In the post below, I wrote about the recent and instantly controversial study from Cornell that calls into question the greenhouse gas advantage that natural gas was assumed to have over coal and oil. This BBC article, for instance, points out what may seem like the obvious: As one very involved British geologist says “By trying to evaluate the greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas extraction, Howarth and his team are asking important questions about this new bonanza. I suspect the debate on this will be long, and the answers will be different for each shale gas formation; but it is important that we tackle this debate.” Agreed.
I also think, however, that these all sound like questions of engineering. The concerns, as I’ve written here several times, regarding the safety of the process, including how operations may impact drinking water supplies, are not to be dismissed. They are, though, highly amenable to engineering solutions if – and only if – proper regulatory authority is brought to bear. The whole idea of “self-regulation,” particularly of the extractive industries, is ludicrous. I have confidence in the ability of the proper agencies, chief of these being the Environmental Protection Agency, to do their jobs. That presupposes that they are not hamstrung by ideologues in elected office who would neuter the critical role that these agencies play in protecting the public health.
I have worked in an environmental protection agency and I know that the public is well served when there is adequate funding and professional staff, good laws and regulations in place, and an open process where the concerned public can be heard. That is how, in a nutshell, the modern environmental protection movement has been so successful. This is what I tell my students when they question fracking.
Joe Nocera echoes this view in his second column in a week at the NYT on hydrofracking and natural gas. “The truth is, every problem associated with drilling for natural gas is solvable. The technology exists to prevent most methane from escaping, for instance. Strong state regulation will help ensure environmentally safe wells. And so on. Somewhat to my surprise, this view was seconded by Abrahm Lustgarten, a reporter for ProPublica who has probably written more stories about the dangers of fracking than anyone. In a comment posted online to my Tuesday column, he wrote that while the environmental issues were real, they can be readily addressed by the employment of best drilling practices, technological investment, and rigorous regulatory oversight.'”
Nocera did write some things in his original column that made me start. This guy is, after all, a hugely smart business and finance reporter, but he appears pretty green – as it were – when it comes to energy and the environment. Gilbert Sloan’s letter in the paper tells the story I would’ve told. EVs, hydrogen, and second-generation biofuels are all available and scaling up pretty quickly to address transportation needs.
Even though the indomitable Henry Waxman is no longer the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, he is still playing a key role. He issued a report the other day that puts the spotlight on the chemicals used in fracking. As Bloomberg News reports here, Waxman and his colleagues fully acknowledge the important role that natural gas has to play: “Hydraulic fracturing has opened access to vast domestic reserves of natural gas that could provide an important stepping stone to a clean energy future.” However, being the concerned legislators that they are, they want to make dang sure that the regulatory authorities are focused like lasers on the important issues that confront them, and us, on hydraulic fracturing.
(Oh yeah. For more on natural gas, see my colleagues over at the Energy blog for the Foreign Policy Association.)
