Art also Speaks

No Science, Please, for Fracking

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

The human brain is not a reality machine. It is a device for survival in a world where problems must be solved, but exact reality is not needed. Think about all the fantasies in literature, everything from “One Thousand and One Nights” which includes the flying carpet and the “roc,” a bird so large it can pick up a man and carry him away, to Frankenstein, the man crafted by early 19th century methods in the mind of Mary Shelly, and its predecessor, Prometheus, to Jules Vern’s fantasies, and so on. These Universes exist in the mind only. As the prisoner in Mahler’s symphony sings “die Gedanken sind frei” – thoughts are free.

Look too, at the variety of the world’s religions. People believe and act on them. An individual religion is not wired into human minds, but is learned from the culture surrounding the person.

However, the mind we have has made us a uniquely successful species. About half of the primary biological productivity of the earth – that is all new growth on earth – is devoted to feeding, clothing, housing and keeping us. No single species has been able to approach this in the past.

This presents a dilemma – a very powerful, useful organ for knowing is not directly attached to reality, but capable of unlimited flights of fantasy. In the past this might have been more useful than it is for today’s humanity. It provided diversity, while smaller, diverse systems are tolerant, because if one fails, others go ahead. This is the nature of evolution. It is not good when only one path is taken by all, because forethought and planning must be based on what is correct. Failure is disaster for all.

We understand narratives, stories of explanation. Cold facts must be linked into a story, an explanation, if they are to be remembered, transmitted, useful. Fitting facts into a narrative that is parallel to the real world takes a very high skill. It is injured by indifference, willful ignorance, and the big one, self interest.

Science is a system for getting a narrative, an explanation of phenomena, closer to reality. It works by using measurements, samples of the real world, and a procedure for debating proposed explanations. It involves a huge debating society, now so diverse there are many branches. People spend their lives learning what is known, and adding to it. It is written down and new ideas are debated worldwide. One makes points by suggesting new explanations for data, or by finding errors in new suggestions. Competition is fierce. It is a very social enterprise.

Rarely, people falsify data, and present new ideas based on false data. But one of the key principles is that experiments must be repeatable by others, so they will eventually be found out. Basic ideas change, too. At one time it was thought the planets go around the sun in circles. More careful measurements showed they move in ellipses. Most additions are not very large, but sometimes there is a tremendous change, such as when it was realized that the surface of the earth consists of plates that move, “plate tectonic theory” is a cornerstone of Geology today. Or the Quantum Theory, which is now a cornerstone of both chemistry and physics.

So careful measurements and active, open debate bring science as close to the real world as anything today. Unlike money, it has only indirect connection to power, however. It must be financed, it doesn’t pay directly for itself, like so many things that affect us collectively, rather than individually.

The public narrative about fracking, however, is not science. It is the device of individuals, not even checked with connections to reality, quite like literature. It has a “good” and  “heartwarming” story, claims of abundance, jobs, affluence.

Here is an example on the fracking perspective. It is widely promoted by those who hope to have a piece of its benefit, and by those who are afraid not to be a valued follower. There is a lot left out of this narrative, however. The article referred to uses percent increase in O&G jobs, not actual figures. The actual numbers are small compared to total employment. The drilling industries are high investment, but actually low in needed labor, in contrast to solar and wind.

Another misunderstanding: the US gas industry has smaller reserves, much smaller, than places overseas, which already have production equipment in place, ready to pump. You can check this out yourself. The four nations ahead of us have 12.7 times as much gas as the United States, and Russia in particular hasn’t even prospected it’s area completely.

Other nations also have half-again as much as the four ahead of the US. So the WV gas industry is pumping gas from a smaller reserve with a bigger straw, which must be paid for with new money. The export or gas also requires building gas liquefaction plants and ships to move it across the ocean. It is a great receptacle for capital.

Then there is the matter of denial of ill effects on the environment and people. Some examples of research contradicting that claim are:

Why is there a huge methane hotspot in the American Southwest?

Lancashire fracking in doubt following critical report

Stanford biologist warns of early stages of Earth’s 6th mass extinction event.

Impact of Natural Gas Extraction on PAH Levels in Ambient Air.

Perinatal Outcomes and Unconventional Natural Gas Operations in Southwest Pennsylvania.

Evaluating a groundwater supply contamination incident attributed to Marcellus Shale gas development.

The volume of such research doubles each year, in spite of the lack of cooperation from the industry, which is not interested in verifiable fact, but in promoting it’s narrative.

It is amazing how poor the education of many people making important decisions really is. My guess is there are few climate change deniers whose knowledge of the physics involved is at the level of a first year student. They don’t know enthalpy of vaporization, enthalpy of fusion, heat capacity, coefficient of expansion. Nor do they know the Earth science of the global ocean heat conveyor, or the Hadley, Farrell and Polar cells. You shouldn’t worry if you don’t know these terms and how they relate to global warming, unless you are writing contradictions to global warming. The science is all available to those who want to take the time to learn, however.

Very few fracking executives or mid-staff understand elementary toxicology. Nor does the industry as a whole have such expertise. And it’s well understood that any employee who is not loyal to the objectives of the firm gets the boot. It is hard on one’s professional standing, if trained in petroleum science and you lose a job by being a whistle blower. CIA employees aren’t the only ones who have to “go along to get along.”

And the same is true with politicians.  As I’ve said before, they don’t have time for research or going out in the field and talking to constituents. They have to spend their time raising money and getting re-elected.  It’s all power brokering. This results in monstrosities such as the WV Senator who is on the Senate Clean Air Committee AND fighting to preserve Coal. In Pennsylvania they have a legislative bill that removes liability for drillers who use acid mine drainage for fracking.

For corporations there is little long-term view, hardly more than the next quarter or two, certainly none as long as it will take to pay off the debts. And no depth beyond “common sense.” If  ”ignorance is bliss,” this must be the finest hour for the hydrocarbon burning industries. They have up a  ”full head of steam,” but can’t see beyond the next wave.