A simple, ‘You’re being emotional, we’re scientific’, was often sufficient to render the argument of environmentalists powerless in the face of economic forecasts and industry spin.

The advent of the ‘cost-benefit’ analysis was particularly daunting for the environmental lobby, as for the first time, industry was able to place an arbitrary value on the environment to support its case for development. Anyone opposed to the development of a natural resource was shrewdly positioned by industry as being opposed to the growth of the economy, and a stumbling block in the path of the unemployed.

And so, environmentalists shied away from an area that they perceived to be the strong ground of their opponents. Today in South Africa, and around the world, there’s a new breed of environmentalist, and the oil-&-gas industry appear to be unsure on how to deal with them. In South Africa, we’re not simply advocating a thorough cost-benefit analysis – we’re insisting on it.

In the book ‘Retaking Rationality’, Richard L. Revesz and Michael A. Livermore, professors at New York University make a strong case for environmentalists to apply cost-benefit analysis as a tool. “It is time for progressive groups and ordinary citizens to retake the high ground by embracing cost-benefit analysis”, they say.

Referring in their text, to the ‘emotional’ label used by industry, they offer their view on the distinction between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’: “The difference between unthinking – failing to use the best tools to analyse policy – and unfeeling – making decisions without compassion is important – both lead to bad policy. Calamities can result from the failure to use either emotion or reason. Our emotions provide us with the grounding for our principles, our innate interconnectedness and our sense of obligation to build on that emotional foundation, and act effectively to bring about a better world.”

Now, in South Africa, the ‘emotional’ label has, in the last 15 months, been applied so often by the applicants to frack – and the government departments whose brief it is to exploit our mineral resources, that the anti-fracking lobby has of necessity eschewed any connection with that state-of-mind. This is not to say that we reject the role of emotion in reviewing information and making decisions, but rather that – at this stage – the language must be so science-and-fact based that it consequentially ignores emotion.

There will be time enough for value-based considerations if this debate reaches the Constitutional Court, where the anticipated results of the actions of the shale gas industry and their proponents would be tested against our Bill of Rights.

And so, to the fact-based argument against fracking in South Africa; there are at least seven fundamental reasons why the applications to mine shale gas should not succeed. Some of these reasons present, in my view, insurmountable obstacles on a global scale. Others are germane to the South African context and the current applications.

1. Still banned in many countries: As at 22nd April 2012, shale gas mining is banned or under some form of moratorium or restriction in no less than 141 places globally. The list spans a spectrum that embraces villages and whole countries, such as France and Bulgaria.

Essentially, this means that there are millions of people, represented by their governments, who choose not to licence fracking where they live, get their drinking water, grow their crops, produce meat and raise their children.

There has been no answer from the applicants or the government in South Africa to this conundrum – this undeniable fact that presents a remarkably divergent view of fracking from the one enrobed in corporate marketing campaigns. And my contention, is that until, an intelligent and conclusive answer is provided, the moratorium on fracking in this country ought to stay in place.

2. No consensus: There is a dearth of consensus surrounding the technology and its costs and benefits. Scientists and economists on both sides of the debate have weighed in on aspects ranging through carbon emissions, job creation, pollution, the life span of wells and many other hotly debated issues.

Papers and viewpoints, many of them peer-reviewed are analysed and dissected by pro-and-anti groups, who alternately greet new reports with glee or dismay. The simple point is that although even the best science cannot be expected to be infallible, there is at this time, a gap in the opposing positions of the scientific and academic community that is too large to be ignored.

The onus of proving the alleged bounty of shale gas mining is accordingly placed on those who seek to alter the status quo.

3. Lack of monitoring and enforcement: On 27th March 2012, Minister Edna Molewa admitted to the national media in South Africa that there were 53 mines in South Africa operating without water licences.

This fact highlights a larger problem related to mining operations in SA; the ability of state agencies to monitor and enforce environmental, safety and financial standards is dramatically inadequate.

Not only in respect of existing mining operations but perhaps more especially in the policing of an industry that is challenging these standards even in much better funded and controlled environments such as the US.

