Fracking for Increased Natural Gas Supply Is a Great Development

EIN News says, "European Gas Giant Backs French Fear of Fracking Europe's largest natural gas firm, the Paris-based GDF Suez, agrees with the French government that hydraulic fracturing must be made safer for the environment before it is used to develop natural gas from shale resources in Europe. (forbes.com)".

GDF Suez

Let's first take a look at the relative size of GDF Suez, by using some production figures from its website http://www.gdfsuez.com/en/activities/our-businesses/natural-gas-exploration-and-production/natural-gas-exploration-and-production/. It reports its production in BOE. One BOE is equivalent to 164 cubic meters of gas. GDF suez produces 0.006 trillion cubic meters of natural gas per year. The supply comes from Germany, Netherlands, Norway, and the UK. It also has reserves of 0.1 trillion cubic meters.

For comparison, the total Euopean Union produces 0.2 trillion cubic meters (33 times more than GDF Suez). The EU also has conventional reserves of 2.3 trillion cubic meters (23 times that of GDF Suez).

Other country reserves of conventional gas are:
Russia 47.6 trillion cubic meters
Iran 29.6
Qatar 25.5
Turkmenistan 7.5
Saudi Arabia 7.5
US 6.9
Therefore, GDF Suez can be considered a minor supplier, with small reserves.

Fracking is estimated to increase the EU reserves by another 3.5 trillion, The likelihood that the fracking areas will fall in the areas where GDF Suez has existing conventional reserves is remote. Therefore, GDF Suez takes the position of opposing fracking, in order to preserve its existing business.

Environmental Considerations

One of the major objections to obtaining increased quantities of natural gas by fracking is a claim of environmental contamination put forth by environmental organizations.

I have said previously that environmental organizations have been taken over by leftists who really have little interest in the environment per se but are using it to reestablish world order and particularly place the United States in a position of what is presently considered a Third World country. Some of the political controversy is well documented in http://e360.yale.edu/feature/fracking_comes_to_europe_sparking_rising_controversy/2374/.

The best way to determine whether environmental contamination is a significant factor is to look at the detail.

Contamination

Let's first look at contamination in perspective. A volcano explodes and throws millions of tons of poisonous gases and particles into the air. Nature has its own way of handling that contamination. When we drive our automobiles, we generate poisonous carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides. We handle that with catalytic converters. Each day we contaminate the environment with millions of tons of trash from food wrappings and waste food. We control that with landfill. Each day we personally contaminate the environment with urine and feces. We control that with sewage treatment.

On the input side, our food is contaminated with insects and microorganisms. We control that with cleanliness to reduce the concentration of contaminants and cooking to kill microorganisms. Our water in Lubbock is contaminated with calcium. We control that with water softeners. Water is used by the general public for flushing toilets, washing, lawn watering, cooking, and drinking. Only a very small portion is used for drinking, but cities and major towns have water treatment plants to treat water for all uses. Treatment plants treat the water to specifications. That means they take out most of the bad stuff. But treated water still has small concentrations of various minerals and, in some cases chemicals, such as pesticides and medicines, which leak into the supply from sewage treatment plants. Is this a source of concern? Yes, but the objective of water treatment plants is to keep the concentrations at low enough levels so that they are not health hazards.

Basic water supplies come from wells and reservoirs, such as lakes. Well water is generally contaminated with small concentrations of minerals through which the groundwater runs. Lake water comes from rain flowing across ground surfaces as rivers and streams, from which it takes up less mineral matter but more debris. As a side issue, New York City water comes from lakes in the Catskill Mountains. It is not subjected to contamination by fracking, which is an underground operation. It is silly to ban fracking in New York State, on the basis of protecting New York City water.

Methane

Methane is a major component of natural gas. Natural gas also contains some ethane and carbon dioxide. Note that these substances are not poisonous, and have no odor or taste. Natural gas from franking is piped from a level deeper than that of groundwater. Therefore in most cases, groundwater is not exposed to natural gas. There are exceptions and burnable well water has been observed. This can occur when natural gas dissolves in water water at high pressures. Subsequent release of pressure at ground level also allows the natural gas to come out of solution and be lighted. If the gas also contains higher hydrocarbons, it likely will have a taste and odor. However as indicated above, this can only occur with well water, which for cities and towns goes to a water treatment plant, where the taste and odor can be removed. Persons with private wells have more of a problem, but control is available, the cost of which can be borne by the value of the recovered gas.

Drilling/Fracking Contaminants

In the drilling operations and subsequent underground pressure fracturing of rock to release the natural gas, some chemical additives are generally used at low concentrations. These may occasionally find their way into well water but can be removed by water treatment techniques that would normally present no more of a problem than removal of trace amounts of pesticides and other chemicals from surface water in a water treatment plant.

Other Contaminants

As one Googles fracking, the only contaminants associated with well water are the methane and related hydrocarbons plus casual mention of drilling/fracking chemicals. Other than that, nothing is mentioned. This is not to say that some additional specific contaminants will not be discovered, but if they are, it is likely they could be easily controlled by standard water treatment techniques.

Conclusion

The new technology of increasing availability of natural gas by fracking from porous rock is a great development to increase our practical energy resources. Like anything else, there is a cost to obtaining it in the drilling and recovery process, and there are also environmental considerations. However those environmental considerations can easily be handled as minor costs within the gains of the energy itself.