Tar sands industry is out of control in Canada

From an In-Depth Article by Drew Anderson, The Narwhal News, June 4, 2022

Mapping the growth of the toxic reservoirs shows just how far they’ve expanded since 1975, amid a surge in bitumen (tar) mining.

Picture downtown Toronto. All the condos, subways, roads, office towers and people. Now cover the whole thing with a toxic lake. Maybe you’ve never been there. Have you done the drive from Calgary into the Rockies? Imagine almost the entire 105-kilometre stretch from the city to Canmore as one continuous vista of oilsands tailing ponds.

According to a new report titled “50 Years of Sprawling Tailings” from Environmental Defence and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, those are just two examples of how large the tailings ponds in northern Alberta have grown.

And despite new rules introduced in 2016 around managing tailings, the ponds have continued to grow, according to the report. This growth represents an increasing ecological and economic risk that will cost billions of dollars to clean up and could leave taxpayers footing the bill.

So what exactly does that look like on the ground? And what impact do tailings ponds have?

Here’s a bit of background ~ What are tailings ponds?

First thing to note, and it’s something the authors of the report stress right off the top: the ponds are anything but ponds as most people understand them.

“To be calling them ponds when tailings ponds actually are far larger than anything you would ever describe as a natural pond — it’s deception,” Gillian Chow-Fraser, co-author of the report and boreal program manager for the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, says.

“I don’t think it’s being very accountable to the level of destruction that’s happening in northern Alberta.”

One of the largest ponds, notes Chow-Fraser, is eight kilometres long. That’s almost as long as Alberta’s famed Sylvan Lake. Looking further afield, that will almost get you to the top of Mount Everest.

That said, the report uses the term pond to maintain consistency while expounding on the decidedly un-pond-like size of the waste reservoirs.

Inside those ponds is a toxic mix of byproducts from the mining of oilsands, including arsenic, naphthenic acids, mercury, lead and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — all of which can impact ecosystems, wildlife and humans.

The ponds also emit air pollution that extends for kilometres.

The purpose of the ponds is to allow the byproducts of mining to separate from the water and settle at the bottom of the pond, a process that can take decades or more. Once those byproducts are settled, the pond can be drained and capped with soil to achieve some level of reclamation.

Why are Alberta oilsands tailings ponds still growing?

The tailings ponds have been growing for nearly 50 years, increasing in size by nearly 800 per cent in the late 1970s, before continuing to grow at varying rates, depending on factors such as global demand for oil and the state of the economy. Most recently, the size of the tailings ponds grew by over 50 per cent from 2010 to 2015, and then by just over 16 per cent from 2015 to 2020, according to the report.

There are now 30 active ponds in the region, the report also says.

The authors used satellite imagery going back to 1975 to measure the physical growth of the ponds — including the fluids and the related impacts such as berms and areas where dry tailings are stored — but not the volume of tailings they hold.

For that they relied on Alberta Energy Regulator reports (more on that shortly).

Aliénor Rougeot, co-author and climate and energy program manager for Environmental Defence, says they included things like berms and beaches created by the ponds — where you would not want to sunbathe — because all of it impacts the surrounding area.

“That’s the peatlands and boreal forest that were taken away, or that’s the area that the Indigenous communities can no longer have traditional practices on,” she says.

In total, the report says the footprint is 300 square kilometres, big enough to more than twice cover the city of Vancouver or a large chunk of Toronto.

“I live in downtown Toronto, and so I think I know what large means, I think I know what human activity taking over nature looks like,” Rougeot says. “And yet when I saw the scale when I saw those maps, especially the layovers of cities. I mean, that was just baffling to me.”

Ponds increase as new expansions or new mines are approved and the existing ponds fail to shrink.

The report did not trace the rise in the volume of the ponds, but that has also increased over the years, and the report notes current levels are 1.4 trillion litres of tailings based on Alberta Energy Regulator figures.

……. much more in the Article and the Report!

Rystad Energy Cost Curve for Various Crude Oils Globally (1/12/2015)

From an Essay by S. Tom Bond, Lewis County, March 11, 2020

Energy is a key to production, transportation, comfort and many other things in our world. War is a profligate use of energy. Until the use of steam power and electricity, technology changed slowly. The citizens of ancient Babylon or Assyria could adapt easily to the technology of Great Brittan of George III or the Germany of Wilhelm II, at the time James Watt developed the first widely used steam engine.

Today, cheap energy is the most sought commodity on earth. It is the key to both industrial and military power. For the present, oil is the preferred source of energy, and who has petroleum reserves, and the lowest cost of getting it to market, is the winner. Looking for a comparison of the cost leads to Rystad Energy data presented in graphical form below:

NOTE: Pumping costs by nation are in green and the total costs including capital and transportation in grey:

Petroleum Production Costs ($/bbl) by Country Vary Widely

Theoretically, oil prices should be a function of supply and demand. However, geopolitics and environment are also important concerns. The combined OPEC countries produce more oil than the United States but the U. S. is the top-producing nation, as well as the top consuming nation.

