Natural Gas is Killing Solar Power

Natural Gas, Not Corporations, Killing Solar Power

Actually, it's simple economics killing solar power, it's just so much more than the alternatives that hardly anyone is willing to pay the difference, except for certain applications where a self contained source is more important than the cost:

Natural gas, developed by fracking, is going to be the US's energy future, at least in the medium term.  While I'd like to see fusion power, I'm not holding my breath (I've been waiting my whole life).

Fracking Regulations Frozen in New York

New York State Can’t Sue Over Fracking Regulations

The Delaware River Basin Commission, created in 1961 by New York and three other states and the federal government, is responsible for rules governing the natural gas-extraction process known as fracking. New York sued federal agencies in May 2011 to force a fuller assessment of the environmental impact that gas development could have its water supply.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Levy argued today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, that the Environmental Protection Agency and other federal parties sued by the state don’t have control over how the commission regulates fracking.

“The federal defendants didn’t cause the rules to be proposed and can’t stop them from being issued,” Levy said. She also told U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis that the DRBC doesn’t have to comply with U.S. laws that require a fuller environmental review because it isn’t a federal agency.

New York, and the other states gave up their individual authority to regulate water conditions in the Delaware River to a collective organization of all the states (with a little federal assistance thrown in) so that the Delaware River Basin could be regulated as a whole.  Now, New York want to sue for stricter regulations on fracking on it's own land, ignoring the decisions of the Commission.

The state wants freedom from making the decisions when it wants them, and the right to go against the commission when it disagrees.  If they feel that strongly, why not simply withdraw from the DRBC?

In other fracking news: Some fracking critics use bad science, experts say

Critics of fracking often raise alarms about groundwater pollution, air pollution, and cancer risks, and there are still many uncertainties. But some of the claims have little — or nothing— to back them.

One of the clearest examples of a misleading claim comes from north Texas, where gas drilling began in the Barnett Shale about 10 years ago.

Opponents of fracking say breast cancer rates have spiked exactly where intensive drilling is taking place — and nowhere else in the state. The claim is used in a letter that was sent to New York's Gov. Andrew Cuomo by environmental groups and by Josh Fox, the Oscar-nominated director of "Gasland," a film that criticizes the industry. Fox, who lives in Brooklyn, has a new short film called "The Sky is Pink."

But researchers haven't seen a spike in breast cancer rates in the area, said Simon Craddock Lee, a professor of medical anthropology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas...

Critics of fracking also repeat claims of extreme air pollution threats, even as evidence mounts that the natural gas boom is in some ways contributing to cleaner air.

Marcellus air pollution "will cause a massive public health crisis," claims a section of the Marcellus Shale Protest website.

Yet data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show that the shale gas boom is helping to turn many large power plants away from coal, which emits far more pollution. And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency passed new rules to force drillers to limit releases of methane from wells and pumping stations...

One expert said there's an actual psychological process at work that sometimes blinds people to science, on the fracking debate and many others.

"You can literally put facts in front of people, and they will just ignore them," said Mark Lubell, the director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior at the University of California, Davis.

 Yup.

English Royal Society Finds Fracking Fine

Fracking can be undertaken safely if best practice and effective regulation are enforced

"There has been much speculation around the safety of shale gas extraction following examples of poor practice in the US. We found that well integrity is of key importance but the most common areas of concern, such as the causation of earthquakes with any significant impact or fractures reaching and contaminating drinking water, were very low risk...

The BS at the top about "poor practice in the US" is just throw away to make people feel thay've taken those stories into account.  There have been accidents with fracking, as with any large scale industrial project, but there is essentially zero evidence for contamination of drinking water aquifers with methane or fracking fluids.  There is one significant difference between fracking in England and fracking in the US where we might find improvement:

Open ponds for storing wastewater (which have been historically used in US fracking operations and carry a possible risk of leakage) are not permitted in the UK and there are numerous facilities in the UK for the treatment of similar wastes from the industrial sector

It would be a significant cost to keep fracking wastes in closed containers (although most in the US are recycled as much as is feasible), but it is a practice worth considering.  We have much greater land area in the US and a lower population density, so that may be a consideration arguing that the US can use open waste water with less impact.  It would, however, rob opponents of one of their favorite objections, and that could be a good thing

Gas Passing...

...Coal as the Major Source of US Electric Power

Preliminary data for April show that natural gas plants generated the same share of U.S. electricity as coal ones -- 32% -- for the first time since the U.S. Energy Information Administration began keeping records decades ago. EIA is the statistical arm of the Department of Energy.

"Natural gas prices as delivered to power plants were at a ten-year low" in April, the EIA said this week in disclosing the data, which it said may change. Another factor, as the agency reported last month, is coal's continuing decline in output -- 19% between the first quarter of 2011 and the first quarter of 2012.

Natural gas well produced by fracking in Pennsylvania

This is great news.  Coal is a pretty lousy source of energy from an environmental point of view.  Most coal is mined by surface mining at this point, producing vast tracts of stripped land and piles of spoils.  Gas is mined by drilling wells, with much more limited impact on the land.  Coal is a much dirtier fuel than natural gas, too, with many contaminants that need to be controlled.  Gas is relatively free of contaminants.  And if you're worried about CO2 production, gas produces much less per kilowatt of energy produced.

