THE U.S. SHIFT TO NATURAL GAS

A FALSE SOLUTION TO CLIMATE CHANGE?

(The chart above from the EIA shows the shift to natural gas in the U.S.)

NEW RESEARCH IN 2023 SHOWS THAT NATURAL GAS CAN BE AS BAD AS COAL:

The U.S. shifted away from coal toward natural gas under the Obama Administration. Now natural gas is the primary source of electricity generation in the U.S.

We've been told that natural gas is safer than coal, but is this true?

The newest study on natural gas, released in July 2023, shows that uncontrolled leaks make fracked gas just as dangerous as coal. Emissions and atmospheric concentrations of methane continued to climb in 2022, thanks in large part to massive leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure. And more than 1,000 "super-emitter" incidents—human-caused methane leaks of at least one tonne per hour—were detected worldwide last year, mostly at oil and gas facilities, including in Louisiana and Pennsylvania. (Common Dreams, 7-13-23)

Fracking is often considered cleaner than coal because it is believed to release half as much carbon dioxide when it is burned in power plants. Thus the logic was that natural gas would be "half" as harmful as coal. However, natural gas is primarily composed of methane, which can leak into the atmosphere during and after production. Various studies by academics, the government, and industry believe that methane leakage can range from 1 percent to almost 12 percent of the natural gas produced each year [1].

While methane, as a greenhouse gas, may not stay in the atmosphere for as long as carbon dioxide, it can trap much more heat than carbon dioxide and its near-term effect is much more damaging. The consensus is that methane can trap 20-30 times more heat than carbon dioxide. In other words, it's far more destructive in the short term.

Currently, there is little effort to enforce environmental safety standards for the fracking industry.

METHANE HELPED KICK-START THE PERMIAN EXTINCTION:

What is also terrifying to consider is that it was ultimately the emissions of methane that helped kick-start the Permian Extinction, an event that killed 90% of the life on the planet (The Independent).

So this is a threat that is very real, and should be taken very seriously. There needs to be more regulation of the fracking process and monitoring of emissions. We should even be considering a methane tax.

STUDIES SHOW AN INCREASE IN GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS:

Levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide, the three greenhouse gases emitted by human activity that are the most significant contributors to climate change, continued their historically high rates of growth in the atmosphere during 2022, according to NOAA scientists.

Also, this Harvard study shows that greenhouse gas emissions increased from their levels in 2002 rather than decreasing.

When former president Obama started to encourage the use of fracking and natural gas, the EPA supported this decision and even published a fact sheet showing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in decline from 2005 and onward. (EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory Report: 1990-2014). The logic behind this was that methane had a shorter duration in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. While methane stays in the atmosphere for decades, carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for centuries. So when the data was plotted on a 100 year time line, methane looked like the more viable option in the long-term. Thus, natural gas was hailed as the "bridge to the future." Yet the fact that was not taken into account is that methane has a much higher potential for trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, as we mentioned above, about 20-30 times higher according to most sources. However, Cornell climate scientist Robert Howarth says a more accurate figure is 86 to 105 times higher. (The Nation). So with this fact taken into account, it is possible that the Obama driven economic shift away from "dirty" coal to "clean" natural gas may not have been such a clean solution after all. It is possible that America's contribution to global warming gas emissions may have increased, not decreased, under the Obama presidency. And according to the Harvard study, U.S. methane emissions increased by 30-60 percent during the Obama presidency.

THE TREMENDOUS SUPPORT FOR FRACKING DURING THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

There have been few more enthusiastic cheerleaders for the shift away from "dirty" coal to "natural" gas than the former president, Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. Up until recently, this shift appeased the environmentalists in their desire to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Natural gas has even been treated as a "renewable energy" source along with solar and wind power. Natural gas also seemed like a political winner because it is a cheap source of local, American based energy. Many agreed that natural gas would reduce the need for dependence on foreign oil and create jobs here at home. And it has frequently been quoted that America supposedly has enough natural gas reserves to last "100 years." So it seemed there were many politically sound reasons to begin the shift away from coal to fracking. And while people focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions, they ignored the potentially larger threat of methane emissions from natural gas.

A key example of Obama's support for natural gas can be seen in his 2014, State of the Union Address.

"One of the reasons why is natural gas – if extracted safely, it’s the bridge fuel that can power our economy with less of the carbon pollution that causes climate change. Businesses plan to invest almost $100 billion in new factories that use natural gas. I’ll cut red tape to help states get those factories built, and this Congress can help by putting people to work building fueling stations that shift more cars and trucks from foreign oil to American natural gas. My administration will keep working with the industry to sustain production and job growth while strengthening protection of our air, our water, and our communities. And while we’re at it, I’ll use my authority to protect more of our pristine federal lands for future generations (White House)."

More is outlined in the former president's Climate Action Plan (White house PDF).

Obama's Climate Action Plan received vocal support from the EPA as well as key environmentalist groups such as The Sierra Club. The Sierra Club executive Carl Pope took $25 million from one of the nation's biggest frackers, Chesapeake Energy, and even made appearances with the company's CEO to tout the advantages of gas as “an excellent example of a fuel that can be produced in quite a clean way, and shouldn’t be wasted.”

Robert Kennedy Jr., who had enormous credibility as the founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance and a staff attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, wrote a paean in 2009 to the “revolution…over the past two years [that] has left America awash in natural gas and has made it possible to eliminate most of our dependence on deadly, destructive coal practically overnight.”