The United States imported 9.10 million barrels a day in 2019, while exporting 8.57 mb/d giving net imports of 0.55 mb/d in 2019. The two principal nations importing U. S. oil are Mexico and Canada. They also export to the U. S. so in net we send 0.54 mb/d to Mexico and receive 3.41mb/d from Canada.

As of late 2019, only four nations produced fracked oil and gas, the United States, Canada, China and Argentina. Many nations have frackable reserves, but the abundant reserves of easy to get oil and the high environmental costs outweigh it for many. The money cost of fracking is substantially more, even when the law allows externalization of environmental and health costs. Externalized costs are a most contentious subject in America today, and in other nations. In places fracking has been banned because of this, and we won’t get into that further here.

As for the greater cost of fracking to drillers, that is hard to track down. Sites are larger. Rigs are larger. More pipe is needed because wells are deeper. More cement is needed, more water, a larger impoundment, plus larger, more powerful equipment is needed. Special, imported, sand is used to keep the cracks open so the product oil and gas will flow. Several times as much water is produced than product, andmust be disposed of. Endless lines of trucks are needed to supply materials and carry away wastes, and vast amounts of diesel fuel.

There is a fracking cost given in the Rystad Energy graphic above, but it may be unrealistic, “politically correct.” More reliable is the following:

Shale oil costs more than conventional oil to extract, ranging from a cost-per-barrel of production from as low as $40 to over $90 a barrel.

A final point we want to consider is geopolitics. The four nations with lowest cost production are, first, Saudi Arabia, which can kill a famous journalist living in the U. S., visiting Istanbul, and carry away his remains in a brief case (Khashoggi). He was considered less valuable than the $110 million arms sales to the Saudi’s. Then Iran, Iraq and Russia. No need to say anything to this audience about the United States geopolitical stance toward them.

Indonesia trades mostly with the Oriental countries. The U. S. is pretty openly fomenting an overthrow of the government of Venezuela which has the world’s largest known reserves of oil. Nigeria is a mess, essentially the oil companies there do as they please. Brazil is essentially a dictatorship on good terms with United States.

Control of oil and gas is one of the reasons for the United States big military, larger than the next ten nation’s militaries combined. Unsurprisingly, this huge U. S. military is also the world’s largest single user of oil. The United States was the first nation to drill for oil, and for generations exported its resources. The “easy stuff” is gone here. Now the US must resort to other methods to retain its power.

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See also: Oil Price News: Saudi Arabia Aramco to Pump Record Crude in April – Bloomberg, March 10, 2020

Saudi Arabia escalated its oil price war with Russia on Tuesday, as its state-owned company pledged to supply a record 12.3 million barrels a day next month, a massive increase to flood the market.

The supply hike — more than 25% higher than last month’s production — puts Aramco above its maximum sustainable capacity, indicating that the kingdom is even tapping its strategic inventories to dump as much crude, on the market as quickly as possible.

Moscow responded within minutes, with Energy Minister Alexander Novak saying Russia had the ability to boost production by 500,000 barrels a day. That would put the country’s output potentially at 11.8 million barrels a day — also a record.

MarkWest Sherwood Gas Processing Complex on US Route 50 in Doddridge County, WV

This Article is from the Kallanish Energy News, April 5, 2018

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — After record-setting natural gas and natural gas liquids processing in 2017, MarkWest Energy Partners continues to invest heavily in the Appalachian Basin.

The midstreamer added two natural-gas processing plants in West Virginia in 2017 and plans to add six more in 2018: four in West Virginia and two in Pennsylvania, said company spokeswoman Tina Rush, at the Utica Midstream conference at Walsh University in North Canton, Ohio.

Kallanish Energy attended the one-day program, presented by ShaleDirectories.com and the Greater Canton Chamber of Commerce. MarkWest built three fractionation facilities in 2017: one each in Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. It plans to add three more in 2018: one in each of the three states, Rush told the 130 people attending the conference.

“The growth is still there,” Rush said on the increasing demand for processing and fractionation in the Appalachian Basin. Estimates are that 45% of natural gas growth in the U.S. will occur in the Northeast, she said.

The new plants in the Utica and Marcellus shales are part of MarkWest’s 2018 projects with a combined $2 billion price tag, she said.

The company set a record in the fourth quarter of 2107, gathering 2.7 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas and processing 5.2 Bcf/d, according to Rush.

Gathering volume was up 19% and processing volume was up 14% over 2016, she said. The company also processed 389,000 barrels per day (BPD) of liquids in Q4, also a company record. That was an increase of 19% over Q4 2016.

The Marcellus and Utica shales account for 65% of the company’s gathering, 70% of its processing and 90% of its fractionation, Rush reported.

The company’s Sherwood plant in West Virginia is now the fourth-largest such facility in the U.S. By late 2018, that plant is expected to be the No. 1 processing plant in the country, and is projected to be the No. 1 plant in North America by the end of 2019, Rush said.

Appalachian Basin projects, plus additions in the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, will boost MarkWest’s natural gas processing capacity by 1.5 Bcf/d, and fractionation capacity by 100,000 BPD of liquids, she said.

Marathon Petroleum, the parent company of MarkWest, is looking at moving Appalachian Basin butane by pipeline to as many as 10 Midwest refineries, said Jason Stechschulte, commercial development manager for Marathon Pipe Line.

