Fracturing fear

A vote in France to ban hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells brings new attention to fear as an element in the making of energy policy. France imports 98% of its gas supply. It professes to lead a geopolitical block trying to cut dependence on gas from Russia. It ranks second among European countries in a recent US Energy Information Administration assessment of shale-gas potential. Yet its National Assembly on May 11 voted to prohibit a completion technology without which no shale-gas potential can be fulfilled.

How can this be?

The only plausible answer is fear. Apparently, a majority of National Assembly members believe hydraulic fracturing threatens drinking water at a level of risk warranting the foreclosure of resource development. The sacrifice thus imposed on French taxpayers and energy consumers is considerable. If drilling and development were to convert into reserves just one tenth of EIA’s estimate of the technically recoverable shale-gas resource in France, the country would have enough future supply to cover consumption at current rates for 10 years. And the development would create jobs and incomes in an economy that the International Monetary Fund expects this year to grow by only 1.6%.

Frightened politicians

Those politicians must be really afraid. Why wouldn’t they be? From the US, where shale-gas development is well-advanced and where results are reshaping energy markets, resistance to hydraulic fracturing is steady, strong, growing, and loud. Suddenly, a completion method in use for 60 years has become an environmental monster. Horror stories have emerged about flaming water taps, about radioactive waste in waterways, about homeowners smitten by headaches and nausea after shale-gas drilling started nearby. For the first time, in some areas, people have learned that operators pump fluids containing chemicals underground from surface locations near water wells. It can all seem very scary.

The antidote should be facts, which can put risk into perspective for assessment against potential benefit. The facts are clear. State regulation has prevented contamination of drinking water from hydraulic fracturing. Frac zones lie thousands of feet below fresh-water aquifers, and wells are cased. Fiery tap water results nearly always from methane leaks from shallow coal seams. Chemicals in frac fluids are extremely dilute, and most of them occur in much greater concentrations in average households. The radioactivity in frac fluid returns is harmless. Headaches and nausea can have many causes unrelated to frac operations.

The problem isn’t a set of hazards inherent in hydraulic fracturing. The problem is a surge in activity, which has overwhelmed some state regulatory offices and increased the number of accidents, which are inevitable in industrial work. To the few instances of poor well design and construction that have emerged, regulatory response has been swift and effective. Problems like these are manageable and shouldn’t frighten anyone.

Yet fear lies behind efforts to impose federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing—if not to ban the practice altogether as France seems poised to do. To the extent those efforts succeed, the US will restrain the demonstrated ability of the energy market to swing from shortage to surplus based on the unsubsidized, economically beneficial development of domestic resources.

Political tool

Fear nevertheless grows. Despite facts, despite the unwarranted sacrifice toward which it leads, fear grows because of its potency as a political tool. While it’s too early to say shale development will keep gas bountiful and cheap for as far as the eye can see, the mere possibility of such a future troubles some people. Abundant, cheap gas already has slowed investment in heavily subsidized “clean” fuels. Diehard drilling opponents, meanwhile, regret anything that might prolong the era of hydrocarbon energy.

For everyone else, the promise of major new energy supply and of attendant economic benefits deserves cheer. The technology that made it possible deserves a warm embrace. And in the US, France, and everywhere else, scare stories about hydraulic fracturing deserve stern questions about motive.

Oil Gas Journal