Green Growth is a flawed concept

From an Article by George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), September 29, 2021

There is a box labelled “climate”, in which politicians discuss the climate crisis. There is a box named “biodiversity”, in which they discuss the biodiversity crisis. There are other boxes, such as pollution, deforestation, overfishing and soil loss, gathering dust in our planet’s lost property department. But they all contain aspects of one crisis that we have divided up to make it comprehensible.

The categories the human brain creates to make sense of its surroundings are not, as Immanuel Kant observed, the “thing-in-itself”. They describe artefacts of our perceptions rather than the world. Nature recognises no such divisions. As Earth systems are assaulted by everything at once, each source of stress compounds the others.

Take the situation of the North Atlantic right whale, whose population recovered a little when whaling ceased, but is now slumping again: fewer than 95 females of breeding age remain. The immediate reasons for this decline are mostly deaths and injuries caused when whales are hit by ships or tangled in fishing gear. But they’ve become more vulnerable to these impacts because they’ve had to shift along the eastern seaboard of North America into busy waters.

Their main prey, a small swimming crustacean called Calanus finmarchicus, is moving north at a rate of 8km a year, because the sea is heating. At the same time, a commercial fishing industry has developed, exploiting Calanus for the fish oil supplements falsely believed to be beneficial to our health. There’s been no attempt to assess the likely impacts of fishing Calanus. We also have no idea what the impact of ocean acidification – also caused by rising carbon dioxide levels – might be on this and many other crucial species.

As the death rate of North Atlantic right whales rises, their birthrate falls. Why? Perhaps because of the pollutants accumulating in their bodies, some of which are likely to reduce fertility. Or because of ocean noise from boat engines, sonar, and oil and gas exploration, which may stress them and disrupt their communication. So you could call the decline of the North Atlantic right whale a shipping crisis, or a fishing crisis, or a climate crisis, or an acidification crisis, or a pollution crisis, or a noise crisis. But it is in fact all of these things: a general crisis caused by human activity.

Or look at moths in the UK. We know they are being harmed by pesticides. But the impact of these toxins on moths has been researched, as far as I can discover, only individually. Studies of bees show that when pesticides are combined, their effects are synergistic: in other words, the damage they each cause isn’t added, but multiplied. When pesticides are combined with fungicides and herbicides, the effects are multiplied again.

Simultaneously, moth caterpillars are losing their food plants, thanks to fertilisers and habitat destruction. Climate chaos has also knocked their reproductive cycle out of sync with the opening of the flowers on which the adults depend. Now we discover that light pollution has devastating effects on their breeding success. The switch from orange sodium streetlights to white LEDs saves energy, but their wider colour spectrum turns out to be disastrous for insects. Light pollution is spreading rapidly, even around protected areas, affecting animals almost everywhere.

Combined impacts are laying waste to entire living systems. When coral reefs are weakened by the fishing industry, pollution and the bleaching caused by global heating, they are less able to withstand the extreme climate events, such as tropical cyclones, which our fossil fuel emissions have also intensified. When rainforests are fragmented by timber cutting and cattle ranching, and ravaged by imported tree diseases, they become more vulnerable to the droughts and fires caused by climate breakdown.

What would we see if we broke down our conceptual barriers? We would see a full-spectrum assault on the living world. Scarcely anywhere is now safe from this sustained assault. A recent scientific paper estimates that only 3% of the Earth’s land surface should now be considered “ecologically intact”.

The various impacts have a common cause: the sheer volume of economic activity. We are doing too much of almost everything, and the world’s living systems cannot bear it. But our failure to see the whole ensures that we fail to address this crisis systemically and effectively.

When we box up this predicament, our efforts to solve one aspect of the crisis exacerbate another. For example, if we were to build sufficient direct air capture machines to make a major difference to atmospheric carbon concentrations, this would demand a massive new wave of mining and processing for the steel and concrete. The impact of such construction pulses travels around the world. To take just one component, the mining of sand to make concrete is trashing hundreds of precious habitats. It’s especially devastating to rivers, whose sand is highly sought in construction. Rivers are already being hit by drought, the disappearance of mountain ice and snow, our extraction of water, and pollution from farming, sewage and industry. Sand dredging, on top of these assaults, could be a final, fatal blow.