The company now moves condensate and natural gasoline via pipelines from the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio to refineries in western Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. Butane would be shipped in batches in that pipeline system and additional connections could be made to other pipelines moving butane, Stechschulte said.

Under pressure, butane would flow as a liquid in the pipelines, he said. The butane would be used to blend with gasoline to make winter fuels at company refineries. Such shipments are a year or two away and would require the addition of storage facilities at the refineries, he said.

Marathon is also looking at extending its liquid pipelines into southeastern Ohio to reach other processing/fractionation facilities, Stechschulte said.

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### MarkWest Sherwood Plant helps growth and development in Doddridge County ###

From an Article by Kirsten Reneau, Clarksburg Exponent-Telegraph (WV News), March 29, 2018

WEST UNION — The MarkWest Sherwood Complex continues to help the residents of Doddridge County in a variety of ways through the site’s work in oil and gas.

MarkWest is a wholly-owned subsidiary of MPLX. The Sherwood Complex first began operations in October 2012, said Jamal Kheiry, communications manager for Marathon Petroleum Corp. “MPLX’s natural gas processing complexes remove the heavier and more valuable hydrocarbon components from natural gas,” Kheiry said.

Photos: The Sherwood Processing Facility — Three more processing plants were added to the MarkWest Sherwood facility this past year.

In 2017, through a joint venture between MarkWest and Antero Midstream, the company was able to add three more gas processing plants, with the capacity of processing 200 million cubic feet of gas every day. Last year, the company invested $200 million in construction.

“The Sherwood Complex now processes natural gas in nine processing plants, with a total capacity of 1.8 billion cubic feet per day,” Kheiry said. “Sherwood also includes a 40,000 barrel per day de-ethanization unit, which separates ethane from natural gas.”

There is still more construction underway at Sherwood, with plans to build two more gas processing plants with the capacity of 200 million cubic feet per day through a joint venture with Antero Midstream. “These new units support development of Antero Resources’ extensive Marcellus Shale acreage in West Virginia,” Kheiry said.

“The new gas processing plants are expected to be complete this year. There is also the potential to develop up to six additional processing facilities at Sherwood and at a future expansion site. Separate from the joint venture with Antero, MarkWest is also building a 20,000-barrel per-day ethane fractionation plant.”

He explained that natural gas production begins with the drilling of wells into gas-bearing rock formations, and a network of pipelines (also known as gathering systems) directly connects to wellheads in the production area.

“These gathering systems transport raw, or untreated, natural gas to a central location for treating and processing. A large gathering system may involve thousands of miles of gathering lines connected to thousands of wells,” Kheiry said.

Next comes compression, a mechanical process in which a volume of natural gas is compressed to a higher pressure. This allows the natural gas to be gathered more efficiently, as well as delivered to a higher pressure system.

“Field compression is typically used to allow a gathering system to operate at a lower pressure or provide sufficient discharge pressure to deliver natural gas into a higher pressure system,” Kheiry said. “Since wells produce at progressively lower field pressures as they deplete, field compression is needed to maintain throughput across the gathering system.” After natural gas has been processed at the Sherwood complex, the heavier and more valuable hydrocarbon components are separated out.

“Processing aids in allowing the residue gas remaining after extraction of NGLs to meet the quality specifications for long-haul pipeline transportation and commercial use,” Kheiry said. These “have been extracted as a mixed natural gas liquid (NGL) stream, (and) can be further separated into their component parts through the process of fractionation.”

Fractionation is defined as the separation of the mixture of extracted NGLs into individual components for end-use sale. This is done by controlling the temperature and pressure of the stream of mixed NGLs to use the different boiling points and vapor pressures of separate products.

One of the largest facilities in the Northeast, the MarkWest Sherwood Plant makes a significant financial impact in Doddridge County. “We are proud to be part of Doddridge County and to contribute to its economic foundation,” Kheiry said.

County Commission President Greg Robinson, said the tax impact has made a major difference. “The plant itself provides real estate taxes, but there’s also numerous pipelines that feed that plant,” Robinson said. “And those are all part of the tax.”

This, along with their employment of those in the county and the commuters who may stop to use Doddridge County gas stations, restaurants, and other amenities, all contribute back to the economy.

“It provides in many different ways,” Robinson said. “When a facility provides employment in addition to the tax base, that helps the community and helps the people — it’s how some residents earn their income.”

He added that the Sherwood Plant has been “extremely good” for the county because of their “willingness to be good neighbors.” “They’ve contributed to many different good causes. If there’s some big event going on, most of the time we can count on them to be a willing partner,” Robinson said. “We appreciate the willingness of the plant to help — to be good neighbors, and for their willingness to contribute.”

The county’s tax base has grown substantially in recent years, primarily because of the oil and gas industry, he said. “In addition, the oil and gas provides through the royalties. Many residents get a significant amount of income every year.”

Because of this increased tax revenue, they’ve been able to tackle a variety of projects that may have otherwise taken much longer. This includes construction of a new county library; taking care of a variety of infrastructure needs, such as streets and sewage projects; increasing their rainy day fund; contributing to the medical facility; and beginning the process of extending water to various parts of the county where it wasn’t previously available.

