Shale Gas is Playing Powerful Hand But its Biggest Enemy May be Itself

Ken Silverstein | Oct 26, 2013

Some big headlines are now highlighting the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are falling in the United States. Some even bigger ones are going to be written as to whether we should rely on shale gas to do this job, or whether this is creating an even greater issue down the road.

The United States and Canada are the two developed countries that are now able to access shale gas supplies, enabling the nations to better meet their own energy demands. The reserves are ripe and the technique to drill them out exists. Leave them in the ground or dig them out? The most prudent response is to use the natural resource but to adequately monitor it. After all, shale gas -- unconventional natural gas -- releases about half the emissions as coal that are regulated under the Clean Air Act, including carbon dioxide.

“In just a matter of years, thanks to shale, we’ve gone from energy scarcity to energy abundance,” says Michael Krancer, who used to lead Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection and whose comments were profiled in an Energy In Depth blog. “What’s more is that Marcellus gas production is equivalent to about two million barrels of oil per day, which exceeds the oil production of many OPEC countries."

Some recent stats: The U.S. Energy Information Administration indicates that carbon-related emissions dropped by 3.8 percent from 2011 to 2012 while gross domestic product product increased by 2.8 percent during that time. Those releases are at their lowest levels since 1994 and 12 percent less than the 2007 peak, the agency says. It specifically credits the increase in natural-gas fired generation.

The same agency says that shale gas in this country amounts to 7,299 trillion cubic feet. It adds that world shale technically recoverable resources outside this country are 20,451 trillion cubic feet. As a result and in this country, natural gas’ market share of the electric generation pie totals about 27 percent, which is expected to keep increasing. That growth is coming at the expense of coal-fired electricity.

To be clear, other nations hold more technically recoverable natural gas than does the United States. They are: China, Argentina and Algeria. Those nations, though, don’t have the ability to dig it out or to ship it around the world, something that the United States is about to do.

What’s more, exporting the natural gas in the form of liquefied natural gas would not just provide new markets for producers here but it would also help to alleviate Europe’s dependence on Russia’s Gazprom, which supplies about a quarter of the natural gas that the continent uses. Opportunities for alternative natural gas suppliers in Western Europe are therefore rising. Moreover, new pipeline construction is enabling the fuel easier passage between producers and suppliers, which could bring down international prices.

Oversight Ability

No doubt, the process by which the shale gas is developed is controversial. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a production technique that involves the high-pressure pumping of water, sand and chemicals deep underground so as to break free the natural gas.

Critics say that it does not just pollute the water but that it also requires vast amounts of water that is in short supply. Proponents counter that they spend enumerable resources ensuring it is totally safe, and that the states should continue to regulate the drilling process, not the feds.

“We accept new regulations all the time,” says Rock Zierman, of the California Independent Petroleum Association, in a phone interview. “We are Okay with new regulations as long as they are realistic and they are accomplishing something. But the federal government set up a system 30 years ago whereby it gave the states the power to regulate, and then it audits them.”



The EPA readily acknowledges that the states have played the lead role when it comes to natural gas development. But it is arguing that because shale gas is such a game changer that the federal government must work hand-in-hand with all the stakeholders to ensure that its extraction is safe and responsible.

For example, the administration says that it has the authority to regulate wastewater from oil and gas production under the Clean Water Act. It also wants to cut volatile organic compounds, or smog levels, by 25 percent and it says that it could be done by using proven technologies that can capture natural gas that currently escapes into the air -- gas that would be made available for sale. 


Meantime, the U.S. Department of Interior wants to require developers to make public the chemicals that they are using to frack on public lands. While some producers say that this would jeopardize their competitive positions, others are saying that doing so would help to meet their critics in the middle.

Conciliation and humility are called for here. Shale gas is playing a powerful hand right now, as evidenced by its economic possibilities and it climate progress. That positioning, however, could only be weakened by the industry’s own intractability.


Twitter: @Ken_Silverstein

Energy Central

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