“I will be a passionate advocate about [energy policy and climate change] not based on ideology but based on facts and science.”
—soon-to-be Secretary of State John Kerry at his Senate confirmation
On January 29, 2013 the US Senate voted to confirm John Kerry as the next Secretary of State by a vote of 94 to 3. He’ll replace Hillary Clinton and will be sworn in as the 68th Secretary of State tomorrow, Friday February 1, 2013.
This should be a good move for the environment. Continue reading
“We are the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.”
—Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., May 2010
Most everybody seems to be aware that most natural reservoirs of petroleum and natural gas are beyond their peaks, and are slowly drying up. That’s why more imaginative ways to get at the planet’s sources of crude oil are now being exploited. Deep sea offshore drilling and developing the tar sands in Alberta may cost more and cause greater harm to the environment, but given that they still make money, they’re still worth it to those doing the exploiting.
One relatively new term to the fossil fuel vocabulary is “fracking.” Short for “hydraulic fracturing,” fracking is yet another way of getting at some petroleum products that were previously inaccessible. Developed as a technique more than sixty years ago, it didn’t become economically useful until 1997, specifically for accessing natural gas associated with shale which is a fine-grained sedimentary rock made from a mixture of clay and other minerals. Not surprisingly, therefore, natural gas found in shale is known as shale gas.
Shale gas has become an increasing source of fossil fuels, particularly in the US but other countries such as Canada are developing their own fracking operations as well. China sits on the largest source of shale gas on the planet.
The technology of fracking involves pumping millions of litres of water deep into the shale formations where the petroleum products, particularly natural gas (methane) are located. This is done at very high pressures. Chemicals are added to the water to make it more viscous, and because companies believe this is a proprietary issue they won’t usually divulge exactly what these chemicals are, but thousands of litres of the stuff are added to the millions of litres of water. The chemically-altered water cracks the shale or in some cases widens existing cracks, freeing any hydrocarbons deposited in the shale to flow toward the well at the surface. About thirty percent of the water is lost. It’s believed that fracking has contributed in some part to the droughts that Texas has experienced of late.
To keep the fractures from immediately collapsing, something known as a proppant is added to the fracking fluid that will keep them open. Sand is often used, but other materials include ceramic, bauxite, and even glass.
As you can imagine, this issue has its many who are for it, and many who are against it. Those in favour of it point out how much more natural gas and other hydrocarbons that were previously inaccessible can now be extracted, reducing dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels. Also, natural gas is a cleaner fossil fuel than either coal or oil.
Those against it, however, point out that once again, obtaining fossil fuels with these less conventional methods wreaks havoc on the environment. These include:
—the high volume of water required
—contamination of ground water and drinking water
—risks to air quality and health
—carbon emissions associated
—disruption to ecosystems
—migration of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals to the surface
—surface contamination from spills and flowback
Although Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) stated in April 2011 that there’s “never been one case—documented case—of groundwater contamination in the history of the thousands and thousands of hydraulic fracturing [wells],” that’s a mistake at best, and a lie at worst. Various surface spills have occurred over the years. There have also been blowouts at wells operated by Chesapeake Energy and EOG Resources. One spill of more than 30,000 litres of fracking fluid occurred at a site in Pennsylvania, contaminating the groundwater there.
The Council of Canadians is one group in my country very opposed to fracking. But anywhere that fracking is taking place, you don’t have to look too far to find those who see it as another appalling way to look for energy. A quick Google search reveals that New York State, North Carolina and Alabama all have fracking with many opposed to its development.
I would just love to see as much energy and research invested into renewable sources of energy as there is devoted to squeezing every last bit of fossil fuel out of the planet. People talk about how the infrastructure isn’t ready for renewables yet, it’s not designed to handle the intermittency of wind and solar, and the battery capacity isn’t yet there. Know what I say to that? Then let’s develop them.
That may sound naive, but the ability is there, I have no doubt. The hackneyed phrase applies here, so I make no apologies for using it: over forty years ago we put men on the Moon. Surely we can build better batteries that are smaller and economically competitive, and we can build a grid that can deal with the intermittency of renewables.
All it takes is a little willpower to see where we need to be, and what we need to achieve to get there. We’ll have to do this someday anyway once every last well has run dry, and every last bit of shale gas has been consumed. Even our coal isn’t infinite. I just hope we have the sense to stop looking for unique methods of obtaining tougher sources of fossil fuels and use that ingenuity to develop renewables.
A new book by the Republican senator from Oklahoma James Inhofe is entitled “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.” Its basic premise is a common one heard today from some of the more extreme climate change deniers and skeptics: that God and the Bible tell us we’re safe and sound doing business-as-usual without fear of harming the planet or its climate. A frequently asked question is: how can we as a species affect the climate of an entire planet? (Never mind that more than 7 billion people are spewing over 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide—a know greenhouse gas—into the atmosphere every year. As Inhofe points out by quoting his not-so-scientific source Genesis 8:22, “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” All the proof we need that God will look after us, no matter what we do to the planet.
This kind of thinking is always scary to someone like me. And when I say “someone like me,” I mean someone who believes in science and facts. It’s tough to take. I had a religious upbringing and I understand why many who are raised that way remain devout to the principles that religion teaches. (Believing in the principles is generally more reasonable, however, than believing in the facts from these ancient texts, I would argue.) But it’s difficult when people hold so tightly to small snippets of a book written thousands of years ago by people who had no understanding of science, and continue to ignore the contradictory facts we’ve learned since those words were written. The Bible has been proven wrong many times already: the sun doesn’t orbit the Earth, our planet has existed for almost 5 billion years not 5 thousand, and our species exists thanks to evolution, not a magical being that snapped his fingers and said “abra cadabra.”
One huge problem with taking such small quotes from the BIble and holding onto them literally is that it ignores its many other quotes that are clearly misplaced in today’s society. If we’re going to accept Genesis 8:22 as proof that God will look after the climate for us, then what about selling our daughters into slavery (Exodus 21:7), owning slaves of our own as long as they come from neighbouring countries (Leviticus 25:44), or the fact that we’re supposed to put people to death who work on the Sabbath Day (Exodus 35:2)? People like James Inhofe who hold onto the small portions of the BIble that serve their personal agendas have to address the larger portions that are so much more clearly outdated as well.
I have a difficult time understanding people like James Inhofe, or Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum who is equally as trusting in these ancient stories instead of what the brightest scientists have been telling us about the laws of nature. They claim that the liberal left—those who argue that we have to do what we can to fight against climate change—have their own hidden agenda and are misleading everyone. It seems especially hypocritical when Inhofe received over 1.3 million dollars in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry. Seems like a perfect example of symbiosis: one group gets political support to make billions of dollars, and the other gets money to use toward their political agendas. Truly, neither group has to believe in any part of the Bible to achieve what they want, but if it’s a convenient means to an end, then hey, why not?.
For those who believe in religion and the Bible, I would like to point out that even if God created the heavens and the earth, that doesn’t mean the men who tried to document the story thousands of years ago got it all correct. And belief in a God doesn’t mean that God will look after us if we’re stupid and foolish. The best set of rules a God could come up with are the laws of science. If we ignore them, I truly believe that any Supreme Being watching from above will let us destroy ourselves rather than intervene. He’s proven too many times in the past that intervention isn’t His style when it comes to human nature. It’s up to us and no one else.