Or look at the materials required for the electronics revolution that will, apparently, save us from climate breakdown. Already, mining and processing the minerals required for magnets and batteries is laying waste to habitats and causing new pollution crises. Now, as Jonathan Watts’s terrifying article in the Guardian this week shows, companies are using the climate crisis as justification for extracting minerals from the deep ocean floor, long before we have any idea of what the impacts might be.

This isn’t, in itself, an argument against direct air capture machines or other “green” technologies. But if they have to keep pace with an ever-growing volume of economic activity, and if the growth of this activity is justified by the existence of those machines, the net result will be ever greater harm to the living world.

Everywhere, governments seek to ramp up the economic load, talking of “unleashing our potential” and “supercharging our economy”. Boris Johnson insists that “a global recovery from the pandemic must be rooted in green growth”. But there is no such thing as green growth. Growth is wiping the green from the Earth.

We have no hope of emerging from this full-spectrum crisis unless we dramatically reduce economic activity. Wealth must be distributed – a constrained world cannot afford the rich – but it must also be reduced. Sustaining our life-support systems means doing less of almost everything. But this notion – that should be central to a new, environmental ethics – is secular blasphemy.

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See Also: The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using less and wasting less energy, Michael Joy, The Conversation, May 27, 2021

As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron. Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental problem we face in trying to replace fossil energy with renewable energy is that all our renewable technologies are significantly less energy dense than fossil fuels. This means much larger areas are required to produce the same amount of energy. And, there is much more to consider!

ALSO, NOW is the time to cut greenhouse gases not in 30 years

From the Allegheny — Blue Ridge Alliance, Update #261, January 30, 2020

“Continued efforts to complete the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) are fraught with risks” to investors, ratepayers and those who live along the route of the ACP, according to a new paper released January 30 by ABRA. “Why Support for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Adds Risks to Shareholders and Ratepayers” is authored by Thomas Hadwin, a former utility executive who is a member of ABRA’s Steering Committee.

Hadwin points out that since 2014, when the ACP was proposed, existing pipelines serving Virginia and the Carolinas have increased in capacity more than the ACP would provide. The paper explains that the cost for Dominion subsidiaries to use gas from the ACP would be over four times as expensive as gas transported by the Transco system, where sufficient capacity exists. The same would be true for Duke Energy’s subsidiaries.

Describing the environmental risks associated with the project, the paper notes that over 150-miles of the ACP route – one-fourth its length – would traverse terrain that is landslide prone. ABRA will be releasing next month a study on the landslide threat to pipelines built through the central Appalachian region.

The paper concludes: “We have an overabundance of gas-fired generating capacity and gas transmission pipeline capacity. The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is not a solution. It is part of the problem.

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Ex-Heads of Park Service & Appalachian Trail Oppose ACP Crossing Trail

From the Allegheny — Blue Ridge Alliance (ABRA) Update #261, January 30, 2020

Among the amicus briefs filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22 in support of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to vacate the U.S. Forest Service permit for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline to cross the Appalachian Trail (see ABRA Update #250 article on this) was one jointly filed by: John Jarvis, former Director of the U.S. Park Service; Pam Underhill, former Superintendent of the Appalachian Trail; and the National Parks Conservation Association. The Jarvis/Underhill/NPCA brief sets forth three-principal arguments:

1. Federal agencies may not issue pipeline rights-of-way through federal lands in units of the National Park System, including the Appalachian Trail, without express authorization from Congress;

2. There exist other well-established means of obtaining authorization for pipeline rights- of-way in or through National Park System lands; and

3. Congress’s delegation to the Park Service of administrative jurisdiction over the Appalachian Trail also ensures the Trail’s long-term conservation in the manner Congress intended.

In concluding its brief, the joint petitioners stated:

While the Forest Service and its staff members are critically important partners in cooperatively managing the Appalachian Trail on Forest Service lands, Congress recognized that the Park Service was best situated to play a special role in administering the entire stretch of this unique national treasure and assuring that its purposes are fulfilled in perpetuity. As such, it is imperative that this Court affirm the Fourth Circuit’s ruling, which will ensure that this foundational national scenic trail continues to be overseen and conserved as a crown jewel of the National Park System, in the manner that Congress envisioned when it deliberately charged the Park Service with administering the Appalachian Trail.

Accident Compressor Station in MD

YOU are Invited to Come to Accident in Maryland with purpose!

From Engage Mountain Maryland, June 10, 2015

Have you heard of the “Accident Dome”? It is a name used for part of an aging underground natural gas storage facility in Accident, MD built in the 1960s. The site houses a compressor station and an underground storage field covering roughly 53 square miles which is owned and managed by Spectra Energy (Texas Eastern), a natural gas company.