4. No legal framework: South Africa does not possess any fracking-specific laws, guidelines or even policies. Perhaps the prime example of the relevant legislative developments in the USA is that which was produced by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation in its environmental impact statement (“the revised draft SGEIS”) released in September 2011.

The South African situation is similar to the current situation in New York State in that, not only is there a lack of fracking-specific legislation, fracking operations can not, due to what is now an extended moratorium, be authorised.

There is, however, a crucial difference between those jurisdictions where the lawmakers are currently fashioning fracking-specific legislation, such as New York State, and the current South African approach to fracking.

The difference is that fracking has already been undertaken in the USA and it is only now, as a result of a massive public outcry and perhaps the staggering number of fracking-related lawsuits, that legislation is being drafted to address the public’s concerns. In other words, the horse has already bolted, so to speak, and the legislator is now trying to close the stable door.

5. A flawed investigation into fracking: The Department of Minerals (DMR) is on record as stating that ‘the task team report will be completed and presented to Cabinet by the end of March 2012’.

The Americans, in the second investigation into fracking, are taking no less than four years to deliver a final report in 2014. Data contained in the DMR affidavit indicates that the task team was unclear as to its mandate and composition as late as the end of August 2011.

On this basis, it is both reasonable and logical, to ask if SA should be making an irreversible decision to permit shale gas mining, on the basis of an inadequate report – a report compiled in around one tenth of the time to be taken in the US, and from across the Atlantic. A report which excludes input from key ministries such as Transport, Tourism, Agriculture and Rural Development.

6. A lack of credibility of the oil-&-gas industry: Promises in national media to ‘make an ecological example of the Karoo’, and to ‘leave the Karoo better than we found it’ when juxtaposed with a litany of shale gas environmental violations in the US in 2011, by the very companies who have made these promises in SA, do nothing to advance their case here.

Industry funded economic forecasts insularly underpinned by the popular oil-&-gas view ignore quantified knock-on costs to the fiscus, whilst lauding estimated knock-on benefits.

Sight of the questionnaires applied in a ‘public opinion survey’ is refused by the company who conducted the industry funded survey which, alleges that more than 75% of South Africans are in favour of exploration of SA shale gas reserves. Why is it that the questions on which this result is alleged are concealed?

7. The precautionary principle: Under South African law, the environmental cause is championed by the National Environmental Management Act (“NEMA”) which dictates that development, which would include the development of a shale gas mining industry, “must be socially, environmentally and economically sustainable.” Significantly, in relation to this principle of sustainable development, NEMA dictates “that a risk averse and cautious approach is [to be] applied, which takes into account the limits of current knowledge about the consequences of decisions and actions.”

In other words, in line with the precautionary principle, South Africa’s premier environmental statute dictates that when considering the possible advent of fracking in South Africa, “a risk averse and cautious approach” must be adopted.

And so, to return to where we commenced, this debate has become fact-based and scientific. Pro-fracking industry should be compelled to answer reasonable questions and satisfy their obligation to prove that fracking is a benign technology. Government, before giving fracking the nod, even for exploration, ought to be convinced that shale gas mining is the best, and most sustainable mechanism for South Africa to create employment, generate energy and solve our greenhouse gas emissions challenges.

My contention is that this could logically be achieved on the back of a process which should include thorough scientific investigation – in line with the recommendation of Shell’s own consultants, who advised that “SA should not decide before the US EPA results are released”. The science alone may not make a case for shale gas mining, and this is where the cost-benefit analysis will serve SA.

A comprehensive and properly structured analysis would take into account not only the industry claimed benefits of shale gas, but would of necessity also scientifically and economically consider the value of South Africa’s natural capital – eco-system services, provided unfailingly by the delicate balance of nature.

These include the ability of the environment to provide water, grow crops, produce meat, regulate the weather and earn money from tourism. It may be worthwhile too, to consider the ability of alternative technologies to generate energy and jobs whilst reducing SA’s carbon footprint, and also to take into account the existence of substantial natural gas reserves offshore, where many of the contentious issues related to fracking may be less so.

Whether one chooses to call this a cost-benefit analysis or a strategic environmental assessment, I believe that to proceed further down the road in SA in the absence of such a process is to impetuously count chickens before they’re hatched and place carts before horses.

