Hydraulic Fracturing

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    PA Gov Wolf Signs Acid Mine Water for Fracking Law

    it's a miracleIt’s a miracle! Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf actually did something right–he signed Senate Bill (SB) 875 into law yesterday. You may recall on Tuesday we told you that the PA Senate and House had passed SB875 and sent it on to Wolf for his signature (see PA Acid Mine Water Bill Passes, Waiting for Gov. Wolf’s Signature). The bill legally protects Marcellus Shale drillers should they decide to use acid mine water (AMW) as a source of water for fracking. Anti-drilling groups will only be too happy to launch frivolous lawsuits against drillers should they use AMW. This bill prevents those shenanigans from happening. It is a win/win for the environment–helping to lessen the amount of fresh water needed in fracking, and cleaning up a huge problem in the state of millions of gallons of AMW flowing out of abandoned coal mines. Congratulations to State Senator Camera Bartolotta (Republican) for writing and sponsoring the bill, and for making it happen. Too bad she isn’t the governor of PA right now…
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    Marcellus/Utica Frac Plug Co. Sells Out to Venture Capital Firm

    bigger fish smaller fishHybrid Tool Solutions has just sold itself to a venture capital firm by the name of Hastings Equity Partners for an undisclosed amount of money. Hybrid Tool, headquartered in Oklahoma, has major operations in the Marcellus/Utica. The company has a patent pending, unique process for conducting frac plug drill outs. What the heck is that? Along the horizontal section of an underground bore hole, plugs are inserted every so often in order to wall off a section of the pipe where fracking will be done. The plugs divide the pipe into sections so each section can be worked on separately–starting with the section furthest out (the “toe”). After all sections are fracked, a drill is put down the hole to drill out the frac plugs and release the gas to the wellhead, putting the well into production. It is that process of drilling out the frac plugs that Hybrid performs, having done over 800 wells in the Marcellus/Utica over the past two years. By selling themselves (essentially getting new funding), they plan to expand beyond the northeast into other shale plays…
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    PA Acid Mine Water Bill Passes, Waiting for Gov. Wolf’s Signature

    acid mine waterIn June MDN told you about an idea “whose time has come”–legislation in Pennsylvania that will allow drillers to use acid mine water (AMW) from abandoned coal mines as fracking fluid, reducing the need for using fresh water sources (see New Bill Allows Drillers to Use Acid Mine Water for Fracking in PA). The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Camera Bartolotta (Republican), would let drillers use AMW without fear that they will be sued from sun-up to sundown by radical environmentalists. The current laws on the books say “if you touch it, you own it” and drillers are afraid if they begin using AMW, litigious lawyers for Big Green groups like Food & Water Watch, Delaware Riverkeeper, Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council and others will take them to court and try to bankrupt them–claiming the AMW, even if treated, is causing negative environmental and health issues. Senate Bill (SB) 875 would fix that problem. VERY good news: SB875 was passed by both the Senate and House last week and sent to Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk for his signature. Since Wolf plays dirty and uses political blackmail (holding up the state budget over a Marcellus severance tax), there’s no telling when, or if, he’ll sign SB875 since it “benefits” the Marcellus industry…
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    Anti-Fossil Fuelers Disrupt Shale Event, Won’t Listen to Science

    fingers in earsWhat is it about some anti-drillers (actually, anti-fossil fuelers) that makes them closed-minded and unreasonable? A Colorado research chemist and two technology students from Singapore set out to answer the question of whether or not shale oil should be produced. All three attended a 10-week intensive course focusing on Utah’s vast oil reserves (no, this story is not about the Marcellus/Utica per se, but it is illustrative nonetheless). Although the three had intended on submitting a research paper at the 35th Annual Oil Shale Symposium being held yesterday and today in Salt Lake City, the research paper ended up being a 116-page e-book they’re selling on Amazon, called “Oil Shale: Treasure Trove or Pandora’s Box.” The authors, with no preconceived outcome before taking the 10-week course, objectively conclude that extracting shale oil in Utah or other locations “is not going to be some sort of environmental Armageddon. That is not true.” Protesters at the event, however, don’t want to hear reasonable talk. A group of anti-fossil fuelers, rather than sit and listen to the evidence and keep and open mind, rose during the event–a private (not public) event–and illegally disrupted the event with chanting and singing. Yep, stick you fingers in your ears and holler “la la la la, I can’t hear you!” instead of open your mind and use your little gray cells to try and comprehend the miracle that is fracking and the miracle that is fossil fuel energy…
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    NY Landowners Plan to Use Bankrupt GASFRAC’s Waterless Frack Tech

