Kamala Harris Gets a Fracking Education

Pence is right: Shale drilling for natural gas has cut C02 emissions

WSJ editorial.

"Kamala Harris in Wednesday’s debate declared that Joe Biden’s Administration would make the U.S. “carbon neutral” by 2035—a more ambitious goal than even California has set—while at the same time disavowing plans to ban fracking for natural gas. We look forward to Mr. Biden explaining this apparent contradiction in the next debate, if there is one.

Meantime, it’s worth highlighting a new Energy Information Administration report that shows how fracking and competitive energy markets have done more to reduce CO2 emissions over the last decade than government regulation and renewable subsidies. Vice President Mike Pence made this point on Wednesday night, and he’s right.

According to the report, energy-related CO2 emissions in the U.S. fell 2.8% last year as many utilities replaced coal and heating oil with less expensive natural gas. Hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling has unleashed a gusher of natural gas production in the Midwest and Southwest. As a result, natural gas prices have plunged, putting many coal plants out of business.

CO2 emissions from coal declined by more than 50% from 2007 to 2019, the report notes, and by 15% in 2019 alone. Between 2016 and 2019 the share of electricity generated by natural gas rose to 38.1% from 33.7% and by non-carbon generation (including nuclear and hydropower) to 38.2% from 35.5%. Coal generation during this period plunged to 23.3% from 30.3%.

Increasing power generation from natural gas has accounted for 60% of the country’s decline in CO2 emissions from electricity since 2010. The carbon intensity of the country’s energy declined at about the same rate during the first three years of the Trump Presidency as from 2009 to 2016.

The International Energy Agency earlier this year reported that the U.S. “saw the largest decline in energy-related CO2 emissions in 2019 on a country basis” due to a 15% reduction in the use of coal for power generation and “US emissions are now down almost 1 Gt [gigatonne] from their peak in the year 2000, the largest absolute decline by any country over that period.”

To sum up: President Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord and eased the Obama-Biden Administration’s economically destructive climate regulations, and the U.S. is still leading the world in CO2 reductions."

Earthquake risk drops for the central and eastern U.S., USGS report says

By Jennifer Hiller of The San Antonio Express-New. Excerpts:

"About 3.5 million people live in areas with increased risk of earthquake damage tied to the oil and gas industry, according to the latest U.S. Geological Survey of quakes linked to human activity.

A large swath of Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, and southern Kansas continues to face an earthquake risk on par with California’s.

Overall, though, the earthquake hazard risk is lower than 2016, when the forecast placed more than 7 million people in the central or eastern U.S. in areas with potential for damaging earthquakes caused by human activity — the same portions of Oklahoma and Kansas at risk this year, plus the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

Because there were no damaging quakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth region in 2016, it was removed from the hazard list for this year. South Texas, where the Eagle Ford Shale oil field stretches 400 miles, also doesn’t face any increased risk of earthquake damage this year, according to the report."

"“The story is generally good in terms of potential damage,” said Mark Petersen, chief of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project."

"The Oklahoma Corporation Commission, that state’s oil and gas regulator, has placed limits on wastewater injection in some areas, and the USGS said those limits may have contributed to the drop in earthquakes last year."

"A 2016 study from researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and Southern Methodist University showed that oil and gas activity has triggered most of the earthquakes in Texas for decades. The study linked earthquakes to the energy industry for nearly as long as there has been oil drilling in Texas."

EPA Says There’s No Evidence Fracking Contaminates Groundwater

By Andrew Follett of The Daily Caller.

"After five years of study, the EPA still has no evidence hydraulic fracturing contaminates groundwater. EPA officials said in a Tuesday press conference that data gaps and uncertainties mean the agency can’t prove its previous assertion that there was zero evidence of national drinking water being contaminated. The agency acknowledged that it has no evidence of water actually being contaminated across the country by fracking. 

 

EPA also said in the press call it worked with environmental groups to create the study.
“EPA’s report blows apart the anti-fracking campaign’s most common claim, namely that hydraulic fracturing is polluting groundwater all across America,” Dr. Katie Brown, a researcher at the pro-industry group Energy In Depth, said in a statement. “This study took five years to complete, and the EPA found nothing to suggest that fracking is a serious risk to groundwater.”

EPA’s new study removed a previous conclusion that the agency “did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”

The agency’s draft version of the five-year study published in June 2015 contained that conclusion, which the agency says was stripped from the final version of the report due to lack of empirical data to support it.

Numerous other scientific studies from regulatory bodies, academics and the U.S. Geological Survey have determined that there is ample evidence that fracking hasn’t contaminated drinking water.

Even studies supported by environmentalists have found no effect on water quality from fracking.

A three-year study by the University of Cincinnati published in February found fracking couldn’t contaminate groundwater, even though it was paid for by environmentalists.

“Our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results,” Amy Townsend-Small, the Cincinnati study’s lead researcher, told Newsweek in April. “We haven’t seen anything to show that wells have been contaminated by fracking.”

Environmentalists responded to these studies, saying, “millions of Americans know that fracking contaminates groundwater and for the EPA to report any differently only proves that the greatest contamination from the industry comes from its influence and ownership of our government.”

Environmental groups blame fracking for just about everything, including droughts, drinking water contamination, flaming tap-water, poverty, income inequality, and even low sperm counts."

Fear-based attacks target oil and gas industry

Article by David Blackmon. From the San Antonio Express-News, 2-17-14. David Blackmon is managing director of Strategic Communications. Excerpts:

"Now, here are some things the Ceres report and media stories did not tell you:

A recent story in the Houston Chronicle pointed out that the city of Houston alone loses about 22 billion gallons of fresh water in a calendar year due to leaks in its municipal pipeline system;

Texas is home to 19 coal-fired power plants. The combined annual water use of two of them exceeds the total used for Eagle Ford frac jobs in 2013;

Rusty Todd, a UT professor, pointed out to readers of the Wall Street Journal that Texans consume 18 times more water for their lawns than the highest estimates of water use by the oil and gas industry for frac jobs. The EPA estimates Americans consume 9 trillion gallons of water for their lawns every year.

As the Express-News pointed out in its story on the Ceres report, the Texas Water Conservation Board estimates total oil and gas water usage in the state is less than 1 percent of overall water used in the state."

"in 2011, more than 5 billion gallons of oil and gas industry water use came from recycled or brackish water, efforts that have increased dramatically in the last three years."