Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, is a method of extracting natural gas and oil from shale rock formations thousands of feet underground by drilling vertically and then horizontally.  Depending on whom one listens to, fracking is either a godsend or a certain path to destruction.  There were news reports that the recent earthquake that reverberated from Virginia to New England were the result of fracking.  An economic boom is occurring in some Texas towns and the Dakotas thanks to fracking.  It seems that American efforts to reduce its dependence on foreign sources of oil and natural gas are proceeding by using all available means.  To drive home that last point,  today’s (21 February 2012) Financial Times mentioned, in an article about a US/Mexico landmark oil deal, that “US oil production has risen to its highest level since 2002, largely as a result of the development of onshore ‘tight oil’, opened up by the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, used to produce shale gas.”

A New Year’s Day 2012 article in the Oakland Press was very optimistic about the prospects of fracking putting people to work in the once-mighty but now economically hard-hit industrial state of Michigan.  “Hydraulic fracturing — popularly known as fracking —  involves pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas to the surface.  It has been used in Michigan since the 1950s, in more than 12,000 wells, mostly in northern regions of the state. Most commonly, a straight vertical well has been used; horizontal wells — where the vertical well reaches its depth and then is extended horizontally underground — are increasingly used by producers where appropriate to the producing formation, according to the Michigan Oil and Gas Producers Education Foundation. The approach used depends upon the geologic conditions and the economic reality of a particular situation…It carries the potential of thousands of jobs for Michigan, energy independence and, possibly, a cleaner environment.”

It has been an edifying exercise writing these blogs because of the intimacy with which I am delving into the problems and solutions of climate change and energy.  No longer are terms like demand response, emissions trading, and fracking just cursory items gleaned from news headlines.  These terms now arrest my attention because they transcend the surface and bore into the deeper echelons of my consciousness.

Now, me being an eternal optimist, I prefer to dwell on the positive aspects of things, while at the same time giving due attention to the negatives, as well.  Though fracking will definitely pollute water and otherwise damage aquifers, the case is made that the technology should be allowed an opportunity to evolve to a point where the drawbacks are minimal, at the least.

Richard Epstein, in an article in the Hoover Institution Journal Defining Ideas entitled “The Fracking Panacea”, writes:  “A number of recent reports have indicated that new techniques of ‘fracking’ are able by intense hydraulic  pressures to unlock huge amounts of oil and gas reserves from once abandoned  sites.  Right now a land boom is taking place in the conspicuous locations of  yesterday, such as the Permian Basin, in West Texas, the Eagle Ford region in  Central Texas, and the Bakken in the Dakotas. The numbers are quite staggering.   Production in the Bakken has jumped from virtually nothing a few years ago to  400,000 barrels a day today, with the prospects that better technology will push  that total up to a million barrels a day by 2020.  Similar gains are reported in  both the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford.  It is almost as if the laws of scarcity  have been repealed. Daniel Yergin, a notable energy expert, puts the point in  geopolitical terms: ‘This is like adding another Venezuela or Kuwait by 2020,  except these tight oil fields are in the United States.'”

After going over the minuses of fracking, Epstein concludes:  “The dogmatic stance of some environmental groups is not defensible in light  of the potential gains from fracking.  But we must proceed cautiously. Here is  one intermediate strategy that bears promise.  Start fracking in remote regions  of Texas and the Dakotas, and hope that improved fracking techniques will allow  exploration at a greater range of sites.  As with nuclear power, we should not  flatly prohibit dangerous technologies. Once blocked, those technologies will be  ever more difficult to improve. No one can be sure to get the balance right all  the time. But by the same token, no one should be carried away by extreme  positions.”

Just as I am personally reluctant to take some new medicine that promises to cure my immediate ill because I do not want to end up a party in some future class action suit due to the result that that same medicine had some catastrophic side effect, it is a given that those same reservations hold true to whoever is in the line of fire of a fracking operation.  The “not in my backyard” dictum would apply in the present situation.

On 30 March 2011 President Obama instructed Energy Secretary Steven Chu “to work with other agencies, the natural gas industry, states, and environmental experts to improve the safety of shale gas development.”  (DOE website)  Secretary Chu is charged with overseeing the work of a committee of renowned experts to figure out a way to keep Americans safe as we explore ever-new methods of manumitting ourselves from the shackles of dependence on foreign oil.  At least that is what one would think.

In the EPA Briefing to the SEAB Natural Gas Subcommittee to Examine Fracking Issues published on 19 May 2011, page 4 noted the following:  “Topics that are not within the scope of the study include:  air quality, impacts on land and aquatic ecosystems, seismic risks, public safety [emphasis mine], and occupational risks.”  I sit corrected.