This past year, they were able to take on an exterior renovation project for the Doddridge County Courthouse, which cost around $2.5 million. “We’ve set aside money to start a new annex for the courthouse,” Robinson said. “Before we can do anything to the inside, we’ve got to move some people out, and we have no place to put them. It’s a logistical thing.”

The Board of Education has also benefited from Sherwood’s presence, Superintendent Adam Cheeseman said. “The revenue generated for our schools has been a big asset,” he said. With these funds, they’ve been able to offer development opportunities for teachers, supplement instructional activities and programs, and focus on larger one-time expenditures.

“The latest was the school entrance at the elementary school and the auxiliary gym for the high school, and we’re in the middle of a large project — a new football filed. baseball field, and athletic complex, with a new BOE complex,” Cheeseman said. “Sherwood, and oil and gas overall, have put us in a very good place.”

While these funds are exciting, “more exciting is that we’re hoping to further our partnership with MarkWest,” Cheeseman said. Already partners in education, he plans to connect the facilities with their school system, with hopes of providing opportunities ranging from internships to observation hours to trainings for students at Doddridge County High School.

<< Taxes/fees/controls on fracking are justified >>

Goodies for the oil and gas industry may be the dumbest idea yet

An Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

An article entitled “Oil plunge sparks calls for Congress to act,” published in The Hill on January 10 is making the rounds now. The Hill bills itself “a top US political website, read by the White House and more lawmakers than any other site — vital for policy, politics and election campaigns.” It is considerably overbalanced to the right, and the piece under consideration is found under “opinion.”

The first line give the thesis of the article: As the price of oil plunges to its lowest point in 12 years — and threatens to drag the broader U.S. economy down with it — lawmakers say Congress should consider helping teetering energy companies with policy fixes beyond the decision to lift the oil-export ban.

The kind of fixes suggested include: (1) expediting the process for exporting liquefied natural gas; (2) easing environmental and other regulations; (3) taking retaliatory trade measures against Saudi Arabia; (4) pushing legislation to allow companies to gather natural gas from oil wells on federal land; and (5) help our industry compete by having infrastructure. That means the right mix of pipelines, transmission lines, rail, roads, i. e., have the government build it for them.

Facts listed in the article are essentially correct, it is the unsaid facts that are not taken into account that destroy the argument. There are several facts of overwhelming importance. First is that the U. S.  is a huge importer of oil. For the month of October, 2015, our total imports were 273,000,000 barrels. What does export mean when we are importing that much oil?

How can you export fracked oil when fracking entails using so much energy, equipment, materials and chemicals.  Facking costs an extra $20 to $40 per barrel, compared to conventional recovery. Deep sea drilling is similar, as is arctic drilling, which hasn’t even been proved feasible. How does this extra cost stack up against the $20 a barrel total extraction cost for Saudi Arabia, mentioned in the article?

“Oil plunge sparks calls for Congress to act” hypothesizes that the Saudi kingdom is keeping up production (world price was below $32 when this was written) in a bid to expand market share and undercut competitors. That’s a strange complaint from a “conservative.” Aren’t the markets supposed to do that sort of thing? If you read around, others have said they want to attack Iran, infringe on Russia (the second leading exporter of natural gas), and the U. S. fracking industry, which is doubtless the least likely target, with its high extraction costs. It already has the $20 – 40 disadvantage.

Now the claim about Russia being in second place. Russia exported 10.5% of the total exported (in 2014), while Saudi Arabia exported 18.5%. Incidentally Canada, in fourth place, exported 6.1%  mostly to the U. S. This author thinks Saudi Arabia may have been telling the truth that they were keeping up production because they didn’t want their oil to be “stranded,” left in the ground when hydrocarbons are no longer the main source of energy. The progress of solar and wind power will not be discussed here.

What so many people seem unwilling to realize is that the U. S. covers only about 4 percent of the dry land on Earth. We supplied the rest of the world for decades, being first to develop the technology to remove oil. Now we are getting to the last dregs, and using so much ourselves we really are not is a position to export from the point of view of the public interest. We have relatively more natural gas, but do not stack up well in comparisons with other nations. Russia has five and a half times as much, Iran has nearly four times as much as the U. S. (Yes, we have more gas than Saudi Arabia, 6% more. See the CIA World Fact Book, which is on line.)

The truth is that fracking’s extra costs are small compared to its vast externalized costs. This includes multiple factors, such as depreciated value of property where fracking takes place, obvious from the beginning, but just now beginning to be documented. More than one of these studies now exist, with comparable conclusions. Losses to other industries such as farming, recreation, forestry, the retirement industry, are ignored. Health effects on the surrounding population is another cost just now being studied and recognized. Long time environmental costs, effects on water quality, loss of aquifers, and the formation of mini-brownfields where the soil is poisoned and treated as if they did not exist.

Then there is the two billion dollar debt mountain that belongs to the industry. As of January 7, 2016, there have been 38 bankruptcies in the exploration and production (E&P) section of the industry, amounting to $18 billion. These have been Chapter 11 bankruptcies (restructuring). These wipe out shareholders, but keep key executives in place to seek funds and go ahead. The last resort are Chapter 7 bankruptcies, which are still to come, which eliminate management so the company is wiped out and gives the remaining value to shareholders. The other 21 E&P companies risk this fate.

