How about dropping the jerk-stuff?

I’m kind of convinced on your background. Maybe not Gazprom, but maybe ICF Kaiser pursuant to contract as authorized by owner – or equivalent.

No, fracking data is sparse because we’re just now starting to do the research. Right now the first study of water quality – pre-drilling/fracking – is being carried out. For the first time we’ll have a baseline against which to judge what damage is or is not done to groundwater supplies.

“Groundwater impacts by fracking are well documented at the local level by those most affected.”

It’s largely anecdotal and not placed in proper context.

“My take – regulate the bejeezus out of it and let the chips fall as they may.”

My take – regulate what needs to be regulated but do not let the perfect prevent us from using the good tools we have in hand.

Movement toward the goal beats the hell out of standing still.

;o) You got me. I’m a natural gas secret agent.

Now where’s the firing squad? Do I get a last cigarette? Actually I’d rather have some chocolate, if it’s all the same with you.

Storage of processed natural gas is re-injection into porous rock below the water table for regulating delivery.

Fracking environmental data is sparse because of one reason and one reason only – it’s exempt at the federal level. Many states have chosen not to enforce or draft new environmental regulations. Groundwater impacts by fracking are well documented at the local level by those most affected. It’s getting like Love Canal redux out there in the shale oil and gas patch. But this time there’s more O&G and PR douchebags running around.

Your comment on fugitive emissions kind of sounds EDFy. EDF/UT Austin’s first of 16 study papers kind of reads like something The Heartland Institute would produce, but not as honest.

Nothing is cheap when it comes to new infrastructure. Transmission piping is probably fine. Distribution is old and will have to be upgraded. Subsurface construction in urban settings is expensive even when done in situ. LNG ports and delivery infrastructure is expensive as hell. This is all new and will cost billions.

When a shale well produces oil, natural gas liquids something has to be done with the liquid products. Oil and gas companies aren’t going to kill liquids for gas economy or to fight climate change. Like I said there’s way to much capital invested to simply shut tar sands, unconventional and deep offshore simply because a think tank or NGO says so.

Natural gas sounds great, but to manufacture a clean burning fuel, there a lot of process units the produce a lot of really nasty and hazardous waste.

My take – regulate the bejeezus out of it and let the chips fall as they may. And tell the environmental NGOs and think tanks to get back to lofty thoughts and let Oil and Gas do their own sales and marketing and policy pushing.

We don’t yet have good storage solutions. Natural gas is a good fill-in for wind and solar.

We don’t yet have good data to tell us what the real problems might or might not be with fracking. The most recent study I’ve read found that, at least for the wells studied, methane leakage was not a problem.

“This switch to a gas economy will require massive amounts of infrastructure costs.”

No, actually the capex for gas plants is quite low. And we already have a lot of NG capacity on line.

We shouldn’t conflate natural gas, oil and tar sands. They are largely different problems with different solutions.

The way we get rid of natural gas is with overbuilding renewables and storage. After we get rid of coal.

The way we get rid of oil, of all types, is by giving people affordable EVs with adequate range and rapid charging along our major travel routes.

Gas being produced also has a hidden carbon footprint and that the natural gas liquids. Some plays are we like the Bakken which produces mostly oil – 35 percent of the gas produced from that field is burned at the field via flaring. Other fields are fairly dry. However, more and more fields coming on line are wetter like the New Albany in Illinois and the Michigan Antrim Shale. The lighter hydrocarbons have a limited market. At this point that gas liquids are being pumped up to Alberta as tar sands bitumen diluent. So all these activities have to be added up when comparing gas to coal. The 50 percent reduction is just the stoichiometry of combustion at electrical generation. Not the entire gas life cycle. It’s a number used by ICF International, NRDC and EDF a lot for some reason.

You really can’t separate gas from oil and tar sands. And remember oil and gas is the project owner not EDF or NRDC. This switch to a gas economy will require massive amounts of infrastructure costs – and so the bridge has to be at least 30 years long for a return on investment. Tar sands development is expected to tally to a half a trillion in capital outlays alone – not including operating costs.

Renewables are the awesome thing – but there’s really no need to attach natural gas for power generation to them. Coal with a sunset of 10 years probably makes more sense than switching over to gas for a 30 year life.

Again, shale gas is a mess from marketing to operations. Development has been nothing but a bamboozlement at the state level and industry itself. Drilling/fracking and operations impacts are becoming obvious – except maybe the Obama administration – who put the ixnay on US EPA oversight at all the troubled sites. That will probably end up being his legacy as much as the 55 gpm goal – which is cool.

You’d be right if we were talking about moving from a 100% coal supply to a 100% natural gas supply – and – doing nothing about methane leaks.

If we stop methane leaks and do a 1:1 exchange we cut GHG emissions by about 50%.

If we replace “100% coal” with 50% wind, 30% solar and 20% natural gas we cut GHG by about 80%.

If we both cut methane leaks and use NG for only 20% coal replacement then we cut GHG by about 90%.

Given the ease republicans can use the war on coal as a political strategy, I wouldn’t count coal out just yet.

Power plant operators kind of like coal more than gas, when comparing fossil fuel feed stock. A coal pile sits outside the plant manager’s office, where the raw material is visible. Gas comes in unseen, underground and subject to several controlling companies from well field operators, transmission or midstream companies, and distributors (typically a gas marketing company separate from transmission and electric utilities). This concern with gas as feed may go away as these entities merge.

On an environmental impact level I see no benefit with gas when looking at good old fashion air, water and land protection. The impact may be less concentrated than coal, but spread out over a much broader area. For instance, coal comes out of the ground at a local mine. Gas comes out of the ground over an entire region. Impact is impact. Another concern with shale gas is with all the processing waste from radionuclides to mercury – just like coal.

Natural gas as a climate change fighter is a myth. When you add up all the GHG potential: wellhead, processing, transmission, LNG processing, shipping, expansion, distribution, storage in subsurface rock formation, tankage, leakage, combustion, etc. I truly don’t see much of a benefit. It’s definitely not what EDF and other flacks are saying the benefit is.

Well, that’s a mistake. Many think tanks are simply set up to create “facts” and spread disinformation.

There are some excellent ones, and some miserable dogs….

A bit more coal is being burned because NG prices have risen.

But we’re closing a lot of our coal plants. There will be no place to burn coal.

Your concern is noted….

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_1_01

The facts on the efficacy of renewables and the replacement of coal by nat gas are reasonably new developments. How about giving credit to them having the willingness to change as their views as the world changes?

http://www.chemsystems.com/about/cs/news/items/PERP%200708S10_Floating%20LNG.cfm

I’m guessing AEI got the memo for an all hands on deck meeting to corral investors to fund capital projects.

So the domestic natural gas gets boosted in price based on new markets for transportation and power generation. Jobs get created. Chesapeake doesn’t go bankrupt. Politicians are happy.

Finance gets a new commodity and its derivatives to trade so they’re happy.

As new international gas fields like the Leviathan off of Israel, Cyprus and Lebanon gets into full production we’ll become a customer with an insatiable need for gas to power our lights and UPS and BNSF to power its fleets. So our ally is happy.

CO2 will continue to belch at an even greater rate, since Canada will be running tar sands down and out from Alberta and coal seam methane will become economical from Illinois. Pet coke just can’t pile up for ever so it’ll get burned in Cambodia.

Thanks Obama!