Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Regulation | Statewide PA

Center for Sustainable Shale Dev Gets Grant to Keep Going
April 23, 2015April 23, 2015

A spot of good news for the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD). The CSSD has struggled to obtain funding after Mamma Teresa Heinz Kerry, the William Penn Foundation and the quacks at PennFuture all pulled their funding for the group (see PAI Says 3rd Enviro Group – PennFuture – Abandoned CSSD). The Richard King Mellon Foundation threw the CSSD a lifeline by donating (see CSSD Thrown a Lifeline from Richard King Mellon Foundation). Now comes word that the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation has renewed their support with another one-year grant…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | New York | Statewide NY

Cuomo’s Response to Upstate on Fracking: Shut Up, New York
April 13, 2015April 13, 2015

New York Post yesterday takes direct aim at the folly of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s frack ban. It calls him out for promoting an “economic development” program that so far has spent $28 million on advertising and has created 78 jobs ($368,000 per job). Cuomo is an utter failure on so many levels. In talking about the frack ban, we loved this particular passage from the column (and you will too)…
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Air Quality | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA

Johns Hopkins Says PA Fracking Causing High Radon in Nearby Homes
April 9, 2015April 9, 2015

Johns Hopkins University researchers are fresh out with a “fracked natural gas will give you cancer from radon” study. In the latest attack on fracking, published in Environmental Health Pespectives and titled “Predictors of Indoor Radon Concentrations in Pennsylvania, 1989–2013” (full copy below), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers rather simplistically say that levels of radon in Pennsylvania homes have been going up since 2004–when the first Marcellus Shale well was drilled in the state and the likely source is Marcellus Shale wells. They say prior to 2004, levels of radon in PA homes was pretty much steady-state–that it did not increase. Since the “big thing” that’s happened over the past decade is a lot of Marcellus drilling, voilà, must be those nasty frackers are the source. They also notice that homes closer to fracked shale wells have higher concentrations of radon than homes not close to fracked shale wells. We’re fully in favor of public health research–we just wish it was a little more rigorous than what passes for research at the anti-drilling Johns Hopkins…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD

Maryland Republican Senator Votes to Delay Fracking (Say What?)
April 8, 2015April 8, 2015

Another “with friends like these, who needs enemies” stories when it comes to fracking in Maryland. It had seemed as though fracking in the Old Line state might take off–perhaps not soon, but at least at some point in the next year or two (see Maryland Gets Ready to Frack! Gov O’Malley Files New Regulations). We should have known former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a lefty Democrat, only issued new fracking regs on his way out of office because he wants to run for president (he never wanted fracking). Still, we take our victories any way we can get them. But then the House and Senate started larding up the issue by passing all sorts of bills that would throttle or even prevent fracking. Last week the Maryland House passed a moratorium for three years, and on Monday of this week, the Maryland Senate passed a mortatorium for two years. The curious thing is that Maryland Republican State Senator George Edwards, whose district in Western Maryland is about the only district that would conceivably see fracking, voted FOR the two year moratorium! He supposedly supports fracking. Wait…did we miss something? Did logic and common sense just go out the window? More politics as usual?…
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Economic Impact | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Research

Nonpartisan Brookings Research Finds Huge Benefits from Fracking
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

The nonpartisan Washington, DC-based think tank the Brookings Institution recently published a detailed paper on the enormous benefits of shale gas to American society as a whole. Titled “Welfare and Distributional Implications of Shale Gas” (full copy below), the research paper finds that the average American household that burns gas now saves $200 per year on the cost of that gas, a cumulative economic impact of adding $13 billion more in disposable income into the economy. In fact, as of 2013, Brookings finds the “fracking revolution” as they call it, has improved the economic well-being of consumers a staggering $74 billion per year. All because of the miracle of fracking…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Cuyahoga County | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Litigation | Ohio | Regulation

Broadview Heights, OH Moms: Don’t Frack With Us
April 7, 2015April 7, 2015

Three weeks ago anti-drillers in the Cleveland suburb of Broadview Heights were handed a crushing defeat in which a County Common Pleas Court judge struck down a so-called community “bill of rights”–the only “right” of which was to deny legitimate oil and gas drillers the ability to conduct business. We pointed out what sore losers anti-drillers are (see OH Antis Handed Crushing Defeat in Broadview Hghts Home Rule Case). The immediate reaction from the small group of antis in Broadview Heights was to engage in borderline sedition–calling the government and the courts illegitimate. They’ve appeared to dial back that rhetoric just a tad (perhaps their lawyer told them to pipe down), but they’re still PO’d (personally offended). Last night Mothers Against Drilling In Our Neighborhood (MADION) held a rally to spout and vent…
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Allegheny County | Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

Funny! NY Fractivist Steingraber Says Fracking is a “Feminist Issue”
April 6, 2015April 5, 2015