The industry has been losing money for those who speculate in stored oil. They bought high and have been forced to sell low.  And it’s not likely to get better for a while.

All Congress can do is increase these externalized costs. There is no way they can reduce the monetary cost of the fracking process. (It would be against conservative principles to provide government funding for the cost of infrastructure to promote these industries: pipelines, railroads, roads, storage tanks, etc. Those are costs of doing business.)

Businessmen and legislators should accept the fact that fracking is an expensive, dirty, dangerous way to get oil and gas. No amount of propaganda will change that.

MATRIC, South Charleston, WV

Large petrochemical projects stymied by falling crude oil prices

From an Article by Anya Litvak, Pittsburgh Post Gazette (PowerSource), 9/8/15

For Aither Chemical, the company that strived to blanket Appalachia with small-scale ethane crackers, the past was prologue.

Technology that promised to drastically reduce the amount of energy required to turn natural gas liquids into a building block for chemical production was conceived in the 1980s at Union Carbide. The innovation was supposed to displace expensive crude oil with cheaper natural gas, but it was shelved after an oil glut sent the commodity’s price plunging.

Cut to 2010. Oil was around $80 a barrel and climbing. Development of the Marcellus Shale, with its pockets of natural gas liquids like ethane, was ramping up.

The rights to Union Carbide’s invention were transferred to a West Virginia technology nonprofit called Matric. There, scientists dusted it off, hired an executive team and began to gather attention and funding for their first cracker. They named the effort Aither.

But once again, an oil glut has dissolved both the promise and the company, a story that is repeating itself across the industry.

Crude oil dipped below $40 per barrel last month and while it has since recovered by a few dollars, the long-term outlook doesn’t forecast anything close to 2010 prices for another six years, according to the Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook released in April before the most recent oil price collapse.

That makes the proposition of building new ethane crackers less compelling than feeding naphtha, a crude oil product, into existing crackers to make ethylene.

And Aither has joined the graveyard of other once-hyped projects vying to capitalize on the price spread between expensive oil and cheap gas before that spread narrowed to a sliver. All that’s left is some intellectual property that its overseer and largest investor, the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust, is trying to either license or sell off.

The oil glut has also tempered the drive to build gas-to-liquids plants whose end products are meant to compete with traditional gasoline and diesel or oil-based lubricants.

Three such plants planned for Pennsylvania have been canceled.

In 2012, Calumet Specialty Products Partners, an Indianapolis chemical producer, said it would build a small gas-to-liquids plant at its Karns City refinery in Butler County to convert the region’s plentiful Marcellus bounty into lubricants and specialty liquids.

Calumet spokesman Noel Ryan said the company tabled the project two years ago, opting instead to buy into a gas-to-liquids joint venture in Louisiana where “the economics were more attractive.”

Marcellus GTL, a spinoff from an unrealized coal-to-liquids effort by Gilberton Coal Co. in Schuylkill County, made a splash by announcing a $200 million facility in Altoona that would manufacture gasoline and propane from natural gas. That, too, did not materialize.

Neither did an effort by Canadian company EmberClear to build a $1 billion gas-to-liquids near Reading, PA. That was scrapped earlier this year, according to the Reading Eagle.

Deeper pockets needed

As with all large projects, it isn’t just one turn of the market that scatters opportunity. Efforts that aim to bank on the volatility between oil and natural aren’t naïve to the general volatility of commodity arbitrage.

But while large multinationals such as Royal Dutch Shell, which has pumped millions of dollars into preparing a Beaver County site for a potential cracker that has yet to be greenlighted, can afford to ride out this wave, startups may not.

Aither was looking for somewhere between $200 million and $800 million for a small-scale plant, but it couldn’t secure even $12 million for a pilot facility, said Andy Zulauf, executive director of the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust, the state’s Charleston-based venture capital arm. “We had a national energy company express an interest in acquiring the technology to the degree that a term sheet was issued,” he said.

But in the end, financing proved elusive.

“Economies of scale are really important in the ethylene production space,” said Steve Lewandowski, senior director at IHS Chemical. “Small crackers cost a lot more per ton of ethylene than large ones. “So whoever is financing the small crackers will need even more margins to cover higher capital cost and, in a lower margin market, this is much more risky.”

Large companies call the shots using their own pocketbooks, he said, while smaller projects depend on the confidence of investors. In today’s commodity environment, that confidence is wobbly at best.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

These secret trains keep rumbling thru ...

Hard Look at Oil on Rail Tanker Cars

Investigative reporter Marcus Stern of Inside Climate News was interviewed on NPR’ Fresh Air, on Wednesday, February 24, 2014. Here is the audio recording of that broadcast. If you listen to this thru, you will be shocked! He discusses the crude oil train wrecks in Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia, the latter on February 16th.

Duane Nichols, www.FrackCheckWV.net

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Bomb Train Traffic is up 4000 % …… With Explosive Results!

What do Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota, Virginia and West Virginia all have in common?

These were all sites where trains carrying fracked crude oil derailed and exploded over the last two years, with the derailment in West Virginia occurring just last week.