The site is currently emitting into the air an estimated 10,000 tons of methane and other fugitive gases per year, some carcinogenic, which is of concern to many area residents.

Engage Mountain Maryland will be hosting a public information meeting about the state and federal regulations for facilities like the Accident Compressor Station and Storage Dome. Residents will have an opportunity to hear about this facility and associated natural gas infrastructure directly from the Maryland Department of the Environment, Spectra Energy, and Department of Natural Resources. Presenters will help explain the permitting process to educate the public about measures taken to protect our air and water quality, and health and safety of neighboring communities. Engage Mountain Maryland would like to extend an invitation to all citizens of Western Maryland and surrounding areas for this very informative evening:

Come to Accident with purpose on June 23^rd at 7:00 PM

Location: Career Technology Training Center, 116 Industrial Drive, Accident, MD 21520

>>> If you have a friend or neighbor who is not internet connected, please share this important meeting with them. We will be running two public announcements in the Republican News paper to try to reach the broadest audience. <<<

Bigger than Accident …….. Emissions are not isolated:
The map below shows the general area of the Accident Storage Field which is a natural underground formation. The small red circles indicate the numerous vertical wells that have tapped into the natural gas deposit. These wells are old and no longer active but they are leaking. The concern with emissions is that once they are released, they cannot be contained. Besides the direct area of emission, those positioned down-wind can also be affected. Our hope is that the massive amounts of methane and volatile organic compounds, VOCs, being released can be regulated and reduced to within a safe level for those in and around the 34,000 acre footprint of the storage field. It is exceptionally important that we set a precedent now for Garrett County regarding what we expect for our citizens’ health and safety. Please come and become educated and be heard. This will prove to be a highly informative evening!

GUEST SPEAKERS

Paul Durham, Engage Mountain Maryland — Introduction and Overview

Ann Nau, Myersville Citizens for a Rural Community — Federal Energy Regulatory Commission permits for compressor stations

Eric Robison, Engage Mountain Maryland — Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration regulations

Karen Irons, Manager, Air Quality Permits Program, and Angelo Bianca, Deputy Director, Air and Radiation Management Administration, Maryland Department of the Environment — Compressor station construction and operating permits, air monitoring & compliance

Richard Ortt, Director, Maryland Geological Survey, Department of Natural Resources — Geologic storage of methane and potential geological faulting in the Accident Quadrangle

SPECTRA Energy (formerly Texas Eastern) — Accident facility and air monitoring

Accident Gas Storage Field Between I-68 & Deep Creek Lake, MD

To Be Largest Climate March Ever

People’s Climate March—Largest Climate March in World History—Set for Times Square in NTC

From an Article of EcoWatch.com, July 30, 2014

A spirited press conference in Times Square has launched the People’s Climate March, the largest climate action in world history.

Scheduled for Sept. 21 in New York City, the People’s Climate March will coincide with September’s UN Climate Summit, where world leaders including President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in attendance in answer to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon summons to consult on climate change.

Key organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and millions nationwide, hosted the press conference today to explain the goals of the mobilization and to share expectations for the UN summit. Representatives from New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, Sierra Club, 350.org, UPROSE and a number of local unions were there, as well as faith leaders, speakers from superstorm Sandy-impacted communities and millennials.

“The voice of youth is crucial in the People’s Climate March,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE. “They are the first and last generation that can make a difference in this global crisis. We have to work inter-generationally to build momentum for frontline communities and provide our people with the resources to address this complex issue.”

The People’s Climate March will highlight the climate crisis and the need to act now with bold solutions. More than 500 organizations—from community and labor groups to international NGOs and faith organizations—around the world have joined to organize or endorse the event. They describe the motivation for the march as follows:

With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. We’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet; a world safe from the ravages of climate change; a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities.

“To the untrained eye, this looks like an alliance of unusual bedfellows—labor joining hands with faith joining hands with national environmental groups,” said Eddie Bautista, executive director of New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. “But the idea that there is choice between environment and economy is a dated paradigm. The climate change march is not about slicing and dicing a political agenda—it’s a big tent. We invite all with an interest in the future.”

Bill McKibben, 350.org founder, hopes you’ll be there. In an EcoWatch blogpost he said, “We need to show just how big and unified our movement has grown, from the environmental justice advocates fighting fossil fuel pollution in our communities to the students demanding divestment on our campuses, from the scientists who have seen their warnings so far ignored to the clergy now showing real moral leadership.