    giving up not an optionIn September MDN brought you the news that the buyer of the bankrupt Canadian waterless fracking company, GASFRAC, is shelving the waterless propane fracking product the company was known for (see New Owner “Mothballs” GASFRAC’s Waterless LPG Technology). Our comment at the time was: “The mothballing of the GASFRAC technology raises and interesting question for the effort to frack a well in Tioga County, NY, where a group of farmers had planned to use LPG fracking technology on a test well (see NY Landowners File to Frack Horizontal Well w/Waterless Tech). We sure hope they weren’t pinning their hopes on GASFRAC.” An article in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin tells us that yes, the Tioga County landowners who want to frack New York’s first Marcellus well were–and still are–planning to use the GASFRAC technology. According to a rep from the Tioga landowner group, they have access to the equipment and technology from GASFRAC to do an LPG frack should they get a green light from the state…
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    New Study: Fracking Does Not Affect Water Wells in Marcellus/Utica

    researchIn March of this year, Syracuse University Professor Dr. Donald Siegel published the results of an extensive research study that found fracking of Marcellus Shale wells in Pennsylvania does not cause methane in water wells (see Syracuse U Study: Fracking Doesn’t Cause Methane in PA Water Wells). It was an enormously important work because it’s real science, based on the largest known database of well water samples, over 11,000 of them, taken by Chesapeake Energy both before and after drilling happened. Siegel has used Chessy’s enormous data set once again–this time over 20,000 samples–to conduct a second study. Siegel has just published that study in the peer reviewed journal Applied Geochemistry. The new study is titled “Pre-drilling water-quality data of groundwater prior to shale gas drilling in the Appalachian Basin: Analysis of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation dataset” (abstract below). The new study finds that the quality of water in private water wells near fracked shale wells in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia–across the entire Marcellus/Utica region–is the same after shale drilling as it was before shale drilling. That is, shale drilling has no effect on the quality of water in private water wells close to shale drilling activities…
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    Federal Judge Blocks BLM Rules for Fracking on Federal Lands

    judge says noFinally a spot of good news in the never-ending battle to keep the federal government out of the business of regulating oil and gas drilling. Going all the way back to 2012, the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency that sits under the umbrella of the U.S. Dept. of Interior (DOI), proposed draft rules for fracking on federally-controlled land (see BLM Issues Proposed New Rule for Fracking Federal Lands). There are some federal lands in the Marcellus/Utica–but not much. However, it’s the larger principle at stake: Will we allow the federal government under the Obama Administration to continue violating the U.S. Constitution, which specifically leaves oil and gas regulation to the individual states? Since 2012 several drafts of BLM’s fracking regulations have been released, the final version in March of this year (see BLM Introduces “Final” Fracking Rules for Fed Lands – 3 Yrs Late). The BLM adopted the new rules in March with the intent of enforcing them, but they were quickly sued in federal court by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, the Western Energy Alliance, the Ute Indian tribe and the states of Wyoming, North Dakota, Colorado and Utah. A federal judge ruled yesterday that the BLM cannot enforce their new fracking rules pending the outcome of the larger case. The judge believes the states (and IPAA and WEA) will prevail in their case–saying that Congress has not specifically granted the BLM the power to regulate fracking. Perhaps this will also put the breaks on the out-of-control EPA in its quest to regulate fracking…
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    Sad: NC County Passes 3-Year Moratorium on Fracking