The derailments, explosions, fires, and oil spills in these locations killed 47 people, threatened the lives and safety of entire communities, and led to the evacuations of many thousands of people, while polluting waterways and poisoning drinking-water supplies.

Ribbons of railroads lace most of our country, running through our cities and towns and over or next to our nation’s waterways, making it very likely that one of these bomb trains is rolling through or near your neighborhood right now.

Fracking has caused a 4000% increase in crude-by-rail transport. And 85% of the railcars the industry uses are outdated and unsafe DOT-111’s that cause the lighter, more volatile fracked Bakken crude oil to explode and burn in an accident.

Adding to this growing threat is the fact that the rail industry is looking to double the speed at which these trains travel, from 30 mph to 60 mph. But the train that derailed, exploded, and spilled thousands of gallons of oil into Virginia’s James River was only traveling at 24 mph!

These bomb trains are disasters waiting to happen that must be stopped now!

And that’s why I’m writing and asking for your help today. Please help Waterkeeper Alliance fight these bomb trains and other frontline threats to our public health, communities, waterways, and environment. Please help us STOP these deadly bomb trains.

Thank you in advance for your passion and generosity!

Sincerely, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President, Waterkeeper Alliance

Solar Panels already in WV, MD, etc.

Energy needs could actually fit quite nicely in just one desert

Guest Commentary by Mark B. Tauger, Morgantown Dominion Post, February 23, 2015

WVU President E. Gordon Gee’s remarks about solar power were recently quoted (DP-Tuesday) as: “Replacing fossil-fuel energy with alternative energy means ‘we would have to pave this country in windmills and solar farms … a windmill in every backyard … a solar panel on every green space.’ ”

Gee’s assertion is exaggerated and one-sided. A German scientist, Nadine May, in her diploma thesis, “Eco-balance of a Solar Electricity Transmission from North Africa to Europe” (Technical University of Braunschweig, 2005), examined solar irradiance and solar energy generating capacities of existing technologies.

She calculated that all of the world’s energy needs could be met by solar panels covering an area of 254×254 kilometers or about 25,600 square miles (roughly the size of West Virginia.)

May showed that this area would occupy a very small square of the Sahara Desert, but to use a more secure site, this is the area of the Mojave desert, and much smaller than the Chihuahuan Desert (140,000 square miles) or the Sonoran Desert (110,000 square miles).

All these deserts receive sufficient continuous sunlight to provide continuous energy flows, especially now that global warming will be causing decades-long droughts in our nation’s Southwest, according to new research by NASA. Again, that is the total world energy demand, the United States demand would require much less than half of that area of solar panels.

To meet West Virginia’s energy needs, which are considerably less than the energy demands of most U.S. states and developed countries, the area of solar panels necessary would be much less than one-half of one percent of the 25,000-square-mile area, perhaps 50 square miles of cells, or a region 7 miles by 7 miles, which could be broken up and scattered in a few isolated regions in the state, certainly without “a solar panel on every greenspace.”

Similar corrections could be made to Gee’s exaggerated assertions about “a windmill in every backyard.”

Even if May’s estimate is too low, and the world would need two or three times that area, that would still be a tiny fraction of the regions in the world that get reliable sun and could produce energy for all the world’s needs.

Such a system would also be very cost-effective. The existing U.S. energy industries — oil, coal, gas and nuclear — have received during their lifetime an estimated $630 billion in subsidies from the U.S. government, i.e., from taxpayers.

They have also received much larger indirect and hidden subsidies because they have avoided paying for many of the damages their products have caused or contributed to, such as mine workers’ lung diseases, many illnesses among the general population related to coal smoke, environmental destruction caused by mine pollution and burning of fossil fuels, and the long-term effects of climate change.

By comparison, solar and other renewables have received only about $50 billion in subsidies, yet they are already being used widely in many countries. Renewables have been a bargain, and the more they are used, the bigger a bargain they will be.

Most importantly, in my view, no one will get black lung from setting up or monitoring a solar panel or a windmill.

Anyone who complains about the “cost” of solar must explicitly and openly address the costs of thousands of coal miners’ lives shortened by lung and other diseases, the medical expenses they must bear while the companies try to avoid paying, the costs to miners’ families devoting their lives to caring for fathers and husbands and then losing them early, and endless illnesses and contamination of waters and lands that everyone has to deal with in our coal-powered country.

A few areas of “green space” covered by solar panels would seem a negligible price for keeping unpolluted more lands, streams and lakes, and enabling more people to live their full lives.

>>> Mark B. Tauger is an associate professor of history at WVU, specializing in the history of famine, agriculture and agricultural sciences. <<<

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Shale Condensate aka "Natural Gasoline"

Despite Climate Warnings, New Export Rules Open Crude Oil Floodgates

[Significant yields of shale well “condensate,” that is ultra-light crude hydrocarbons, accompany the crude oil and/or natural gas from many shale formations.]

From an Article by Deirdre Fulton, Common Dreams, December 31, 2014

Opening the door to U.S. crude exports is expected to give relief to some domestic drillers who have been forced to sell their shale oil at a discount of as much as $15 a barrel versus global markets as fast-rising domestic supplies overwhelm local demand.

