Tag archives for fracking
Posted by The oil and gas industry promises “a few days of fracking” for “decades of … production.” But is it true? Believe it or not, some people don’t buy the fracking boom story. Some predict bust. Others, more of a petering out. What gives? Let’s begin with a story about a lunch. Lunch with a Skeptic In…
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Has fracking changed our energy future for the better, or for the worse? Read viewpoints on both sides and vote in the poll below. The use of hydraulic fracturing to extract oil and gas from the earth dates back to the 1940s, but only in the past few years has “fracking” become an energy buzzword,…
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Energy policy historically has been a matter of policymakers chasing events – and the most recent example is the current boom in natural gas. The controversial technique of fracking gets most of the attention, and there’s no question that fracking’s ability to vastly increase the supply of natural gas is reshaping the energy world.…
Posted by Fracking has now become so much a part of the fabric of American life that it has earned its first genuine Hollywood treatment. Promised Land, co-starring and co-written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski, opens today in a limited number of theaters, with wider release next week. While the energy industry has girded for battle…
This map, released today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, provides one of the best views yet of how hydraulic fracturing for natural gas and oil has spread across the United States. It is a snapshot in time, based on 24,879 wells that were “fracked,” or hydraulically fractured, between September 2009 and October 2010. (Related…
History suggests he’s wrong.
Energy independence is a lot like the extravagant Christmas present you wished for all year as a child. For Americans, it’s been the equivalent of a pony, or a Red Ryder BB gun – we hoped for it, we yearned for it, but we never completely believed we’d get it. Now that it’s potentially within…
United States predicted to be world’s leading oil producer. Warning: Claiming lower carbon emissions while exporting fossil fuels can lead to cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance, according to Merriam-Webster, is “psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously.” Dustin Lynn, an admissions counselor at Vanderbilt University, writes that it is “the tension or even…
North American companies are raising both cash and controversy recently in deals with Chinese firms: both American battery maker A123 and Canadian oil and gas firm Nexen have made headlines in recent weeks as some U.S. politicians question the transactions on the basis of national security. China has been ramping up foreign investment in energy…
Water samples in Pennsylvania suggest there may be natural pathways for contamination. Drinking water contamination from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — a k a fracking — for natural gas in Pennsylvania, does it occur? No, say the gas companies (and many geologists). A new paper adds a “but.” Many Say It Can’t Happen There…
On a recent visit to Pennsylvania, I saw signs of a natural gas boom on the wane. Googling “Pennsylvania ‘natural gas rush’” this morning got me 356,000 hits. Some may call it a gas boom instead of a rush, but, regardless, it seems to be a happening thing. The development of the technology that combines…
Peter Voser, the chief executive officer of Shell, sees a world where energy, food, and water resources face increasing stress, and where businesses can offer the leadership that national governments have failed to provide in the search for solutions. Shell is sponsor of National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge, an effort to engage and enlighten readers…
Part two — the view from the grassroots. Last week I led a group of Nicholas School colleagues on an “eco fact-finding” trip to learn about fracking in Pennsylvania. We spent the first half of the trip (covered last week) touring facilities and getting a bird’s eye view of what’s going on with the landscape.…
Report Links Energy Activities to Higher Quake Risk
Posted by Mason Inman on June 15, 2012 The energy industry may be increasing the risk of earthquakes by pumping fluids underground, says a new federal scientific study. But the biggest danger is not due to extraction of fuel, but disposal of waste, said the report published Friday by the National Academies of Science. Hydraulic fracturing of shale formations to unlock gas has…
Greetings from Pennsylvania. That’s where I am this week, leading a group of Nicholas School colleagues on an “eco-fact-finding” trip. Our objective: to learn more about shale gas drilling, including the tandem two-step of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (collectively known as fracking) that make it all possible. Here’s a bit of what we’ve seen…
Perhaps there’s no better place to see the link between water and energy than in Rotterdam, gateway for much of the oil that enters Europe. The same waters that stoke the city’s economy, daily carrying tankers of crude to the port city’s five large refineries, will threaten the future of the low-lying delta if global…
Not fracking with millions of gallons of water this time round — waterless fracking. Americans love a good game with lots of momentum and game-changing shifts. Who would have thunk — shale gas extraction is turning out to be one of the most exciting games in town. The Original Natural Gas Game Changer Over the…
Air Pollution from Fracked Natural Gas Wells Will Be Regulated Under New U.S. Rules
Posted by Mason Inman on April 18, 2012 Under a new rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, new oil and gas wells that are hydraulically fractured—or “fracked”—will have to use new equipment to capture the gases that escape, rather than releasing them into the air or burning them off. Hydraulic fracturing has been in use since the 1950s, but in the past…
The Energy Battle Between Spain and Argentina: Back to the ’70s
Posted by Pablo Pardo on April 18, 2012 Aggressive nationalization of large profitable companies seemed to be a thing of the past until Monday, when Argentina seized control of YPF, the former Argentine oil and gas monopoly, from Repsol, Spain’s own former oil and gas monopoly. Top executives were forced out of YPF’s headquarters in Buenos Aires as Argentine President Cristina Fernández de…
Does it make climate sense to drive cars with natural gas? Our nation appears to be rapidly moving to a natural gas-powered economy. Advances in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling have made huge deposits of natural gas in shale and tight sands commercially viable. (See “Hydrofracturing: An Energy Revolution.”) Suddenly the United States is…
Fracking Arrives at the ‘Sistine Chapel’ of Prehistoric Art
Posted by Pablo Pardo on February 2, 2012 On March 31 last year, a region in northern Spain quietly granted a concession of land, dubbed Arquetu, for natural gas exploration. In Cantabria, the Arquetu traditionally was known as a mythological traveler who carries a coffer full of gold coins and lives an extremely simple lifestyle. Having disappeared from Cantabria’s folklore, now the Arquetu…
Highlights from a workshop on the environmental and social implications of fracking. A group of the nation’s leading experts on energy and the environment are at Duke this week attending a workshop to try to ferret out the facts (and tamp down the hype) around shale gas and fracking, the controversial method for extracting natural…
View Earthquakes Related to Fracking in a larger map
In society’s ever-deeper dig for energy, one of the risks is causing the Earth to move. The most recent dramatic example came on New Year’s Eve outside of Youngstown, Ohio. A 4.0 earthquake was the last and largest of a series of temblors that prompted state officials to halt nearby underground disposal of wastewater from…
Tanzania Struggles to Tap Natural Gas Potential
Posted by Kizito Makoye on November 18, 2011 
Despite a yawning deficit in energy supply that has plunged Tanzania into a serious electricity crisis, the country has failed to tap the massive potential of recently discovered natural gas stores. Although the government is boasting of major gas discoveries in the country’s offshore fields, very little investment is already under way to supply gas…
When it comes to water from hydrofracking, the question of safety is murky at best. The Chemical Cocktail of Fracking Fluid For many folks the big baddie of hydraulic fracturing, also called hydrofracking or fracking, is fracking fluid — the mixture of water, sand, and chemicals that’s injected deep below the surface to fracture the…