Frack, baby, frack!

Fracking A! US CO2 Emissions Fall to 90's Level

More Shockingly Good News from Shale Gas: CO₂ Emissions Will Likely Fall This Year to 1991 Levels 

For US energy-related carbon emissions, fuel switching to gas is back to the future. After the first quarter, the USA's 2012 emissions are falling sharply again and may drop to 1990 levels, or just slightly above that important milestone, according to data in EIA's latest Monthy Energy Review: eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec12_3.pdf.

America's energy related carbon emissions fell about 7.5%, during the first three months of 2012 compared to the same period of 2011. And first quarter 2012 emissions are approximately 8.5% lower than emissions in the first quarter of 2010.

Total energy carbon emissions were 5,473 million tons in 2011 and last year fell below the 1996 mark of 5,501 million tons.

The first quarter 2012 reduction of 7.5% makes it possible that this year emissions will fall back essentially to the 1990 level of 5,039 million tons. That is shockingly good news.

The 1990 level of carbon emissions is an important measuring stick, as it is often used as a critical data point for judging progress in reducing a nation's carbon emissions.

Why are US carbon emissions plummeting back to 1990 levels?

First and foremost are sharp reductions from electric power production, as a result of fuel switching from coal to gas, rising renewable energy production, and increasing efficiency. Yet, the shale gas revolution, and the low-priced gas that it has made a reality, is the key driver of falling carbon emissions, especially in the last 12 months.

One of the main talking points against fracking has been that it increases CO₂ production, but in fact, when  substituted for coal, natural gas produces much less CO₂ per unit energy produced.

It's almost like the opponents don't really care about CO₂; they just need some excuse to oppose cheap and available energy.

Frack the States - Feds Rule!

Interior Secretary Promises Federal Fracking Rules

Defending the Obama administrations drive for federal regulation of fracking, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said on Monday that the United States must toughen up its rules to protect the environment.

State level oversight of hydraulic fracturing or fracking is not sufficient and criticism leveled at the Obama administration for its proposed rules is not valid, Salazar told Reuters in an interview.

"I think the criticism is simply wrong," Salazar said on Statoil's Kristin oil and gas platform in the North Sea, about a 100 kilometers offshore Norway.

"There are some who are saying that it's not something we ought to do, it should be left up to the states. That's not good enough for me because states are at very different level, some have zero, some have decent rules."

The Obama administration unveiled long-awaited rules in May to bolster oversight on public lands of oil and natural gas drilling using fracking technology, running into criticism it was creating a duplicate layer of bureaucracy and infringing on states' rights.

So, despite the fact that there is essentially zero evidence for environmental problems from fracking, especially any that would cross state boundaries, the feds have to add another layer of difficulty and expense.

NRC: No Fracking Earthquake Threat

National Research Council finds  Insignificant risk of harmful earthquakes

WASHINGTON — The controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas does not pose a high risk for triggering earthquakes large enough to feel, but other types of energy-related drilling can make the ground noticeably shake, a major government science report concludes.

Even those man-made tremors large enough to be an issue are very rare, says a special report by the National Research Council. In more than 90 years of monitoring, human activity has been shown to trigger only 154 quakes, most of them moderate or small, and only 60 of them in the United States. That's compared to a global average of about 14,450 earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater every year, said the report, released Friday.

Most of those are caused by gas and oil drilling the conventional way, damming rivers, deep injections of wastewater and purposeful flooding.

Only two worldwide instances of shaking — a magnitude 2.8 tremor in Oklahoma and a 2.3 magnitude shaking in England— can be attributed to hydraulic fracturing, a specific method of extracting gas by injection of fluids sometimes called "fracking," the report said. Both were last year.

So can we put this one to rest?  But count on the opposition to continue to try and raise false claims to halt gas production:

Fear trumps science:  How greens squelch fracking

The Sierra Club recently launched a strident campaign, portraying fracking as a “violent process” that “poisons” us. What about the Carnegie study? Forgetaboutit. The group no longer mentions it. Instead, it’s calling for “new research” to document (yet unfound) dangers.

The EPA appears only happy to oblige. It has already wasted untold millions of taxpayer dollars trying (and failing) to find fracking dangers, but it recently requested $14 million to work with “partners” to “assess [new] questions,” as agency chief Lisa Jackson told Congress. She also wants cash to study the “environmental justice” impacts of fracking on disadvantaged communities.

That request sparked an understandable rebuke from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): “That seems to presume there is a [negative] impact,” she noted. “Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to look for such impacts only if you discover there is a link between fracking and contaminated water first?”

Christopher Portier, director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Environmental Health, announced in late April that the Institute of Medicine would spend millions more to study “whether shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health.” The day of the announcement, he kicked off an all-expenses-paid two-day Washington “roundtable” on the issue, with luminaries from the public-health establishment on hand.