Despite warnings about how such a move could accelerate climate change, the Obama administration has quietly loosened its regulations on crude oil exports, “opening the floodgates” for the shipment of as much as a million barrels per day of ultra-light crude, also known as condensate, to the rest of the world.

The obscure rule change by the Department of Commerce “will likely please domestic oil drillers, foreign trade partners and some Republicans who have urged Obama to loosen the export ban,” Reuters reports. “The latest measures were wrapped in regulatory jargon and couched by some as a basic clarification of existing rules, but analysts said the message was unambiguous: a green light for any company willing and able to process their light condensate crude through a distillation tower, a simple piece of oilfield kit.”

According to Bloomberg: The guidelines could “open the floodgates to substantial increases in exports,” Citigroup Inc. said in a research note. Total U.S. production of light and ultra-light crude oil now exceeds 3.81 million barrels a day, and exports could reach 1 million barrels daily by the end of 2015, Citi Research said.

…In addition to approving applications, the government also allows companies to “self-certify,” that is, to export their products without seeking the permission if they think the law allows for the exchange.

Officials were quick to point out that most untreated crude is still covered by the existing ban.

“It’s a long way from here to a full repeal of the export ban, and they went out of their way to stipulate that this is not, in their view, crude oil,” Jeff Navin, a former deputy chief of staff at the Energy Department, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg. “But it does show how they’re thinking about exporting at least some of our light products.”

But earlier this year, environmental watchdogs warned that any loosening of the decades-old ban on crude oil exports could lead to the release of billions of tons of additional carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

“Allowing U.S. crude oil exports will result in increased profits that will in turn result in increased oil production,” read a report(pdf) by Oil Change International, Lifting the Ban, Cooking the Climate. “In the midst of President Obama’s ‘All of the Above’ energy strategy, the ban on crude oil exports is one of the few policies in place that effectively limits oil and gas extraction and protects our climate. The Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress must take a stand for the climate and resolve to leave the crude oil export ban intact.”

As Andy Rowell, of Oil Change International, pointed out in October, the U.S. Government Accountability Office hasrecommended against lifting the ban, saying greenhouse gas emissions would rise if the ban was lifted—an outcome with serious implications for the climate and environment.

“It is important to remember what the GAO said last week in its report,” Rowell wrote. “It argued that ‘additional crude oil production may pose risks to the quality and quantity of surface groundwater sources; increase greenhouse gas and other emissions; and increase the risk of spills from crude oil transportation’.”

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

US Crude now at $53.00/bbl

From: Jeanne Williams  Subject: Gas and oil question   Sent: December 29, 2014

Hello to Mon News Editor (Don Strimbeck)

I receive the Mon News through a series of forwards till it finally gets to my inbox. I thought you might be the person to ask this question: We know that the price of oil has fallen and has lots of people shaking in their boots. How does the price of oil affect the price of fracked gas since they are two different commodities and require different infrastructures to be put into use?

In other words, will we see a reduction in fracking here in the Gas Fracking capital of the world? So far I don’t see that happening. In the interest of transparency I will tell you that I have my left foot firmly planted in the “clean environment for all, now and forever camp”.

The little toe on the right foot is in the fracking camp as I do traffic control for a flagging company that works mainly in the gas fields. The pay is good.

Thank you, Sincerely, Jeanne Williams

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From: S. Tom Bond  Subject: Gas and oil question   Sent: December 29, 2014

Oil and gas are to some extent competitors, after all, most of the use of both is for energy, although chemical uses of each exist which cannot be easily substituted. So the effect of the price of oil on gas is due to substitution of oil for gas to generate energy. Much of the increased use of gas results from the fact that electrical generating plants were constructed to use primarily coal or oil, but had the capacity to increase production for overloads with gas. They have turned to using overload capacity and reduced the main supply, the oil or coal.

It takes something like $65 to pump oil in the Bakken and $25 to pump it in Saudi Arabia. So low price oil price hurts both fracked oil and, indirectly fracked gas, because less of it will be used.

Some companies will be hurt more than others. If a company (like Exxon) has a lot of business going it is not hurt so badly. If it has the price “hedged” as they say in the stock market (the term means already sold to a third party at a fixed price, who is a gambler, if the price goes above the hedged price he wins, if it goes below he looses) – such as Anterio, which operates in Doddridge and elsewhere in WV, it is not hurt so badly. But if it has extensive debts, like many of the smaller companies and Chesapeake, it is seriously hurt, because they need current income to pay the debt.

They all continue production, but the safer companies don’t invest for the future at the same rate. The companies which lack income from other, less expensive sources really have to cut costs to the bone, sell off holdings or go further in debt (if they can) and cannot resume production quickly if the price of oil goes up again.

Saudi Arabia is taking the blame for not cutting the production of oil. It is said that this is to injure “fracking companies”  which are doing so much production. The fact is that the US really doesn’t have great reserves. They are in the Middle East and Russia. We are simply sucking the soda from a small cup at a faster rate.