If you’re wondering how to react to the devastating news that the Antarctic is melting out of control: New York. If you’re scared like I am by the pictures of the fire and drought across the West: New York. If you’re feeling like it’s time to change the trajectory of this planet: we’ll see you in New York.”

See also:

Big Polluters Cry Wolf Over EPA Plan to Fight Climate Change and Protect Human Health

Stop Gas Exports at Cove Point

Protesters call upon President Obama and federal regulators to reject proposed Cove Point facility and halt approvals on all pending liquefied natural gas export terminals nationwide

From an Article of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review, July 14, 2014

WASHINGTON – July 14 – Residents impacted by shale gas infrastructure and their supporters blocked the entrances to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) headquarters today in protest of the proposed Cove Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility and others proposed around the country.

This is the second consecutive day of action to demand that the Obama administration take the voices of impacted communities seriously in the federal regulatory process, and that FERC reject Dominion Resources’ proposed LNG export facility in Cove Point, Maryland, just 50 miles south of the White House on the Chesapeake Bay. Over a thousand people rallied on the National Mall and marched to FERC yesterday despite scorching heat and high humidity.

Protesters linked arms and blocked the main entrance and a secondary entrance of FERC as employees came in to work this morning. A total of 24 people were arrested for the shut down, including participants from Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. The protesters were arrested by Homeland Security police and then turned over to the DC Metropolitan Police for processing. They were charged with “incommoding,” or blocking a public passageway, and are being released with a citation and $50 fine.

“People ask what the connection is between Marcellus Shale and Cove Point,” said arrestee Ann Bristow from Garrett County, Maryland. “One connection is the transportation of this product. Compressor stations have been shown to be one of the most toxic sources of air emissions. Pipelines and compressor stations will only increase with more demand from Cove Point.”

If approved, the Cove Point export facility would be the linchpin tying together communities from northern Pennsylvania to central Virginia to southern Maryland that are struggling for a clean and healthy environment free of fracked gas infrastructure.

Alex Lotorto, a resident of Pike County, Pennsylvania, was among the arrestees. “There is a FERC-permitted natural gas pipeline and compressor station about to be constructed in my hometown of Milford, Pennsylvania. The exhaust is equal to over a 100 diesel school buses idling constantly next to homes where children are sleeping,” said Lotorto. “I’m here to let FERC and the company know what’s waiting for them if the permit is issued.”

Michael Bagdes-Canning from Butler County, Pennsylvania was also arrested in front of FERC’s office. “I’m willing to go to jail because my friend Susan wakes up every morning with headaches from the air she breathes from the Bluestone natural gas processing plant,” said Bagdes-Canning. “I’m willing to go to jail for the dozens of battles we are fighting in Butler County, Pennsylvania; battles that will only intensify if the international market is opened up by export facilities like Cove Point.”

Among the arrested people, their supporters, and the 150,000 people who sent in comments to FERC opposing the Cove Point project, the consensus is clear: Now is the time to stop the pollution of communities dealing with the extraction, transportation, processing and potential export of hydraulically fractured—fracked—natural gas. It’s time to get serious about shifting to clean, jobs-producing, renewable energy.

Karen Leu, a resident of Takoma Park, Maryland, was among the arrestees. “The LNG facility at Cove Point does not speak love to rural communities faced with unhealthy drinking water or a world facing a climate catastrophe,” said Leu. “What will we stand up for if not love?”

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The Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN) is the first grassroots, nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to fighting global warming in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to build and mobilize a powerful grassroots movement in this unique region that surrounds our nation’s capital to call for state, national and international policies that will put us on a path to climate stability. -

See more here on the big rally in DC this past Sunday, July 13th.

Prof. Anthony Ingraffea on Methane Leakage

Information on Large Shale Gas Leakages Coming Forward

Submitted by Heather Cantino,  Athens County (OH) Fracking Action Network, March 2, 2014

Here is an important critique of the methane leakage research recently published in Science (February 14, 2014) and its reliance on the 100-year time frame for analysis of fracking’s and methane’s impacts on climate change (posted at www.acfan.org):

Cornell professor Anthony Ingraffea, responds to questions on new study published in the journal, Science, that reveals much larger methane emissions from oil and gas extraction than previously acknowledged:

Asked how this study can be reconciled with Dr. Ingraffea’s research on methane emissions from U.S. gas extraction and distribution, Dr. Ingraffea responded:  “Its findings are largely consistent with what was published by Howarth et al. in 2011: oil/gas industry and the EPA have been underestimating national -scale methane emissions, by a large margin.”

