The environmentalist who praised new natural gas development and demanded Congress use as much of the stuff as possible is now teaming up with Gasland director Josh Fox to shut down the natural gas industry? That’s quite a flip flop.
The EPA released another round of water testing data on Dimock today and the results can’t be encouraging for litigants or anti-natural gas activists because there’s still no evidence of a significant problem with the town’s water.
The culture of innovation continues to bring down the cost and lighten the environmental footprint of responsible oil and gas development. For example, companies are starting to convert the machinery at well sites from diesel to natural gas.
Mere months after former and future Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly tried to undermine the safety of hydraulic fracturing and shale development as a whole, he has now changed his tune.
The authors had a chance to call out the Environmental Protection Agency and others for playing fast-and-loose with the facts on methane emission estimates, but they didn’t take it. To their credit, the authors at least warned that those estimates are lousy.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today released additional data from Dimock, Pa. that indicate the water in this rural town does not pose a threat to residents’ health. The testing confirms two earlier statements made by the agency: The first made in reviewing previous DEP and Cabot water testing data and the second after releasing results on 11 wells sampled by the agency itself. All EPA test results released to date can be found here.
One of the least understood impacts of natural gas development is its impact on the water cycle. We often hear about how much water is required to hydraulically fracture a well (as much as five million gallons) and how much of the water (as much 80%) stays underground. Many think this water is irretrievably lost, that is to say forever removed from the water cycle, because we are leaving it a mile or more underground. This is true, up to a point, but it’s far from the full story, because the combustion of natural gas yields water vapor that goes into the atmosphere, and a lots of it.
When it comes to the issue of responsibly developing oil and natural gas resources from shale, we’ve seen a lot of wacky things come out of Ithaca, New York over the past couple years. So it was no surprise when a pair of veterinarians associated with Cornell wrote an article attacking shale development…
Earlier this week, New York Riverkeeper Paul Gallay flew clear across the country (expending 2,500 pounds of CO2 in the process, one way) to participate in a panel discussion on natural gas and hydraulic fracturing during the Wall Street Journal’s annual ECO:nomics conference in California. It was quite a commitment to make — especially considering he wasn’t even an invited panelist. But Paul didn’t let any silly stuff like that get in the way.
The economic benefits and consumer savings brought to Pennsylvania by responsible Marcellus Shale development are well-known. Perhaps less well known is the role natural gas development has played in bringing families together and keeping children and grandchildren close by. This is due to the job opportunities now available, right here in our area. No longer do our graduates have to leave home to do well.