Published in Critical Thought, 25 April 2012
http://criticalthought.co.za/chickens-and-horses/

The one molecule scientists hope to find on any planet to check for life may very well save much of our water in South Africa.

The announcement which will hopefully be made next month (March or April 2012) to build the SKA (Square Kilometre Array) Telescope will have so many direct benefits to the whole of South Africa. These will include a capital investment of 15 billion in capital expenditure and an annual but escalating budget of 1.5 billion per annum in perpetuity.

This is the most exciting project the Karoo has ever seen. The excitement in anticipation is yet heightened, by the thought that a spin off advantage will benefit the available water and quality thereof in the Karoo basin.

We know that Shell has bought the allocated concession rights to some 90 thousand square kilometres of Karoo land area for the purpose of fracking for shale gas, but has not as yet succeeded in gaining permission to drill even a few pilot holes to ascertain whether there is viable gas down there. This fracking process involves drilling 4500 metres into the earth (three and a half kilometres below sea level). Soon into a single drilling process these massive drill bits (as big as a coffee table) bore into and through the aquifer presently used by farmers to feed their livestock. This aquifer is mostly some 80 m to 200 metres below the surface which used to be considered deep before the frackers came along. If fracking goes ahead the number of holes to be drilled is estimated at 7500 in total in a checkerboard pattern every four kilometres apart in each direction. South Africa has no police to watch the frackers do their nefarious activities, so we could speculate on the likelihood that one in a hundred drill holes there will provide a leak of lethal drilling and fracking cocktail of fluids into the aquifer, and all of the drilled linings will eventually break down. Karoo water will be useless forever, forcing South Africans to import most if not all of our mutton needs. South Africa is already a net importer of food.

Once the abandoned mines in the Mid Rand as well as the start decanting AMD (Acid Mine Drainage) into the Vaal River sometime next year, this will render the Vaal River downstream to the Bloemhof and Vaal Harts areas useless. The abandoned mines on the East and West Rand areas already send their AMD decant into the Vaal and Limpopo rivers. Finally seeing as how 98% of all river water in South Africa extracted, we need to admit that as far as water is concerned we are damned to extinction. Damage to the aquifer in the Karoo will be the last straw on this proverbial camel’s back.

We must all hope and pray that the announcement to build the SKA telescope goes to South Africa. Hope that it goes our way for all the advantages that are obvious but the hidden benefit is that there will be no fracking within the exclusion zone of a 300 km radius of Sutherland. Sutherland is within the area designated to Shell, but it has been written into law that among other activities that may cause disturbance to the new telescope, there will not be a single frack within that zone. If the decision to allow Shell to frack is given, more than one third of the whole of their concession will be removed from their grasp. Look on SKA ye mighty Shell and tremble. QED

Written by Jeremy Taylor

At around the time that the US Deputy Energy secretary, Daniel Poneman, was engaged in his second US-South Africa Energy Dialogue, (perhaps a euphemistic label for a process where American interests are expanded in South Africa), Bulgaria joined France and other countries in imposing a ban on hydraulic fracturing.

In making his gracious offer to ‘share with South Africa, lessons arising from a recent study into ways of reducing the environmental impact and improving the safety of America’s fast-growing shale gas industry’ Mr. Poneman appears to be relying on a flawed proposition.

In the first place, he assumes that South Africa has the gas reserves that the United States Geological Survey (USGS) says we have. He then assumes that the gas can be economically and safely extracted in South Africa, by the very companies who have such a dreadful reputation for polluting around the world, and especially in Africa. The fact that Sasol has withdrawn from shale gas exploration in SA, labeling shale gas in SA as ‘20 years too early’, appears to have escaped Mr. Poneman. He makes the assumption too, that South Africa has sufficient water reserves to gamble with what we have – not only in using our water, but also in the very real risk of polluting precious aquifers.