    heartbreakerIt’s heartbreaking, but not surprising, to see residents in a North Carolina make the same mistakes made by residents in New York State. Monday night the Stokes County (NC) Board of Commissioners voted to enact a three-year moratorium on potential shale drilling in the county. Well-meaning but completely ignorant residents agitated and cajoled the commissioners into voting for no drilling. Stokes, located in northern NC, is part of the Dan River sub-basin, which in turn is part of the larger Triassic Basin. Earlier this year the state cleared the way for fracking to begin (see Triassic Park: North Carolina Becomes 34th State to Frack Shale). The ignorant agitators are happy with the moratorium as a first step, but ultimately (like New York) hope they can ban fracking altogether…
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    Phelim McAleer to Release GasHoax Ahead of Josh Fox’s GASWORK

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    Tomorrow the Joseph Goebbels of the anti-fracking movement, Josh Fox (of Gasland fame) will release a new short fictional movie called “GASWORK – The Fight for C.J.’s Law.” The new propaganda film by Fox supposedly “investigates the dangerous working conditions in the oil and gas fields.” Er, well, yeah–it is dangerous! Which is why there’s such an emphasis on safety training by drilling companies. At any rate, Fox’s piece of propaganda, meant to smear fossil fuels, will air on a teeny tiny network called MSNBC (a network virtually no one watches anymore), at 8 pm Thursday during the “All In with Chris Hayes” program (a program we’d never even heard of before today). It’s important to point out Fox’s history of lies when it comes to the issue of fracking and natural gas drilling. No one does that better than Phelim McAleer, a real filmmaker who made the fabulous documentary FrackNation. Phelim is back to counter Josh’s latest propaganda with his own short film called GasHoax. Phelim plans to release his film tomorrow morning, ahead of Fox’s release, so people can know the true story of who Fox is and how he operates…
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    Riverkeeper/Others Demand PA Gov Wolf Stop All Fracking/Pipelines

    we demandTHE Delaware Riverkeeper, Maya van Rossum, and a bunch of her anti-fossil fuel pals delivered a letter on Wednesday to America’s most liberal governor, PA Gov. Tom Wolf, asking him to immediately suspend all further Marcellus drilling in the state and while he’s at it, stop building any new pipelines. They also “demand” (their words) that Wolf shut down his Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force which he created back in May (see Disaster on the Horizon: PA Gov Wolf Creates Pipeline Task Force). The letter states, “Our homes, neighborhoods, water, air, land, precious environment and the health and safety of our families are threatened by each new shale gas well drilled and fracked, each new mile of pipeline or pipeline expansion, each new compressor station, natural gas power plant, storage facility, LNG facility, or processing facility currently being proposed and built throughout the East Coast. Drilling and fracking operations in Pennsylvania and throughout the Marcellus Shale are driving that build-out of gas infrastructure.” These people are full of Barbara Streisand up to their eyeballs. Pathological liars. Below we have a press release from the so-called 115 organizations signing the letter along with a copy of the letter itself sent to Wolf…
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    New Study Evaluates Stressors on Streams from Shale Drilling

    researchA new research paper has just been published that purports to evaluate potential “stressors” on streams from unconventional (i.e. shale) oil and gas drilling–including drilling in the Marcellus/Utica. The paper is titled “Stream Vulnerability to Widespread and Emergent Stressors: A Focus on Unconventional Oil and Gas” (full copy embedded below) and is written by a group of researchers from the University of Arkansas, University of Central Arkansas, University of Wyoming, Wilkes University, the U.S. Geological Survey and Waterborne Environmental Inc. In a cursory review the paper does indeed appear to be heavy on science and absent the usual political arguments. However, the one great negative for this paper is that it is published in the online “journal” PLOS ONE, a publication with very low academic standards and home to a number of previous “fracking will kill you” types of “research” papers (see Another Day, Another “Study” Saying Marcellus Kills Nature; and Study Tries to Link Marcellus Fracking to Low Birth Weight Babies; and New Study Claims Marcellus Drilling Causes Serious Health Issues). Previous junk science “studies” published on PLOS ONE cast doubt on this study, but we bring it to you so you can judge for yourself whether or not this latest research is credible and useful in guiding policy and regulatory decisions…
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    Univ of Michigan Final Report on Fracking: It Can be Done Safely