Regarding the study’s conclusion that major methane leaks do not eclipse supposed benefits of switching from coal to natural gas for generating electricity, Dr. Ingraffea explained: “I disagree. Once again, there is a stubborn use of the 100-year impact of methane on global warming, a factor about 30 times that of CO2. All the current consensus climate science, summarized in IPCC AR 5, says that we only have about 20-30 years before we reach the warning zone of temperature rise that could lead to climate tipping points. And we can’t wait 20-30 years to START decreasing CO2eq emissions from fossil fuels. Over a 20-year period, the consensus  impact factor for methane is about 80, and some peer-reviewed estimates say it could be over 100. There is NO scientific justification for the use of a 100-year period: that is a policy decision, perhaps based on faulty scientific understanding of the climate change situation in which we find ourselves, perhaps based on political wishful thinking. When one looks at the coal-methane tradeoff for electricity generation, the break-even leak rate over a 20-year period is less than 3%. And only about 1/3 of our methane usage is for electricity generation. Again, there is a stubborn refusal to admit that doing something non-fossil-foolish about the other two-thirds is even more important. This paper should have emphasized that the continued heating of our homes and businesses and our hot water with electricity generated from combusting methane cannot be scientifically justified from a climate change perspective.”

Asked how the study contributes to an understanding of methane leakage and what can be done about it, Dr. Ingraffea stated: “It once again indicates that industry and the EPA have been underestimating, when we all should have been out there measuring, BEFORE setting energy policy. However, I disagree with the assertion that a significant dent can be made in methane emissions quickly and cheaply by an industry that refuses to accept that their estimates have been wrong. Ratepayers will have to pay to fix leaking infrastructure, IF the industry is forced to make the fixes, and, given the brief 20-year period we have left to DECREASE CO2eq emissions, such fixes will not be in time. They just make the ‘bridge’ too long in time.”

See our post on the Athens County Fracking Action Network.

Also, see Professor Ingraffea’s presentation at University of Chicago, 1-23-14 here and more on his leaky well research from November 2013.

See also: www.acfan.org and www.ecowatch.com

Encana Oil & Gas frack site

Colorado First State to Clamp Down on Fracking Methane Pollution

From the Article by Jennifer Oldham, Bloomberg News, February 23, 2014

Colorado regulators approved groundbreaking controls on emissions from oil and natural gas operations after an unusual coalition of energy companies and environmentalists agreed on measures to counter worsening smog.

Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Noble Energy Inc., and Encana Corp., among the state’s largest oil and gas producers, worked with the Environmental Defense Fund to craft regulations approved yesterday by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission that would fix persistent leaks from tanks and pipes.

Emissions from oil and gas operations contribute to thickening smog that exceeds federal ozone guidelines along Denver’s picturesque backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. Such pollution includes methane, a source of climate-changing greenhouse gas. The haze prompted Governor John Hickenlooper to ask energy companies and environmentalists to come together to write the first-of-their-kind rules.

“This is a model for the country,” said Dan Grossman, the defense fund’s Rocky Mountain regional director. “We’ve got this simmering battle between the oil and gas industry and neighborhoods throughout the state that are being faced with development. That degree of acrimony is pushing the industry and policy makers to look for ways to get some wins.”

Drilling in Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, Pennsylvania and Ohio that is fueling the nation’s energy boom is also moving closer to communities, forcing state regulators to address complaints of noise and traffic and concerns about potential contamination risks to air and water. Citing these worries, five Colorado communities voted to restrict a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Under Pressure

To appease residents, state lawmakers are looking for measures that allow them to monitor and control drilling activities while still reaping millions in taxes from increased energy production. Over the course of a year, the new regulations will remove enough volatile organic compounds from the air to equal those emitted by every car and truck in the state, backers said.

The Air Quality Control Commission approved the rules 8 to 1 yesterday after five days of hearings, rejecting revisions that would have exempted smaller wells and applied the regulations only to operators in areas that routinely violate federal air quality standards.

Unusual Approach

Air quality rules in other states are often driven by regulatory agencies, which highlights the unusual collaboration between environmentalists and energy companies on Colorado’s measures governing methane emissions, Curtis Rueter, a Denver-based development manager at Noble Energy, said in a telephone interview.

