documented gas contamination of well water was 'probably present before fracking took place', That's real science guys. You could tell where the story was going by the boiler-plate 'game-changer' cheer-leading of the first few paragraphs. Pathetic.
Certainly a lot of diverse opinions about this article...
Fracking...
Been around for quite awhile.. and so has methane in drinking water.. That little trick.. setting the tap water on fire.. been around a long long time. just about any water well drilled over a coal seam will produce the same effects. Just as those who would prefer to sue an oil company for imagined culpability. Earthquakes...? Let me tell you.. the tremors from a coal mine blast can be felt miles from the site... and don't even bother the pronghorn or get the sage chickens up.
Wells can leak and can be repaired.. the smidgen of damage cleaned up and recovered.
I suppose it would send a quiver of fear for the end of times if it was revealed that fracking has been done with thermonuclear devices...?? It has been... more than once.. right here in the United States of America.. with no ground water contamination.
Pretty simple really.. America needs America's oil and natural gas.. and a switch to a natural gas policy along with wind and solar could change the face of America's energy needs in the very near future. T. Boone Pickens one of those evil oil company billionaires has promoted a natural gas policy for several years. The Pickens plan could be a great start to get this country on track for self reliance, cleaner air and a step into a brighter future.