hydraulic fracturing

Abandoned Oil Rig via Shutterstock

While climate concerns may dominate for some, it seems fair to say that the most contentious aspect of the shale gas revolution is related to fears over high water demands and contamination risks posed by hydraulic fracturing, i.e. “fracking”. I want to concentrate on two intertwined issues here, namely water pollution risks and property rights.[read more]

Rena Schild / Shutterstock.com

Like any method of recovering fossil fuels, hydraulic fracturing does do damage to the environment. But, even accounting for methane leakage during extraction, the total carbon cost of natural gas is less than that of coal or oil.[read more]

wind energy

This question is front-of-mind for wind energy professionals and advocates as they strive to articulate a economically sustainable path forward amid the boom in hydraulic fracturing of shale natural gas.[read more]

Lynn Helms, director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, reports that the number of oil-focused rigs in the state has dropped to its lowest point since July 2011. Helms mentions a handful of reasons, but let’s focus on one: uncertainty over where the federal government might go in regulating hydraulic fracturing....[read more]

Photo by emerille via Flickr

In the interests of promoting “realism and fact” in the discussion of hydraulic fracturing, check out this Q&A produced earlier this year by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. We haven’t seen a better one-stop shop for basic information as well as the debunking of fracking myths...[read more]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) administrator in the South and Southwest region (Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Louisiana, and Arkansas), Al Armendariz, has resigned after Republicans took aim at comments he made two years ago regarding how the EPA would "crucify" corporations that broke environmental laws.An...[read more]

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for shale gas, is said to be seismically "safe" in the UK, but critics say it will impede us from meeting our greenhouse gas reduction targets and stall investment in renewables.  DECC has published an independent evaluation of the seismic risks from hydraulic fracturing for shale gas, which...[read more]

State officials have determined that at least 12 earthquakes that occurred in Ohio were caused by the injection of brine into hydraulic fracturing disposal wells.  As a result of its findings [pdf], the state has established, what it calls, the "nation's toughest regulations" for the fracking disposal wells. Brine is a toxic laden...[read more]

On January 9, 2012, The Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University held a hydrofracking workshop. The organizers invited a number of speakers from both industry and academia to discuss a contentious, but important energy issue from a variety of perspectives. You can read about the workshop on TheGreenGrok on a post titled...[read more]

The technological revolution allowing for the cheap extraction of natural gas from shale occurred thanks to more than three decades of government subsidies for research, demonstration, and production, a new Breakthrough Institute investigation finds. Both directly and indirectly, the government was behind the critical moments and tools...[read more]

In the Washington Post the folks at the Breakthrough Institute try to learn us some history about the shale gas boom. Maybe you think the shale gas boom was some big surprise suddenly made real after the decades-long work of a hard-headed oil and gas guy – George Mitchell – willing to spend millions of dollars on the crazy idea that...[read more]

Many view natural gas as the key feature of the United States' new energy economy.  Whether this is true or not is still to be determined.  What is evident, though, is that natural gas is a growing energy resource for America.  According to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),...[read more]

On the anniversary of the blowout of BP's Macando deepwater oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. energy industry is dealing with another fossil fuel spill -- this time it is a natural gas well in Pennsylvania. Late Tuesday night Chesapeake Energy Corporation lost control of its Marcellus Shale well near Canton, Pennsylvania....[read more]

A forthcoming study from Cornell University may dash the growing reputation natural gas has acquired as the "clean" burning fossil fuel. According to research conducted by Robert Howarth, Renee Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea, greenhouse gas emissions produced by natural gas derived from unconventional sources, primarily hydraulic...[read more]

The March 6, 2011 edition of Energy Now focuses on the controversy surrounding hydraulic fracturing. Thalia Assuras interviews Ian Urbina, the lead author of the recent New York Times series titled Drilling Down and also hosts a panel consisting of a state hydrologist, a former state official, a gas industry representative and an...[read more]