“This is the right thing to do for our business,” he said. “We want to find the leaks and fix them because that will reduce our emissions and the rules provide guidance and technology for us to do that.” The air pollution mandate divided powerful energy interests, environmental groups and lawmakers as some energy companies resisted the new rules.

Increased drilling in Colorado is likely to be an issue in the gubernatorial campaign this year. Fracking opponents say Hickenlooper, a former oil company geologist, is too cozy with the industry. His Republican challengers say regulations such as those requiring companies to test groundwater and disclose chemicals used in fracking — which the governor hails as among the toughest in the nation — restrict production.

Emissions during oil and gas operations represent the state’s largest source of volatile organic compounds that contribute to the formation of ozone, a ground-level pollutant linked to respiratory problems and decreased crop yields. Parts of Colorado violate national air quality standards for ozone.

Methane Effect

The mandates are also the first attempt by a state to regulate methane emissions from fracking. The main component of natural gas, methane is 20 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Infrared cameras show that methane and other gases escape during operations that pushed Colorado’s 2012 oil production to the highest in 55 years. The state is the U.S.’s sixth-largest producer of natural gas and ninth-biggest oil producer.

“This is a national issue that a lot of states that have significant oil and gas emissions are struggling with,” said Garry Kaufman, deputy director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Air Pollution Control Division, in testimony during the hearings.

The regulations require companies to install equipment to minimize leakage of toxic gases and to control or capture 95 percent of emissions. Energy producers would be required to routinely inspect well sites for leaks, as often as once a month, depending on how much oil or gas a well produces. When leaks are discovered, they must be fixed within 15 days.

‘Industry Concern’

There is “industry concern that the proposed rules may be a foregone political conclusion,” wrote lawyers representing the company, which operates 800 wells in the state that produce $120 million in royalties and property and severance taxes, “the 10 month stakeholder process appears to have been subverted at the final hour.”

Chevron and members of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the Colorado Petroleum Association calculated that costs to comply with the rules would be almost double what state regulators projected. The Air Pollution Control Division estimated costs at $40 million, while industry economists said they would be $100 million.

“These rules cost more than all prior oil and gas measures combined,” testified John Jacus, an attorney with Davis, Graham & Stubbs LLP who represents trade groups and other energy companies, during the hearings. “The rules have not been property evaluated by the division for their cost, both indirect and direct, and their cost to implement.”

Training Personnel

Companies supporting the rules said while they need time to invest in expensive equipment and to hire and train personnel on new systems, they are willing to shoulder the costs. “We estimate it’s going to cost Noble Energy $3 million dollars a year to comply with this rule,” testified Brian Lockard, the company’s director of environmental, health, safety and regulatory, at the hearing.  “That’s a heavy lift,” he added, saying cost estimates are based on a voluntary monitoring program the company’s been using. “We project we’re going to have to hire 16 additional people.”

Noble runs about 8,000 wells in the Denver-Julesburg Basin, where it plans to invest $12 billion over the next five years. Noble and Anadarko undertake 80 percent of all operations in the basin. Anadarko operates about 5,000 wells there and expects to invest $2 billion in the region this year.

Anadarko said the emissions mandates are necessary to ensure the companies’ investments pay off.  “We all live here, we all have families here and work here and we want to have clean air,” Korby Bracken, Anadarko’s Rockies’ environmental health and safety director, said in a telephone interview. “This provides us an additional piece to talk with community members about what oil and gas companies are doing to make sure we’re protecting the environment.”

Frack Checked Videos Feature Wes Wilson and Tony Ingraffea

Article from EcoWatch

Date: Nov. 2, 2013

Colorado is the midst of a David vs. Goliath fight, in which four municipalities will be voting November 5th  on ballot initiatives to protect their communities from fracking. The gas and oil industry has already spent $600,000 on misleading ads and mailers to fight local residents’ rights to home rule. By next week it may well be more than $1,000,000. 

Colorado has been called the ground zero of fracking. It has more than 50,000 fracking wells, many within hundreds of yards of schools, homes and public parks. Gas and oil companies are virtually self-regulated, with devastating consequences, as we saw in the recent flooding of thousands of fracking sites that were allowed to be built on a flood zone. Governor Hickenlooper, in fact, is such a supporter, he once claimed to have  drunk fracking fluid. 