Mr. Poneman’s kind offer of advice to South Africa from America, is carefully framed in a genteel disclaimer that ‘the US would not seek to influence the outcome of South Africa’s ongoing investigation into shale gas’. Cleverly, of course, this is exactly what he is doing. And so, we must ask ourselves how it is that a country; in which the shale gas debate is raging more fiercely every day, in which there are over a thousand court cases registered in connection with fracking pollution, where large states, governors and other administrators have placed fracking under moratoria, bans and restrictions, and where the country’s own Environmental Protection Agency has linked fracking to groundwater pollution can presume to offer anyone advice on how to manage fracking?

The last assumption that is evident from Mr. Poneman’s offer is that South Africa exists in a vacuum of information, that our government and citizens are unaware of the growing international chorus against the use of this technology to extract yet another fossil fuel. Thank you Mr. Poneman, we don’t want your advice or your technology in this country before it has been established by us in a thorough evaluation of South African conditions – law, environment, energy, employment, and pollution – to name a few, that shale gas is in the best sustainable interests of this country.

 

Jonathan Deal

Chairman

Treasure Karoo Action Group

South Africa

 

Marcellus Drilling News, January 9, 2012

New Cases of Methane Water Well Contamination by Cabot in PA

Three private water wells in Lenox Township (Susquehanna County), PA have been contaminated with methane from nearby Marcellus Shale drilling done by Cabot Oil & Gas according to the PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Cabot has installed methane detection alarms in the three homes and has vented the affected wells.

An investigation by the Department of Environmental Protection determined that the gas migrated from at least one of three Marcellus Shale wells drilled on the Stalter well pad about half a mile west of Interstate 81 in Susquehanna County.

The gas was found seeping into three water supplies beginning in August 2011. A fourth water well for a hunting cabin is still being evaluated, DEP spokesman Daniel Spadoni said.

Video taken from inside one of Cabot’s gas wells showed that a string of steel casing meant to seal off the aquifer from gas and other contaminants was improperly constructed, according to a notice of violation sent to the company by DEP in September.

Methane was also found between the cemented strings of casing in all three gas wells on the Stalter pad, a sign state regulators view as evidence of flaws in a well’s construction.

The dissolved methane in one nearby water supply jumped from 0.3 milligrams per liter before drilling began to 49 milligrams per liter on Aug. 16 and 57 milligrams per liter on Aug. 18, according to the violation notice.*

Cabot is also in the epicenter of the ongoing situation in nearby Dimock Township, PA for methane contamination of 19 water wells there—a claim they dispute. See MDN’s related stories on Cabot and Dimock.

*Wilkes-Barre The Citizens’ Voice (Jan 9, 2012) – DEP: Cabot drilling caused methane in Lenox water wells

ABC News, December 31, 2011

4.0 Earthquake Strikes in Northeast Ohio

 

McDONALD, Ohio December 31, 2011 (AP)

Officials said Saturday they believe the latest earthquake activity in northeast Ohio is related to the injection of wastewater into the ground near a fault line, creating enough pressure to cause seismic activity.

The brine wastewater comes from drilling operations that use the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale. But Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer said during a news teleconference that fracking is not causing the quakes.

"The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking," he said.

Environmentalists and property owners who live near gas drilling wells have questioned the safety of fracking to the environment and public health. Federal regulators have declared the technology safe, however.

Zehringer said four injection wells within a five-mile radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.

A 4.0 magnitude quake Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, was the 11th in a series of minor earthquakes in area, many of which have struck near the Youngstown injection well. The quake caused no serious injuries or property damage, Zehringer said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected into the well daily until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting brine into the earth as a precaution while authorities assess any potential links to the quakes.

Michael Hansen of the Ohio Seismic Network said Saturday that more quakes are possible, most likely small ones, until the pressure at the fault line has been completely relieved.

The temblor Saturday appeared to be stronger than others, which generally had a magnitude of 2.7 or lower. Some residents reported feeling trembling farther south into Columbiana County and east into western Pennsylvania.

Area residents said a loud boom accompanied the shaking. It sent some stunned residents running for cover as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables.

A few miles from the epicenter, Charles Kihm said he was preparing food in his kitchen when he heard a noise and thought a vehicle had hit his Austintown home.

"It really shook, and it rumbled, like there was a sound," said Kihm, 82. "It was loud. It didn't last long. But it really scared me."