Fracking was also hailed as a solution by former secretary of state Hillary Clinton. And much political work was done to not only expand the fracking industry here at home, but to promote the process abroad as well. When Hillary Clinton took over the State Department, she set up a special arm, the Bureau of Energy Resources, after close consultation with oil and gas executives. This bureau, with its 63 employees, was soon helping sponsor conferences around the world. Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks even showed that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton played an active role as a broker for the shale-gas industry, twisting the arms of world leaders - such as in Bulgaria to make sure that U.S. firms got to frack at will.

So now because of all of this, the U.S. is one of the top countries contributing to methane emissions around the globe. See top ten methane emitters in 2021.

TRUMP CONTINUED THE PROMOTION OF FRACKING:

In addition to the Obama presidency, the former Trump presidency also promoted fracking, and even lowered already low regulations. On his twitter, Trump stated, "Fracking will lead to American energy independence. With the price of natural gas continuing to drop, we can be at a tremendous advantage." Trump also proposed to completely repeal Obama-era standards governing hydraulic fracturing on federal land (The Hill, 7-24-17).

SUPPORT FOR FRACKING CONTINUES UNDER PRESIDENT BIDEN:

The support for fracking has continued under President Biden. Joe Biden Broke His 2020 Pledge on limiting fracking. In 2020, presidential candidate Joe Biden proposed banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters. That’s not what happened. After Biden took office, his administration kept issuing oil and gas permits and did so at a slightly faster pace than his predecessor Donald Trump (Washington Monthly, 3-7-23).

THE DANGERS OF FRACKING

It was even confirmed by the U.S. government that fracking causes earth quakes. Yet if that's not bad enough, the list of fracking's deadly by-products is growing longer and more alarming.

As we mentioned above in this report, one of the chief problems of fracking is that it releases methane. Yet this methane doesn't just go into the atmosphere. During the fracking process, methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the well and contaminate nearby groundwater. The contaminated water is often used for drinking water by the local community. There have been over 1,000 documented cases of water contamination near fracking areas, as well as cases of sensory, respiratory and neurological damage caused by the contaminated water. Some of this water has even become flammable. In 2011, the New York Times reported that it obtained thousands of internal documents from the EPA, state regulators and fracking companies, which revealed that the "the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle." (New York Times). “We’re burning the furniture to heat the house,” said John H. Quigley, former secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. “In shifting away from coal and toward natural gas, we’re trying for cleaner air, but we’re producing massive amounts of toxic wastewater with salts and naturally occurring radioactive materials, and it’s not clear we have a plan for properly handling this waste."

This process is also a tremendous waste of water. More than 90 percent of the water used in a fracking well never returns to the surface. Since this water is permanently removed from the water cycle, this is bad news for drought-afflicted areas such as Arkansas, California, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, Texas and Wyoming. "We don't want to look up 20 years from now and say 'Oops we used all our water,' says Jason Banes of the Boulder, Colorado-based Western Resource Advocates." The redirection of water supplies to fracking not only causes water prices to spike, but also reduces the amount of water available for crops.

If this isn't bad enough, the waste fluid left over from the fracking process is left in open-air pits to evaporate, which releases dangerous, volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain and ground-level ozone. Exposure to diesel particulate matter, hydrogen sulfide and volatile hydrocarbons can lead to a host of health problems, such as asthma, headaches, high blood pressure, anemia, heart attacks and cancer. It can also have a damaging effect on immune and reproductive systems, as well as fetal and child development. A 2014 study conducted by the Colorado Department of Environmental and Occupational Health found that mothers who live near fracking sites are 30 percent more likely to have babies with congenital heart disease.

More of the dangerous side effects of fracking can be read about here.

WHAT TO DO?

At a minimum there needs to be a massive increase in monitoring all aspects of fracking and the natural gas industry. Leaks must be detected and stopped. But this is a much more arduous task than people may think. Fracking involves exploding the sub-surface geology of the Earth so that gas can leak out through newly opened pores. Cornell Scientists Howarth and Ingraffea have even produced a series of papers claiming that even if a small percentage of the methane leaked - maybe as little as 3 percent - then fracked gas would still do more climate damage than coal. And their preliminary data showed that current leaks of methane gas from shale drilling could currently be 3.6-7.9 percent. Given that this gas is odorless and colorless, this leakage is very difficult to monitor, detect and fix (The Nation).

LINKS

Study Shows Methane Leaks Put Climate Risk From Gas 'On Par With Coal' (Common Dreams, 7-13-23) Read Study Here

Greenhouse gases continued to increase rapidly in 2022 (National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration, 4-5-23)

Bill McKibben, The Nation, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Chemistry"

Methane is worse than Carbon Dioxide. Methane production has increased due to the use of Natural Gas, the increased use of fracking, closing Coal plants. Methane has increased under Obama. EPA information has been dead wrong.

Duke Study on Shale Gas and Fracking (Duke, February 2017)

A large increase in U.S. methane emissions over the past decade inferred from satellite data and surface observations (AGU Publications, 3-2-16) Harvard Study

EPA's Study of Hydraulic Fracturing and Its Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources (EPA 2016)

EPA Support for Former President Obama's Climate Action Plan Fact Sheet PDF

EPA insists that fracking and the president's plan is the way to go.

The President's Climate Action Plan (White House)

EPA: Admits Natural Gas Methane Connection

NEWS STORIES ON FRACKING AND METHANE

NATURAL GAS BECOMES NUMBER ONE SOURCE OF ENERGY GENERATION IN UNITED STATES

Natural gas becomes number one source of U.S. power generation in 2016 (U.S. Energy Information Administration)

DONALD TRUMP AND FRACKING

Trump administration seeks to repeal Obama fracking rule (The Hill, 7-24-17)