Local groups have taken it upon themselves to try to limit gas and oil activity in their communities. If the initiatives pass, Fort Collins, Broomfield, Boulder and Lafayette would join the city of Longmont by instating local municipal fracking bans and moratoriums.  

Because the anti-fracking local campaigns don’t have the spending power of the oil and gas industry, Frack Free Colorado released these video to combat the misinformation campaign laid out by the industry. These videos feature local and national experts who touch on economics, air pollution, groundwater contamination and renewable energy solutions. The first video features EPA whistleblower Wes Wilson and the second features Cornell scientist Tony Ingraffea.

Article from EcoWatch, May 16, 2013

The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposed an updated set of rules governing hydraulic fracturing, on public lands today. The controversial oil and gas development technique—in which drillers blast millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to force oil and gas from underground deposits—has been linked to air and water pollution and public health problems.

“Comparing today’s rule governing fracking on public lands with the one proposed a year earlier, it is clear what happened: the BLM caved to the wealthy and powerful oil and gas industry and left the public to fend for itself,” said Jessica Ennis, legislative representative at Earthjustice. “Our public lands—and the people who live near them—deserve the highest level of protection. Today’s rule could have set the gold standard. Instead the BLM is settling for shoddy protections peddled by the oil and gas industry.”

The updated proposal eliminates protections included in the version proposed last year and fails to include safeguards demanded by environmental and public health advocates.

Among the problems identified in the updated regulations:

• The proposed rules do not require an evaluation of the integrity of cement barriers in individual wells—the critical barrier between toxic fracking chemicals and groundwater—instead allowing oil and gas companies to test one well and allow those results to guide the development of other similar wells.

• The updated proposal does not require fracking companies to disclose chemicals before they are pumped into the ground—a critical measure that would give nearby communities time to test and monitor water supplies for any fracking-related water pollution.

 Across the country, fracking has wrought widespread environmental damage—contaminating drinking water sources and turning treasured landscapes into industrial zones. And now, the oil and gas industry has designs on key areas of America’s natural heritage, including sources of drinking water for millions of Americans:

• White River National Forest–Located in Colorado, White River is the most visited national forest in the nation. Its pristine streams also provide drinking water to nearby communities, and feeds the Colorado River.

• Delaware River basin–The basin spans New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, is home to three national park areas, and provides drinking water to 15 million people.

• Wayne National Forest–Part of the beautiful Hocking Hills region in Ohio, most of the acres in the forest are to be leased for drilling near the sole drinking water source for 70,000 people.

• George Washington National Forest–this area hosts streams in Virginia and West Virginia that feed the James and Potomac Rivers, which provide the drinking water for millions of people in the metro D.C. area.

• Otero Mesa–A vital part of New Mexico’s natural heritage, Otero Mesa is home to wildlife and what is perhaps the largest untapped freshwater aquifer in this parched Southwestern state.

“Today we were counting on Secretary Jewell to protect our natural heritage and environment from dirty drilling. She didn’t do it,” said John Rumpler, senior attorney for Environment America.

“Fracking is posing a staggering array of threats to our health and environment—especially to our drinking water,” Rumpler concluded. “If Secretary Jewell is not willing to confront these threats, then we urge President Obama to step in and protect our natural heritage—and our drinking water—from dirty drilling.”

Last year, tens of thousands of Americans submitted comments urging the administration to adopt a much stronger rule to curb damage from dirty drilling in or around our forest, parks and other treasured lands. Yet, the fracking rule proposed today is very limited and its provisions are exceedingly weak:

• Toxic chemicals: Instead of barring the use of toxic chemicals (including diesel), the BLM’s rule merely proposes disclosure of such chemicals, in a scheme even weaker than originally proposed last year.

• Well construction: The proposed rule falls short of even the American Petroleum Institute’s own standards for fracked wells.

• Wastewater: The rule has drillers submit management plans, but fails to ban waste pits.

“There is no requirement for baseline water testing and no setback requirements to govern how close to homes and schools drilling can happen. The new rules also continue to allow the use of toxic diesel fuel for fracking, as well as open pits for storing wastewater—two practices that we know to be environmentally hazardous,” said Jessica Ennis.

Visit EcoWatch’s FRACKING page for more related news on this topic.

Professor Ingraffea Speaking On Gas Well Problems

From an article by Nicole Gugino, Dunkirk NY Observer, 2-27-2013.

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PORTLAND NY – Dr. Anthony Ingraffea spoke to a packed house at Cornell University‘s Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory February 25th. People from many parts of the county gathered for the presentation from the “shale expert” to see what information he could impart.

