Free Republic

J.R. Ewing never mentioned ceramic proppant on “Dallas.” Nor is it part of the plot in “Promised Land.” But that’s Hollywood. Drilling in the vast shale fields of Texas, North Dakota and elsewhere in the United States may not look much different from the drilling many people remember from earlier booms, but the technology used to break apart shale rocks – and hold the cracks open, allowing fossil fuels to flow into the well – has created a new wave of entrepreneurs. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing allow companies to pull oil and natural gas from dense rock formations by...

Besides exploring for and producing energy resources, the energy industry is tasked with debunking myths and clarifying techniques used in hydraulic fracturing. ... According to proponents of hydraulic fracturing, the facts surrounding chemical use are clear – water and sand comprise the majority of the mixture used. The remaining components used to deliver the water down the wellbore and position the sand in fractures created in the formation – while they can probably be found in the kitchen cupboard – are proprietary ingredients. ~~snip~~“This is really a debate on a much larger scale; it has a bearing on the future...

The Obama administration will soon issue sweeping new environmental safety rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal land, setting a new standard that natural gas wells on all lands eventually could follow. The rules, which are likely to be unveiled by the Interior Department within days, are designed to address concerns that the method of extracting natural gas known as "fracking" can contaminate groundwater. Among other things, they create new guidelines for constructing wells and treating waste water, according to a draft of the proposed rules reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. ~~snip~~The fracking rules apply to natural gas drilling on...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn an administrative order it filed against Fort Worth-based Range Resources over water contamination in Parker County. The EPA filed the “imminent and substantial endangerment order” in December 2010 and said Range’s drilling in Parker County had caused or contributed to the contamination of at least two residential drinking water wells. The agency ordered Range to stop the contamination, provide drinking water to the two residences and provide methane gas monitors to the homeowners, among other measures. Range’s challenge against the order was pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit...

A state judge’s decision this week supporting the rights of individual towns to determine whether to allow hydraulic fracturing has added a new wrinkle to the fight over the natural gas drilling process in New York. Parties on all sides are trying to figure out what the ruling will mean, but a consensus emerged on Wednesday that there will be further court challenges and delays over when, how and where the process, known as hydrofracking, will be allowed in the state, and by whom. Officials of natural gas companies voiced concern that such local restrictions could render more areas of...

A study by Penn State researchers is being revised after test results apparently linking increased bromide in some water wells to Marcellus Shale gas drilling were traced instead to a lab error. An error notice was published on Nov. 22 on the website of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, which funded the study and released it in late October. According to the notice, an accredited laboratory contracted by the researchers incorrectly reported the bromide concentration data that was used in the original report. Updated data showed that increased bromide levels were recorded in one of 42 water wells, not seven...

San Leon Energy Plc, the natural gas explorer backed by billionaire George Soros and Blackrock Inc., expects its Polish shale licenses to be more profitable than U.S. gas deposits, the company's exploration director said. Read more: http://blogs.star-telegram.com/barnett_shale/2011/09/firm-backed-by-billionaire-george-soros-says-polish-shale-gas-to-be-more-profitable-than-us-.html#ixzz1YWNZWYM2

Issuing a one-year moratorium on "fracking," Gov. Chris Christie today issued a conditional veto of S-2576, recommending changes to the legislation that balances protecting New Jersey’s environment and drinking water and encouraging cleaner energy alongside the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. As currently written, S-2576 would permanently prohibit fracking in New Jersey, a drilling technique used for the exploration or production of natural gas, even as concurrent studies on the practice are underway by the federal government and no known natural gas deposits necessitating use of the fracking process have been proposed for development in New Jersey. “I...

So it turns out hydraulic fracturing — the natural-gas-extraction technique being used to good effect in Pennsylvania and elsewhere — might dirty up the air and maybe even the groundwater. Horrors! Surely this is the first time energy development has had deleterious environmental effects. Sure — the first time, except for every other time. The cold reality is that every energy-producing strategy, from wind and water to coal and nukes and even solar, does damage at some level. "Fracking," as hydraulic fracturing is known, seems to do less damage than most, and it's producing the cleanest-burning fossil fuel in staggering...

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, seeing increased domestic natural gas production as a linchpin in its long-term energy strategy, has named a panel of experts to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner. The administration hopes to avoid the safety and regulatory breakdowns that led to the Deepwater Horizon blowout a year ago as it oversees onshore drilling using hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has asked the panel’s seven experts, to be led by John Deutch, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and deputy...

More Print Critics of hydraulic fracturing were quick to pounce on last week's well blowout in Pennsylvania as proof that the controversial method of extracting natural gas is an environmental threat. That includes state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who just days earlier rashly overreached and vowed to sue the federal government unless it commits within 30 days to conducting a full review of regulations that would allow natural-gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin. At issue is fracking -- the controversial process in which a high-pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand is used to extract natural gas from rock...

Several Democratic senators said Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency should step up regulation of the natural gas industry because they are concerned that toxic chemicals used in drilling could enter the public water supply. In a Senate hearing, Democrats pressed the agency about the consequences of a fast-growing drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, that involves pumping chemicals and water deep underground to release gas deposits. “The industry has failed to meet minimal acceptable performance levels for protecting human health and the environment,” said Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and chairman of the Water and Wildlife...

A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude. Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day — more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now. This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within...

Oil and gas service companies injected tens of millions of gallons of diesel fuel into onshore wells in more than a dozen states from 2005 to 2009, Congressional investigators have charged. Those injections appear to have violated the Safe Water Drinking Act, the investigators said in a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday. The diesel fuel was used by drillers as part of a contentious process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of a mixture of water, sand and chemical additives — including diesel fuel — into rock formations deep underground. The process,...

Pennsylvania’s top environmental enforcement official said Tuesday that he is confident that wastewater discharged into rivers and streams by the booming natural gas industry hasn’t degraded the state’s drinking water. At least 3.6 million barrels of the ultra-salty, chemically tainted wastewater produced by gas drilling operations were discharged into state waterways in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to records reviewed by The Associated Press. Drinking water for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians is drawn from those rivers and streams. ... The state set new standards in August governing discharges by any new drilling waste treatment plants, but...

The United States has ample natural gas supplies to provide the nation's energy needs for the remainder of the century. The problem is that much of the natural gas is found in deep shale formations several thousand feet below the earth's surface. Geologists have known for years that the natural gas was there, but no one knew how to economically recover it. That has changed with the use of modern hydraulic fracturing technology combined with horizontal drilling techniques. Wind and other alternative energy get most of the attention from politicians and the media, but producing natural gas by hydraulic fracturing,...