The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced that it’s launching a worker study — even though the safety challenges are little different than those the natural-gas industry has handled for decades.

The real goal of the anti-fracking complex? To gum the works.

In congressional testimony in May, activist Cornell professor Robert Howarth (whose work is funded by the anti-fracking Park Foundation) demanded yet more studies to fill what he calls a “research gap” — and said that fracking be stopped until “experts” (i.e., scientists from the activist community) can “confirm” that it’s not harmful.

In other words, stop until science proves a negative.  Fracking has been going on for years with little evidence for harm, and certainly no evidence of wide spread harm (I don't regard truck traffic as harm).  The unwritten agenda is to kill America's energy economy and send us back to the 19th century to assuage their guilt at having a good life.

Frack Baby, Frack!

Fed Court OKs Pennsylvania Pipeline

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch bid by a coalition of environmental groups to stop the construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal energy regulators properly approved the 39-mile MARC 1 pipeline through Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties. The decision clears the way for the pipeline to begin moving gas from the Marcellus Shale formation this fall.

"We have contended from the beginning that the MARC I Pipeline would be undertaken with the strongest commitment to environmental and ecological protections," said Bill Moler, an executive with Inergy Midstream LP of Kansas City, Mo.

Some landowners have been fighting the company building the pipeline, contending that Inergy subsidiary Central New York Oil & Gas refused to negotiate in good faith on either monetary compensation or the pipeline's route. The Sierra Club and two local groups challenged a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to authorize construction, saying regulators should have performed a more thorough environmental assessment.

I rather doubt Obama will attempt to overrule this ruling at his level, given the blowback he has received from his overruling Federal regulators (the State Department)  in the Keystone Pipeline instance.  I suspect at this point his environmental base is reasonably secure, and Pennsylvania is a state he must take to win a second term.

The court also slapped the Sierra Club around a bit:

The New York-based appeals court said that FERC's analysis of the pipeline's impact on forests and migratory birds was sufficient, and that regulators "reasonably concluded" that broader impacts caused by natural gas development in the Marcellus should not factor into the analysis of the MARC 1 project.

Fracking Sand Mines - The Next Fight?

Northern Wisconsin sand mining boom includes new jobs, new problems

A controversial natural gas mining technique called "fracking" is creating a boom in Wisconsin sand mines with more than 20 new mines proposed, including some as large as 500 acres or more. While the mines bring jobs, they also bring dust, traffic and other problems the state Department of Natural Resources and local governments aren't prepared to deal with, residents and government officials said at a recent conference on "frac sands."

"The state is woefully unprepared for this," said state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma. "We're regulating sand mines like we regulate gravel pits. There is a big difference between a one-acre gravel pit and a 900-acre sand mine."

While sand companies and others tout the economic benefits of the mines, the boom has left some families and the rural towns in which they live dealing with changed landscapes, blowing silica dust, around-the-clock noise and glaring lights, heavy truck traffic and water pollution.
...
"The view from our house is gorgeous," Gregar said. "All wooded with rolling hills. And it's perfectly quiet. In the summer evening when you sit outside, you can hear the neighbors a mile away. Now it's all going to be gone."

Of course, what's bad for some is going to prove a benefit to others.

The burgeoning industry has brought more jobs and an economic boost to Wisconsin, according to Jay Alston, the chief executive officer of Hi-Crush Proppants, one of the nation's major sand mining companies and a big player in the industry in Wisconsin.

Alston said the company's Wyeville mining operation near Tomah employs 43 workers and wages average $18 an hour. He estimated the boost to the local economy from wage earners alone at the mine to be more than $100,000 a year. Most mining operations in the state are similar, he added, with the number of workers probably averaging near 30 per mine.

How many jobs is a good view worth?  Remember, we're only down about 5 million jobs in the US since 2008.

The "environmental" NGOs are already girding their loins to stop the mining of sand for fracking, all part of their scheme to kill fracking, and force the US to adopt "renewable" energy, despite it's manifestly awful economics and in many cases dubious environmental benefits

Fracking for Better Water

From waste to drilling aid: Contaminated acid minewater is proposed to help with unlocking natural gas

At the suggestion of the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission last year, the state Department of Environmental Protection is in the process of establishing an approval process for the use of acid mine drainage in hydraulic fracturing.  It is tailoring that process to address concerns that could discourage the industry from using mine water. SRBC encouragement

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission, which permits drillers to withdraw water from within the Susquehanna’s watershed, began encouraging drillers to use acid mine drainage when fracturing by reducing or eliminating permit fees for “lesser-quality waters,” including water contaminated by mining and public wastewater.

I like that, a positive incentive for using water of lower quality for fracking fluid instead of surface or groundwater of higher quality, but I wonder if the reduced fees will make up for any additional pretreatment required to make it suitable for fracking.  I don't know how clean water has to be for fracking fluid, but acid mine drainage has lots of issues.  I do know that fracking fluid is often reused despite high levels of dissolved solids, so maybe it's not a problem, or it might simply limit the number of times it can be recycled.

I doubt that a significant amount of the acid mine drainage being produced can be used by fracking operations.