There are 177 similar injection wells around the state, and the Youngstown-area well has been the only site with seismic activity, the department said. Zehringer said that to shut down all of the wells because of seismic activity near one would be an overreaction.

Patti Gorcheff, who lives about 15 miles from the epicenter, said her dogs started barking inexplicably Saturday and the ornaments on her Christmas tree began to shake. Her husband thought he heard the sound of some sort of blast.

"This is the biggest one we've had so far," said Gorcheff, a North Lima resident who has raised concerns about quakes and drilling-related activity in the region. "I hope this is a wake-up call."

 

WSOCTV.com, December 9, 2011

EPA Sounds Alarm On Fracking In Wyoming

Government Validates Concern Of Activists

James O'Toole

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The Environmental Protection Agency said this week that chemicals from "fracking," a controversial method of extracting natural gas from the ground, have polluted groundwater in Wyoming.

The findings represent the first time in the heated debate over fracking that the agency has drawn such a connection, which has long been claimed by environmental activists.

In a statement released on Thursday, the EPA said a study had found that groundwater in an aquifer around Pavillion, Wyoming, contained "compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing."

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process in which water, sand and chemicals are injected deep into the ground to crack the shale rock and unleash natural gas. The process has sparked concern in part due to worries about its effect on drinking water.

The EPA constructed a pair of wells to test water quality in the Wyoming aquifer, near where natural gas firm Encana has drilled. Within these wells, researchers found synthetic chemicals associated with the fracking process as well as high methane levels and benzene concentrations "well above" Safe Drinking Water Act standards.

As a precautionary step, the Department of Health and Human Services has advised local residents to use alternative sources of water for drinking and cooking and to use ventilation when showering, in order to air out potentially dangerous chemicals.

Doug Hock a spokesman for Encana, said concerns about the pollution of drinking water "are not borne out by the facts." The EPA's test wells, he noted, were far below the depth of drinking water wells.

"At a depth where you would expect to find hydrocarbons, they found hydrocarbons. In drinking wells, they found no impacts due to oil and gas," he said.

"We've done extensive testing, the state has done extensive testing, and never have we found the effects of oil and gas in these drinking water wells," Hock said.

The EPA, however, is worried that this may change.

"Given the area's complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time," the agency said. Samples of drinking wells showed small amounts of compounds "consistent with migration from areas of gas production," it added.

The EPA was careful to note that its findings "are specific to Pavillion" and are not applicable to fracking projects all over the country. Natural gas, the agency added, "plays a key role in our nation's clean energy future."

In addition, the study is still preliminary at this point, subject to public comment and a peer-review process.

The shale gas phenomenon has spread over the past decade from Texas, to the Southeast to, most recently, the Northeast via the giant Marcellus Shale. All the while, it has been dogged by environmental concerns.

Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA's report "validates things Americans all over the country have been saying for years."

 

Pipe Dream News, December 5, 2011

Fracking investigation finds toxic emissions at drill sites

By Susan Lamb

There is new evidence that hydraulic fracturing poses a threat to air quality.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF), a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the Chesapeake Bay, conducted an infrared video investigation this spring of air pollution emitting from 15 hydraulic fracturing sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. The organization said it found emissions at 11 of the sites.

CBF said last week that it had sent the videos along with a letter, dated Nov. 29, to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The letter laid out general and specific objections to how the EPA currently handles gas emissions and air pollution.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, releases natural gas from subsurface rock formations by drilling into the ground and pumping water and chemicals down to fracture the bedrock and release the gas. The Southern Tier sits on top of the Marcellus Shale, a formation of rock that stretches beneath several other nearby states that contains one of the country's largest deposits of natural gas.

Tom Pelton, senior writer and investigative reporter for CBF, said his organization undertook the study to attempt to find answers to ongoing debates about air pollution caused by fracking.

"We decided to do our own examination and decided it seemed quite common," Pelton said. "Methane emissions is quite a problem. We picked sites after we had become aware [that fracking causes air pollution] after a period of a couple years."