    MI ReportTwo years ago MDN reported on a University of Michigan research project called the Hydraulic Fracturing in Michigan Integrated Assessment (see Univ of Michigan Reports Explore Future of Fracking in MI). The aim of the two-year project is to help guide policy on shale drilling in the state. It actually ended up taking three years, but the final report was just released (full copy embedded below). The report does not advocate for any particular position, pro or anti-fracking. It simply reports findings and, you know, actual science. Let the policy makers use the information to formulate rules and regulations. Michigan, which does contain shale layers, including the Utica, that may one day be commercially tapped, stands in stark contrast to New York where politics got involved and corrupted the process. In Michigan the science determines the outcomes–but sadly, not in New York. The Michigan study shows that with strict environmental regulations, fracking can be done safely…
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    WSJ Reporter Russell Gold to Keynote Fracking Forum at WVSU

    Russell Gold - Wall Street JournalNext Tuesday, Sept. 29, West Virginia State University (WVSU) will sponsor a forum on fracking and shale at WVSU’s James C. Wilson University Union in Institute, WV. The forum, titled “Fracking: In the Beginning Was the Source Rock” is free and open to the public. Keynoting the event will be award-winning Wall Street Journal energy reporter Russell Gold, who authored the book “The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World.” This is a unique opportunity to hear (and ask questions) of someone with expert insights into the shale revolution in the Marcellus/Utica and beyond–and what he sees on the horizon for the future…
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    Will Fracking Come to Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest? Maybe!

    Sherwood ForestQuestion: Where did Robin Hood live? Answer: Sherwood Forest. Everybody knows that! Don’t look now but those evil, vile, filthy frackers want to begin fracking in Sherwood Forest. Yes, THE Sherwood Forest where the mythical Robin Hood once roamed with his merry band of outlaws. Believe it or not, and against all odds, the United Kingdom recently re-elected a conservative government, by a strong majority, and that government is pushing forward with a program to encourage shale drilling in merry ole’ England–including in Sherwood Forest…
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    Group of “Religious” Leaders Asks PA Gov Wolf to End All Fracking

    politics religionFresh back from Shale Insight in Philadelphia, MDN editor Jim Willis is always pumped after hearing about the technology and safeguards and careful treatment the shale energy industry uses in extracting shale gas. These people are true professionals who care about the work they do–and they want to do it right. They care about the environment. They want to protect the land and our natural resources. They live in the communities where fracking is done. On the other hand, the people who profess to care about such things, anti-drillers, repeatedly prove themselves to be a) mind-numbed robots who believe whatever their movement leaders tell them, b) stark raving mad. Example: A group of extremists who happen to be “religious” have penned a letter to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf asking him to stop all fracking in the state because they fervently believe (wrongly) that fracking contributes to the mythological existence of man-made global warming. Mainstream media picks this garbage up and repeat it, like it’s a real news story…
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    Heartland Institute Criticizes Pope’s Anti-Fossil Fuel Message

    Pope Francis - No Fracking SupporterLet’s be honest, shall we? The Catholic Church has a Marxist as its leader in Pope Francis–which is a truly sad thing for a great and significant denomination. Pope Francis, nee Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is from Argentina and he supports Marxism, as many do in South America. Pope Francis hates capitalism and appears to be more interested in advancing socialist political policies here on earth than he does in serving Jesus Christ and saving souls. The current situation with Pope Francis distresses many Catholics we personally know. The Pope has thrown in his lot with climate change liars–those who say mankind is causing the earth to warm up–because the so-called climate change movement is the new home of anti-capitalists (i.e. Marxists, i.e. Communists). Scientific fact: global average temperatures haven’t risen now for 18 years. Yesterday, The Heartland Institute participated in a Constitution Day event in Philadelphia to call attention to the Pope’s coming visit to Philly (a visit made possible via fossil fuels) and the Pope’s error-filled teachings against fossil fuels and capitalism…
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