In his State
of the Union address,
President Barack Obama praised the potential of the country’s tremendous supply
of natural gas buried in shale. He echoed the recommendations for safe
extraction made by an advisory panel that included Stanford University
geophysicist Mark Zoback. The panel made 20 recommendations for regulatory
reform, some of which go well beyond what the president mentioned in his
address.
The topic is
controversial. Breaking up rock layers thousands of feet underground with
hydraulic fracturing has unleashed so many minuscule bubbles of methane that
shale gas now accounts for 30% of U.S. gas production, an increase in supply
that has pummeled the commodity’s price. The gas industry will support more
than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade, Obama said.
But
environmental concerns about the technology behind the boom—specifically
hydraulic fracturing—receive near daily news coverage, with opponents saying
that toxic additives in the water used for the fracturing have found their way
into household tap water, among other concerns.
Obama said
natural gas producers will have to disclose the chemicals they add to the
fracturing slurry of water and sand when they are working on federal lands. The
Secretary of Energy’s seven-person advisory group on shale gas, of which Zoback was a
member, called for such disclosure by shale gas operators on all lands. The
advisory group further recommended that data on a well-by-well basis be posted
on publicly available, searchable Websites.
“The
problem is that the president only has jurisdiction over federal lands, while
states regulate development on private land, where most of the shale formations
are found,” Zoback said. “The so-called ‘Halliburton exclusion’
passed by Congress says gas companies don’t have to disclose the chemicals in
fracturing fluids. That was a real mistake because it makes the public
needlessly paranoid.”
The chemical
additives used during hydraulic fracturing are really not a serious issue,
Zoback said at the Precourt Institute for Energy’s weekly Energy
Seminar. The
problem lies elsewhere: Once water is injected into the shale, it can pick up
naturally occurring selenium, arsenic, and iron, a lot of salt and even
radioactive particles. Thus, when this water flows back up the well, it has to
be disposed of properly. What gas companies do with that water is a serious
regulatory problem. Typically, they either reuse it or inject it into deep
saline aquifers, Zoback said, and regulators must monitor the safe disposal of
the water.
“In
western Pennsylvania,
the gas companies initially said that recycling water used for hydraulic
fracturing couldn’t be done economically,” Zoback said. “But because
there were really no good options for safe disposal, they now recycle 95
percent of the water used, and it’s not a big deal.” Much is still to be discovered
about the rapidly expanding technology, Zoback said.
“I think
it is fair to say that the bigger producers have no problem with our 20
recommendations. The question is whether state regulators will implement them
and small companies will be forced to follow them as well as large ones,”
Zoback said. “That’s of great concern to us.”
Obama cited
shale gas development as justification for federal investments in clean energy
technology, which have been under attack since the bankruptcy of solar panel manufacturer
Solyndra, which received federal loan guarantees on about $500 million it
borrowed.
“Public
research dollars, over the course of 30 years, helped develop the technologies
to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock—reminding us that government
support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the
ground,” the president said. “Payoffs on these public investments
don’t always come right away. Some technologies don’t pan out; some companies
fail. But I will not walk away from the promise of clean energy.”
If well
regulated, the enhanced gas supplies could cheaply supplant coal as the main
source for electricity generated by burning fossil fuel, which would go far in
reducing the threat of climate change, Zoback said. Gas produces half the
carbon dioxide of coal per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. And major oil
companies are investing heavily to develop natural gas liquids to displace
gasoline and diesel fuel in transportation, which could improve economic and
national security.
“Gas is the bridge fuel to a decarbonized future, not a way of
sustaining business as usual,” Zoback said.