Ingraffea gave a presentation on the myths and realities concerning large-scale development of the unconventional natural gas resource in shale deposits. “Notice the word fracking is not in the title? … We are going to hear a little bit about fracking because it is a little bit of the story … You heard the word fracking and you assumed it was the problem but I am going to try to convince you tonight that fracking is a very small part of a much larger problem,” he said.

Ingraffea addressed four myths while exposing the truth behind them. The first myth was that fracing is a 60-year-old practice and uses well proven technology. He said the implication of this statement is that nothing goes wrong.

He explained the practices of directional drilling, high volume fracing fluid, slick water, multi-well pads and cluster drilling have been used in the past – some further back than others – but the practice of using them all together has only been around for the past six or seven years.

He pointed out one of the problems with this is some states allowed this practice to be used without any scientific investigation of the process or the impacts.

The next myth he tackled was that multi-well pad and cluster drilling reduces surface impacts. He asked the audience how much impact drilling in New York has on the surface now. The audience answered, “None.” Ingraffea argued logically, you cannot have less impact than zero and went on to show pictures of what these types of well pads look like.

Each site had multiple wells which would be fracked several times as well as a dew point refinery to separate the gas from other materials like propane and butane, a compressor to pressurize the gas, pipes to ship the gas and flowback pools to hold the water, sand and chemicals which is used to release the gas.

The third myth he addressed was that fluid migration from faulty wells is rare. He asked the audience what its perception of “rare” is – one in 100, one in 1,000? He also addressed what is considered a leak.

He said most leaks at wells are from problems with the concrete around the extraction pipe which drillers use as a gasket to make sure the gas stays in the pipeline. He explained with vertical drilling, gravity works with the cement to keep the hole around the pipe sealed. However, with directional drilling, which goes vertically and then horizontally into the shale, gravity works against the process.

“There is a saying: the three biggest problems for drilling are one: concrete, two: concrete and three: concrete,” he added.

He also showed research on how many leaks occur, the most recent of which was from 2012 in the Marcellus Shale of Pennsylvania. This data showed the number of leaks in new wells to have increased from 6 percent in 2010, to 7.1 percent in 2011 and up to 8.9 percent in 2012.

He said these numbers are consistent with industry data and show that practices to prevent leaks are not improving over time.”Why should we expect this will be different in New York?” he asked.

The final myth Ingraffea addresses is that natural gas is a clean fossil fuel. One audience member said this statement is an oxymoron.He said when compared to coal and oil, methane is the lowest producer of carbon dioxide. However, he said only looking at carbon dioxide is not looking at the whole pollution picture.

He said methane is also a pollution problem and according to data, natural gas drilling is the worst offender. He said methane as a greenhouse gas produces 30 times more heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide in 100 years and 100 times more heat in 20 years.

He also presented the audience with a computer simulation graph of four scenarios for global warming: the first if nothing is done about carbon dioxide, methane or black carbon (soot), if only carbon dioxide emissions are regulated, if only methane and soot are regulated or if all are regulated and controlled.

The simulation with no change brought the world into a “yellow warning zone” by 2035 and into the “red zone” in 100 years. Regulating carbon dioxide had little effect on this scenario. Ingraffea explained it is because of all the carbon dioxide still in the atmosphere. Regulating methane and soot had some effect in delaying the first scenario for a while but warming levels still ended up in the red.

The only scenario which did not enter the red was where all three emissions were regulated, although it did enter the yellow. Ingraffea said there could be some error in the simulation in either direction.

He concluded with suggestions of how New York State could be nearly fossil fuel-free by 2030. He pointed out with a limited supply of methane and a high demand, the price of energy will increase. He concluded the logical thing would be to use energy which has a free supply like wind, solar and water. He acknowledged there are production and distribution costs associated with these resources as well but described it as energy planning for the future.

“From an economic point of view, from an energy independence point of view, from an energy security point of view, the right thing to do has been obvious for a very long time. Do we have the technology to do it? Absolutely,” he said.

After the speech there was a question and answer period. One man debated some of Ingraffea’s points as a business man in the natural gas industry.  See a brief VIDEO from the talk.

Dr. Ingraffea is professor of engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. The event was sponsored by the Chautauqua Watershed Conservancy, the SUNY Fredonia Academic Community Engagement Center and the Environmental Justice Ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northern Chautauqua.