Bet you didn’t know that fracking is a “feminist issue” did you? Why? Well, we suppose because it’s mostly men who do the fracking. Men are the frackers and presumably women (meaning Mother Earth) are the fracked. Almost sounds like rape, doesn’t it? That’s exactly how it’s intended to sound by the likes of the bizarre and getting more so by the day Sandra Steingraber, the so-called “scholar in residence” at Ithaca College. Although Steingraber is on staff at IC, she doesn’t actually teach anything. She’s paid to parade around to events like today’s lecture at the University of Pittsburgh, titled “Fracking is a Feminist Issue: Women Confronting Fossil Fuels and Petrochemicals in an Age of Climate Emergency.” Honest to God you can’t make this stuff up. Words just really can’t convey the lunacy of liberals like Steingraber when they go completely off the rails as she has so obviously done. Rather than try to tell you how idiotic this is, we’ll just share with you the exact words they use to describe tonight’s “lecture”…
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Allegheny County | CONSOL Energy | Energy Companies | Energy Services | Halliburton | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania

CONSOL Begins Fracking at Pittsburgh Airport, Using New Tech
April 2, 2015April 2, 2015

Yesterday CONSOL Energy began fracking operations on Pad #2 at the Pittsburgh International Airport. That’s a pretty big deal in and of itself–the fact that fracking has begun under airport property. You may recall that CONSOL paid the airport a $50 million signing bonus and when everything is done, they will drill 47 wells on 6 pads (see CONSOL Energy Reveals Drilling Plan for Pittsburgh Airport). After royalties come in, the airport says it will make upward of a staggering $1 billion in revenue from the deal. This is a high profile project for CONSOL, so they’re pushing the technology to ensure environmental impacts are as absolutely minimal as they can be–including air emissions. The big news coming from yesterday, aside from the fact they’ve begun to frack, is HOW they’re doing the fracking. CONSOL is using oilfield services company Halliburton (cue sinister sounding music and flash a picture of Dick Cheney with horns). Halliburton is using brand new equipment to perform the fracking that is “fully compliant with the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 Tier 4F emissions standard for non-road, high-horsepower engines.” That is, it’s really really efficient and low-emissions equipment that will reduce air pollution from the operation by an estimated 36%…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Equitable Origin: Another Organization Wants to Regulate Fracking
March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

It seems everybody and his brother (and sister) want to regulate shale drilling in the U.S. The latest group attempting to set itself up as some sort of standard is Equitable Origin (EO), which originated in South America and has offices in both New York City and Bogata, Columbia. EO has been around since 2009 trying to horn in on regulating conventional oil and gas drilling in this country by arrogantly setting up a so-called standard that they hope everybody will just adopt, called the EO100 Standard. Two weeks ago EO introduced an update to that standard called EO100.1 for Shale Oil and Gas Operators (full copy below). It will, of course, go nowhere. The interesting thing to MDN is the increasing number of organizations who want to regulate what is Constitutionally a state’s right to regulate…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

Dem Congress Members Collude with White House to Target Fracking
March 31, 2015March 31, 2015

It was easy to predict–so easy, in fact we did predict it back in 2012. The “it” is the federal effort to regulate all of fracking and oil and gas drilling in the U.S. (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking). The Obama White House and EPA have desired to control fracking for years. Since Republicans controlled the House, Obama couldn’t push through a complete takeover of fracking (although increasingly he ignores the law and does what he wants anyway, petulant man-child that he is). Obama’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just released their final rules for fracking on federal lands (see BLM Introduces “Final” Fracking Rules for Fed Lands – 3 Yrs Late). In a well-timed move (collusion), five Congressional Democrats introduced legislation that would put the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in control of fracking–usurping the states and their Constitutional rights to do so. One of the five is, shamefully, Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Research | Statewide PA

Syracuse U Study: Fracking Doesn’t Cause Methane in PA Water Wells
March 30, 2015March 30, 2015

You can’t tell us there isn’t political bias in the world of so-called hard science and whether or not important research gets reported. In 2011 Duke University published a shoddy “study” that attempted to show a link between the presence of 68 shale wells and high levels of methane in nearby groundwater supplies (see MDN In-depth: Duke University Study Links Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling with Methane Contamination of Water Wells). That study got all sorts of coverage in the media. After their sloppy work was exposed by a number of scientists, the same group doubled down to try and salvage what little credibility they had left by publishing a second study in 2013 concluding the same thing (see Duke Study #2: Drilling Causes Methane Migration in Water Wells?). More media fanfare of “See, it really is true!” There were several fatal flaws in Duke’s research: they cherry picked the wells they used, they used a small data set (68 water wells in the first study, 141 in the second), and they had no baseline measurements–no “before and after” measurements to know if the methane was already present (as it so often is in northeastern PA). So what if some real researchers were to come along and use a data set hundreds of times larger (data on 11,000+ northeast PA water wells) and what if that data has baseline information–the before picture. Seems like that would settle it, right? That would address the weaknesses and shortfalls of the previous, shoddy research. Such a study was just published in the peer reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology…
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Anti-Drilling/Fossil Fuel | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Maryland | Regulation | Statewide MD