There is an undercurrent of analysis which suggests the Saudi’s are cooperating with the US to attack Russia, where the oil and gas a principal source of national income. Russia has so much conventional oil and gas they laugh at the idea of fracking. They have recently opened two huge gas deals with China and have developed overland sales of oil. The next twenty years will be interesting, because geopolitics is almost entirely about how and who will supply energy.

Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Teacher and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

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From: K. Lee Avary Subject: Gas and oil question Sent: December 30, 2014

A lot of variables are part of this equation, some geologic and some economic. When horizontal Marcellus drilling began, gas prices were high and the Marcellus was attractive for operators to develop in the “dry gas” part of the Marcellus. In the last few years, the price of gas has dropped quite a bit, and operators have shifted their drilling to the “wet gas” part of the Marcellus play.

The natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, butane, etc.) provide an income stream beyond just the natural gas revenue. The infrastructure to process the wet gas to separate the liquids has/ is being developed.

An economic driver is leases that are expiring or will expire soon. Operators decide whether to drill or let the leases expire or renew the leases.

Another economic driver is “price hedging” where operators have locked in prices to sell their commodities for a certain price for some future period. This removes some of the short term market fluctuation impact.

There is not much oil produced from the Marcellus; there are more Utica wells that produce oil along with gas.

Lee Avary, Retired Petroleum Geologist, WVGES

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See also the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article “Energy Sector Adjusts to Global Oil Plummet.”

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Shall we pray for Keystone XL or a safe USA?

Senate defeats Keystone XL pipeline

From an Article by Susan Davis, USA Today, November 18

Washington, DC — The U.S. Senate defeated a bill to authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, delivering a blow to Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., by members of her own party.

“I came here 18 years ago fighting to get here, fighting to stay here,” Landrieu told reporters after the vote, “And I’m going to fight for the people of my state until the day that I leave. I hope that will not be soon.”

The bill failed to overcome a 60-vote threshold for passage by a narrow 59-41 decision. All 45 Republican senators voted for it, but Landrieu could not clinch the necessary last Democratic vote.

Thirteen Democrats voted with Landrieu, including outgoing Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and John Walsh of Montana. Additional Democratic votes came from Michael Bennet of Colorado, Tom Carper of Delaware, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, and Mark Warner of Virginia.

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New Analysis Reveals Dangerous Toll of U.S. Pipelines

From an Article by Bill Snape, Center for Biological Diversity, November 17, 2014

Washington, DC – With the U.S. Senate poised to vote on the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday, a new analysis of federal records reveals the dangerous toll of pipelines in the United States. In just the past year and four months, there have been 372 oil and gas pipeline leaks, spills and other incidents, leading to 20 deaths, 117 injuries and more than $256 million in damages.

The new data adds to a June 1, 2013 independent analysis of federal records revealing that since 1986, oil and gas pipeline incidents have resulted in 532 deaths, more than 2,400 injuries and more than $7.5 billion in damages.

A new time-lapse video includes every “significant pipeline” incident in the continental United States — along with their human and financial costs — from 1986 to Oct. 1, 2014. On average one significant pipeline incident occurs in the country every 30 hours, according to the data.

“There’s no way to get around the fact that oil and gas pipelines are dangerous and have exacted a devastating toll on people and wildlife. It’s appalling to see Congress seriously considering giving the green light to Keystone XL,” said Bill Snape, senior counsel with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Obama administration’s own analysis says Keystone XL will spill oil, so it’s really troubling to see politicians wanting to add to this dangerous legacy of failed pipelines.”

The analysis comes as the State Department considers the Keystone XL pipeline — which would transport up to 35 million gallons of tar sands oil a day from Canada to Texas — that federal officials have already estimated could spill up to 100 times during its lifetime.

The analysis released today examines pipeline incidents since 1986, including spills, leaks, ruptures and explosions. It’s based on records from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, which maintains a database of all U.S. pipeline incidents that are classified as “significant,” those resulting in death or injury, damages more than $50,000, more than 5 barrels of highly volatile substances or 50 barrels of other liquid released, or where the liquid exploded or burned. In total there have been more than 8,700 significant incidents with U.S. pipelines, involving death, injury, and economic and environmental damage, since 1986 — more than 300 per year.

“This analysis ought to be a wakeup call to anyone who thinks it’s smart to double-down on these dangerous pipelines,” said Snape. “Voting for Keystone XL is voting for more spills, more environmental devastation and more climate chaos. It’s as simple as that.”

One difference between Keystone XL and the vast majority of other pipelines that have spilled is that it will be carrying tar sands oil, which has proven very difficult, if not impossible, to clean up. A 2010 spill of tar sands oil in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, for example, has yet to be cleaned up despite four years of effort. Another tar sands spill in 2013 fouled an entire neighborhood in Arkansas. Federal regulators have acknowledged that Keystone XL, too, will spill.

TransCanada’s existing Keystone I tar sands pipeline has reportedly leaked at least 14 times since it went into operation in June 2010, including one spill of 24,000 gallons. The State Department’s environmental reviews have pointed out that spills from Keystone XL are likely to occur, estimating that there could be as many as about 100 spills over the course of the pipeline’s lifespan. The pipeline will cross 1,700 miles and cross a number of important rivers, including the Yellowstone and Platte, as well as thousands of smaller rivers and streams.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net