CBF looked at 15 fracking sites and compressor stations, which pressurize gas during transport from one location to another. 13 of the sites are located in Pennsylvania, one is in Maryland and one is in West Virginia.

The sites CBF surveyed are operated by EOG Resources, Inc., Williams Production Appalachia LLC Hollenbeck, Cabot Oil & Gas, Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC and Texas Eastern Transmission LP, among others.

The companies were not aware that their sites were being filmed, Pelton said.

"We picked sites that were accessible to public roads," Pelton said. "[We] didn't want to notify them in advance [because the companies might have] shut off emissions."

George Stark, director of external affairs of Cabot Oil & Gas, confirmed that the company was not aware that their sites were being filmed from public roads.

"No, I was not aware of the video," Stark said. "The [Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] has done studies and determined there was no negative impact from methane emissions."

Pelton, accompanied by David Sawyer of Sawyer Infrared Inspection Services, Optical Gas Imaging, shot footage of the sites in May and June. They used both a standard video camera and a Flir GasFindIR infrared camera, designed to detect methane leaks and hydrocarbon gases.

CBF claims that the infrared equipment detected otherwise invisible gas emissions from 11 of the 15 sites.

Pelton said he believes that EPA needs to conduct another in-depth study into fracking's environmental impacts.

"[A] comprehensive study should be conducted and should be taken in account for EPA air regulations," Pelton said. "When written, those should be strong enough to stop leaks of methane from these sites."

Jon Mueller, vice president for litigation of CBF, called in the letter for tougher federal regulation of air pollution caused by fracking.

"A federal rule governing air pollution associated with natural gas hydraulic fracturing is greatly needed," Mueller wrote in the letter. "EPA has also failed to fully consider the impact of methane released from drilling and process equipment on human health and the environment."

When contacted for comment, the EPA released a statement via email.

"EPA is working to ensure that America's shale gas resources are developed responsibly so that public health and the environment are protected as the nation gains important economic and energy security benefits," the email stated.

The EPA declined to comment on the CBF letter or video footage.

Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University, said he believes the CBF footage is important.

"During gas development, storage and transport to market, some of the gas is purposefully vented to atmosphere and some accidentally leaks," Howarth wrote in an email. "The footage from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation does a great job of illustrating some of this venting and leakage, using a special ‘FLIR' video camera to ‘see' the methane in the natural gas, which is not visible to the naked eye."

Howarth said he believes the footage could be instrumental to stopping methane leaks at drilling sites.

"Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, so this leakage is important," Howarth stated. "Our research indicates that methane makes up more than 40 percent of the entire greenhouse gas inventory for the U.S. … We really need to get this methane leakage under control, if we are to seriously address global warming."

New York State does not currently allow fracking while the state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) completes a review process of the environmental impacts of fracking and proposed regulations. Fracking may get underway in New York as early as next year, however.

Brendan Woodruff, campaign organizer for the BU chapter of New York Public Interest Research Group, said he believes the CBF video provides evidence that proposed regulations for fracking in New York State are insufficient.

"This [CBF] video clearly demonstrates that hydrofracking creates significant amounts of air pollution and underscores how woefully inadequate DEC's review of this activity is since they do not feel the need to analyze how these emissions would impact public health," Woodruff wrote in an email.

The CBF video footage is available on the organization's YouTube channel, ChesapeakeBayFound, under the title "Drilling Air Pollution."

IPS, December 5, 2011

"Fracking" for Shale Gas: Neither Clean nor Green
By Stephen Leahy *


DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 5, 2011 (Tierramérica) - Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" is being used to tap the last remaining natural gas deposits across large areas of the United States and western Canada, fueling continued dependence on hydrocarbons instead of a shift to genuinely clean energy sources to cool the planet.

Called shale gas, these deposits represent a new and enormous source of fossil fuel.

"Fracking is driving exploration and drilling all over the United States," said Gwen Lachelt of the non-governmental organisation Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project.

"The oil and gas industry is marching across America from Texas to North Dakota and from the east coast to California," Lachelt told Tierramérica.

