Extreme environmentalists control property assessments?

Perhaps sniffing too much gas has cooked your brain….

They will also bring more wind and solar. Locking down low prices rather than getting jerked around by volatile fuel prices is attractive to utilities.

We also know that more information comes to light everyday that leads us to believe that the natgas boom – and associated low prices – cannot be sustained. It’s a fact that fracking causes some big problems and we can certainly expect stronger regulation in the future. We also know that the low natgas prices are diverting investment from drilling wells to opening up the export market. The era of low natgas prices is coming to an end – and higher prices will dampen demand.

So what’s next? Renewables? Contrary to what’s happening in the fossil fuel industry, both wind and solar are expanding rapidly and are experiencing economies of scale price reductions. (Another fact)

http://www.shaledigest.com/documents/2010/History%20&%20Development%20of%20the%20Barnett%20Shale%20by%20Dr%20Ed%20Ireland%2012-6-2010.pdf

It’s sponsored by the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council so we’re not talking about a bunch of tree hugging liberals here. Here’s a quick history timeline:

1982 – well sunk into the shale – diddley squat came out of the formation for the next 15 years. Number of wells ranged from 1 to 411

1997 – Water fracturing begins. number of wells increases to 570 in two years.

1999 – Refracture simulation. Well count increases to about 3,000 by 2003

2003 – Horizontal fracking begins. well count increases from 3,000 to 6,600 by 2006

2006 – Simo-fracking begins. This is simultaneous fracturing which is the big messy thing we’re talking about here. Well count goes from 6,600 to about 15,000 (as of 2010) its been slowing down since 2010.

So I’d say “fracking” didn’t begin in earnest until 2003 and didn’t really begin until 2006.

A concern about methane leakage, besides of course climate change acceleration contribution, is near surface ozone via methane photo-degradation. Not to mention water supply problems.

Burning NG as a direct substitute for coal does us no good.

Your argument is rather like saying “automobiles are safe, I know, I have driven one for 30 years and never crashed yet!” – the anecdote does not prove the general case as many other people have crashed in that time.

What is clear is that it takes a lot of energy to fracture rock to release gas, and that in situations where a significant proportion of the released methane escapes through aquifers and around the pipe rather than being collected, that the greenhouse impact is much higher than from a simple traditional gas well with no leakage.

Renewable energy technologies are as advanced as they need to be to displace fossil fuels. Why do you prefer to delay the transition?

A possible and hopefully improbable environmental sticking point besides the air and groundwater issues is liability associated with the Comprehensive Environmental Liability and Recovery Act (CERLA or Superfund). Leaseholders (property owners surrounding well fields) may be liable for potential environmental damage (again, potential). Hopefully not. It would be interesting to know this if this is the case.

The irony is that having the ability to export will likely push nat gas prices higher which will better incent renewables.

In addition to Tina´s good roundup, remember that gas fracking depends on continuous new drilling to make up for the very rapid depletion of old wells: 69% in the first year in the Bakken formation, for one. Once drilling stops, the prospect is a precipitous decline in output. As a “bridge´´ to the renewable future, it´s like one of those contraptions made of old rope and rotting planks the hero crosses in adventure movies.