With abject apologies to the Bard, this is just a note on the potentially enormous question of how much do we want to get at the vast amounts of shale gas available, worldwide, and what price is there to be paid. I’ve written about the implications for greenhouse gas reductions in exploiting the enormous reserves of shale gas now available to us and switching from coal to gas as we transition to a low-carbon and eventually zero-carbon world. My colleague Jodi Liss, in her FPA blog on “Energy,” has been following the natural gas story closely.
Congress Considers Fracking Regulation Amid Hodgepodge of State Drilling Rules is the featured article today from the excellent news and analysis site “SolveClimate.” Henry Waxman, the chair of the Energy & Commerce Committee in the US House of Representatives – and one of my environmental heroes since the 1980s – is calling for a thorough examination of the public health and environmental risks involved in extracting natural gas via “hydraulic fracturing” of the shale formations in which extraordinary amounts of the gas are captured.
Waxman has sent letters to key companies involved in order to gather more information. Waxman and Energy and the Environment subcommittee chair Ed Markey have also sent around a memo to the subcommittee members. They note “Hydraulic fracturing, along with horizontal drilling technology, has allowed oil and gas companies to reach and extract oil and natural gas once thought unattainable. As a result, proven domestic reserves of natural gas have expanded exponentially in recent years.” The memo outlines the promise of these “unconventional” reserves, the concerns about fracking, and data from a previous investigation conducted by Waxman when he was chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Companies deploying hydraulic fracturing in the field currently enjoy the benefit of a loophole in the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Efforts, such as H.R. 2766, have been underway in Congress to close it. If you’re concerned about greenhouse gases, public health and/or the ability of the US to produce massive amounts of relatively cheap and low-carbon fuel for power, industry and, perhaps, transportation, then Waxman is the man you want at the wheel on this. He will steer a wise course to maximize the economic benefits and minimize the environmental and health impacts.
(For a ton of great information on natural gas, look at these materials from the Energy Information Administration, including this map of where the shale gas lies in the lower 48, as well as this from DOE.)