There may be as much as 23,427 billion cubic metres (bcm) in recoverable gas from U.S. shale formations, according to the Annual Energy Outlook 2011, released in April by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The United States will consume 650 bcm of natural gas this year, the EIA projected. Globally, it estimates reserves of "unconventional gas" - the oil and gas industry term for shale gas and coal bed methane - at 915,000 bcm, with 100,000 bcm in Latin America.

However, that estimate is already out of date due to developments in fracking technology and exploration. The EIA estimate of shale gas in the United States in 2009 was less than half the 2011 estimate.

Fracking uses horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing with high pressure water and chemicals to fracture gas-bearing shale rock.

Holes are drilled vertically as little as 100 metres and as much as 3,000 metres into the shale, and then horizontally 1,000 metres along the shale formation. Chemicals and large amounts of water are pumped underground at high enough pressure to fracture the shale, releasing the gas into the pipeline.

The "dash for gas" as the industry pundits like to say is being driven by potential exports to Asia and the mistaken belief that natural gas is the "transition fuel" from coal to a low-carbon economy.

It is true that natural gas is "cleaner" in that it releases about 40 to 45 percent less carbon dioxide than coal does to produce the same amount of energy.

However, gas from fracking has a higher carbon footprint because more energy is needed to get the gas and because methane leaks out. Methane has 25 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide.

Switching from coal to gas as an energy source could result in increased global warming, not less, according to the study "Coal to Gas: The Influence of Methane Leakage", released in September by the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

This is mainly due to the methane leakage problem, which is common but unregulated.

Natural gas is mainly methane, so even if leaks are limited to one to two percent, it would only be slightly better than continuing to burn coal.

"Relying more on natural gas would reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, but it would do little to help solve the climate problem," said study author Tom Wigley, a researcher at NCAR, in a press release.

In a report published Nov. 18, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Advisory Board Subcommittee on Shale Gas Production urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to finally regulate fracking emissions of methane and other air pollutants.

While industry began fracking for gas in the late 1990s, there was a dramatic increase in 2005, after the George W. Bush administration (2001-2009) exempted fracking from regulations under the U.S. Clean Water Act. In recent years shale gas production has grown 48 percent annually, according to the EIA.

"Fracking has never been regulated. There is no real oversight of what they are doing," said Lachelt, who is from the central U.S. state of Colorado, one of the fracking hotspots.

People living near wells have long complained about contamination of their drinking water with chemicals and shown pictures of flames coming from their taps. But contamination is hard to prove because the fracking companies are not required to disclose the contents of the "fracking fluids" they use to keep the gas flowing, said Lachelt.

Fracking fluids are a mix of water, sand and a wide range of chemicals, some toxic like diesel fuel, she said.

With the public outcry growing, the oil and gas industry continues to claim fracking has never contaminated an underground aquifer. However, the industry has settled a number of claims with landowners over the years, but all of these have been sealed from the public and government officials.

Surprisingly, after more than 20 years of fracking, the EPA is conducting its first in-depth study of the risks to drinking water.

The results won't be known until the end of next year. However, preliminary results have shown that drinking water in some communities is contaminated by benzene, a known carcinogen, and that fracking was responsible, said Lachelt.

Meanwhile, some of Canada's most pristine wilderness in northeastern British Columbia is the home to a new shale gas industry that sends its gas across the Rocky Mountains to the Alberta tar sands to boil oil out the sands.

Almost all of the gas produced in British Columbia is for export to Alberta or the United States. Now there is a massive expansion underway with the recent approval to build a liquefied natural gas plant on the West coast to ship gas to lucrative Asian markets, said Tria Donaldson of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, an environmental NGO based in Vancouver.

"Fracking is using huge amounts of fresh water in a region that suffers water shortages," Donaldson told Tierramérica. Millions of liters of water are needed for each well and the industry has obtained rights to take 275 million liters from local rivers, lakes and streams every day.

Sixteen companies were fined in October for failing to account for how much water they were taking. According to media reports the fines were less than 1,000 dollars.

"Northeastern British Columbia is a key habitat for grizzly bears, caribou and others. Fracking operations are moving into untouched areas, building roads, drill pads and wastewater ponds," said Donaldson

"There is nothing clean or green about shale gas as an energy source."

*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank. (END)