Maryland’s Democrat House & Senate Pass Anti-Fracking Bills
March 25, 2015March 25, 2015

On his way out the door of the governor’s mansion in Maryland, then-Gov. Martin O’Malley decided to issue new rules to allow fracking (see Maryland Gets Ready to Frack! Gov O’Malley Files New Regulations). Which at the time we thought was really odd. O’Malley is an anti-drilling Democrat who obstructed fracking for the past four years he was in office. Why the change of heart on his way out the door? Now we know. He wants to run for president–and no one can run for president on a platform of stopping shale drilling. No matter what his motivation–what counts is that Maryland is seeing movement toward using the miracle of fracking. Except now both the Maryland House and Senate have just passed anti-fracking bills, one of which would slap a new moratorium on fracking for yet another three years. The good news is that Maryland’s new governor, Republican Larry Hogan, is pro-fracking and sure to veto any such nonsense…
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CNG/LNG | Energy Services | GASFRAC | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Millennium Stimulation

GASFRAC Bankruptcy Dims LPG Waterless Fracking; LNG Fracking Debuts
March 25, 2015March 25, 2015

In an effort to minimize the impact of shale drilling on the environment, perhaps the biggest prize of all is to figure out a viable alternative to using water in fracking. As MDN has pointed out numerous times–there’s nothing wrong with using water, as long as you recycle it and/or properly dispose of it. Water is used because it’s economical to do so, and it’s one of the best fluids to get the fracking job done. But still, there are locations, like the western part of the country, that are water-constrained. Plus, it would sure be nice to reduce all of those truck trips to the well pad. One technology that seemed to hold promise was liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) fracking, pioneered by Canadian company GASFRAC. The problem is, GASFRAC is close to the end of being sold off in bankruptcy court (see Bankrupt Waterless Fracking Co GASFRAC Sold to “Third Party”). Does the end of GASFRAC also mean the end of waterless fracking? Perhaps not. An intriguing new LNG (liquefied natural gas) fracking technology is now on the horizon…
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Energy Companies | Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Pennsylvania | Range Resources Corp | Statewide PA | Washington County

Range Resource Secret to Drilling More Productive Wells for Less $
March 24, 2015March 24, 2015

Every year drillers get better at what they do. They experiment, they learn, they grow. Here’s an example from Range Resources. Range went back to a well pad they previously drilled with five wells and drilled two more. The two new wells used a different technique. Comparing the first year of production from the new wells with the first year of the original wells, the two new wells produced 53% more natural gas (per well) than the old wells did. Tell us again, peak oil/gas theorists, how the shale boom is just a flash in the pan and will be all gone by the end of this decade. Here’s more details on how Range increased production by 53%–what their “secret” is to drilling more productive wells using LESS money per well…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Public Opinion

Gallup Poll on Fracking Shows it to be a Partisan/Political Issue
March 24, 2015March 24, 2015

Gallup is out with a nationwide poll that asks this question: Do you favor or oppose hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” as a means of increasing the production of natural gas and oil in the U.S.? The headline that news organizations are reporting is that across all age groups and party affiliations, it’s a 40/40 split–40% favor fracking and 40% oppose it. If you dig a little deeper, you find this should be the real headline: Republicans favor fracking, Democrats oppose it. If you dig deeper still, you’ll find those who have grown a brain (50+ years old) are in favor of fracking, while inexperienced (and frankly dumber) young people oppose it. That about sums up the poll numbers (see them below). At least, those are the poll numbers shared by Gallup. They don’t bother to share the cross-tabs–the underlying details of the poll. We’d love to see it broken out by region–or by state. Did Gallup weight the poll with people from New England or California and under-represent places like Texas and North Dakota? We don’t know. Therefore we don’t know how truly reflective this poll is of “average” American opinion…
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Hydraulic Fracturing | Industrywide Issues | Regulation

BLM Introduces “Final” Fracking Rules for Fed Lands – 3 Yrs Late
March 23, 2015March 23, 2015

Last Friday the Dept. of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its final version of new fracking rules for drillers who frack on public and trial lands in the U.S. The BLM has been working on the new rules since 2012 (see BLM Issues Proposed New Rule for Fracking Federal Lands). After negative feedback, BLM reworked the rules several times since the original draft in May 2012. Why does this issue matter for MDN readers? For one, there is some federal land in the northeast–not a lot–but some, that may be impacted. The larger reason is that clearly the overreaching activist federal government under Barack H. Obama has its sights set on federal control of fracking–not just on federal land but all private land as well (see Feds ‘Hope’ States will Use BLM Rules for ALL Fracking). Yes it’s a stretch and ambitious, but then, who in their right mind would have thought Democrat Congress members would have sold out their constituents and passed Obamacare? In other words, stranger things have happened. We need to pay attention to what the feds are doing with fracking. So far, both the oil and gas industry and the so-called environmental movement are not happy with the final rules. In fact, the industry immediately filed a lawsuit to stop the new rules from taking effect–and “environmentalists” like the vapid Mark Ruffalo are kicking up a fuss…
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