Radical OH Groups Lie About Fracking & Asthma in Kids
Two radical environmental groups in Ohio–Ohio Environmental Council and the Clean Air Task Force–have just released a 100% bogus “report” that attempts to tie asthma in children to fracking. If lying to the public were a crime, they’d be in jail right now. Here’s how these sleazy groups make such a claim: They claim, from looking at medical records, that there are 7,129 childhood asthma attacks in the Columbus metro area, and 7,558 in the Cleveland metro area each year. Absolutely no context as to whether those numbers are higher or lower than elsewhere in the country, or whether or not the numbers are increasing year over year. These groups just toss out numbers. They claim the asthma attacks are because of smog in those cities. They further claim smog comes from burning oil and gas and ergo, childhood asthma attacks are the result of fracking, because fracking extracts more oil and gas which is burned and causes smog which causes asthma. It is a heaping mound of cow manure. The problem is that otherwise good news sources, like the Akron Beacon Journal, push this manure out as news…
Read More “Radical OH Groups Lie About Fracking & Asthma in Kids”
The University of Texas at Austin has just been awarded a $350,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct an 18-month review of a study they previously did of major American shale gas plays. Hey, getting paid to look at what you previously wrote is good work if you can get it! The previous study, called the “Shale Production and Reserve Study” looked at data from the Barnett, Fayetteville, Haynesville, and Marcellus natural gas plays. However, the data reviewed in the original study was only 4-6 years’ worth of data, depending on the play. Since the original study was completed, UTA-Austin now has access to an additional 2-4 years’ worth of data. In other words, the new data will help confirm, or not, the original conclusions. More data, better results and better conclusions. Here’s what UTA-Austin had to say about the new grant…
Is unconventional (i.e. shale) natural gas supply more responsive to price changes than conventional gas? A new research paper suggests that the answer is yes–specifically, almost three times as responsive, because shale gas wells are far more productive (2.7x more) than conventional gas wells. In “Trophy Hunting vs. Manufacturing Energy: The Price-Responsiveness of Shale Gas” (full copy below), researchers from Resources for the Future (RFF), a nonpartisan think tank devoted exclusively to natural resource and environmental issues, takes a look at how the “new way” of drilling multiple wells from a single pad, which is akin to a manufacturing process, is flattening out the supply curve. A flattened supply curve reduces price volatility–the wild up and down swings in the commodity price of natgas. While the focus of the paper is on how shale wells are leading to lower and more stable prices over the long term and does a deep dive into economic models, the paper also contains a good, basic primer on drilling a shale well. We found it a good read and wanted to share it with you…
A new report issued by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce addresses the question, “What If…Energy Production was Banned on Federal Lands and Waters?” (full copy below). The short answer to that question is, it would be an unmitigated disaster for this country. There is a movement underway by radical environmentalists with the catch phrase of “Keep It In The Ground”–meaning we should stop extracting oil and natural gas. It is an acutely ignorant position to take. The report says, “Instituting a ban on future federal-lands leasing and stopping the current production of these resources would increase energy prices for consumers by removing low-cost resources from the available supply stream. The impact would be immediate and severe to the U.S. economy, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and robbing the federal government and primarily eastern states of potentially billions of dollars in revenues in the form of lost royalties.” Keep It In The Ground boobs don’t own land and sip lattes at Starbucks in large cities with their radical friends. They don’t care about lost jobs and lost royalty revenue–because it doesn’t affect them. Opposing “nasty, dirty fossil fuels” makes them feel good about themselves. They are dangerously stupid. This report (read it below) illustrates just how catastrophic it would be to ban fossil fuel extraction on federal lands. The report finds that the U.S. economy would lose 400,000 jobs and $70 billion in annual GDP if we were to abandon energy development on public lands, as President Obama and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and the entire Democrat Party advocate…
Chemists at the University of Texas at Arlington published a new study last week that indicates certain activities on top of the ground at shale drilling sites are the cause of nasty emissions–and not the fracking process itself. The study, “Point source attribution of ambient contamination events near unconventional oil and gas development” published last week in Science of the Total Environment, found “highly variable levels of ambient BTEX, or benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylene compounds, in and around fracking gas drilling sites in the Eagle Ford shale region in South Texas.” BTEX compounds are nasty, and in high concentrations can be carcinogenic (cancer causing) and have harmful effects on the nervous system. The good news is that recognizing where BTEX emissions are coming from can lead to fixes. Nobody, the industry included, wants to harm workers or nearby residents’ health. We reckon this study under the category of “real science” that leads to industry improvements…
The Pennsylvania State Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) keeps track of emissions from various sources–including the shale industry. When drillers drill and pipeline companies pipe, the equipment used leaks nasty stuff into the air. Frankly it’s no different for any industrial activity or business. Even homes. We all emit stuff into the air. The question is, how much do we emit and does it rise to the level of being harmful? Yesterday the DEP released air emissions numbers for the shale industry for 2014–the most recent year in which they have completed data. What does it show? In 2014 the industry was still in an upswing–there were more wells drilled, more pipelines being added, etc. than in 2013. So it’s no surprise to learn that the shale industry as a whole emitted more emissions in 2014 than in 2013. What will be interesting is to see the 2015 numbers when they get released a year from now (the downturn began in 2015). With less drilling and piping, will air emissions go down? Stands to reason. At any rate, here’s what the DEP said yesterday about an increase in emitting nasty stuff by the drilling industry…
A West Virginia University engineering prof has just been awarded $110,000 to study methane aromatization. What’s that? It’s the process of turning methane, or natural gas, into “higher value products” like benzene and hydrogen. It’s not as easy as it may sound. If the good prof is successful, it may open up new markets in the northeast for our overabundant natural gas supplies. Here’s the lowdown…
Black & Veatch, a ginormous engineering, consulting and construction company, recently released their “2016 Strategic Directions: Electric Industry Report” (full copy below). The report captures Black & Veatch’s global engineering and thought leadership to examine how distributed electric generation, the low price of natural gas and modern customer information systems represent growth opportunities for the electric industry–even as security concerns are on the rise and legacy power generation sources (i.e. coal powered plants) are fading away, being replaced by new natgas technology. One trend MDN editor Jim Willis did not foresee when he started writing about the Marcellus industry back in January 2009 was the rise of natgas-fired electric generating plants–and the critically important role they would play in the Marcellus/Utica region. This B&V report provides useful insights into how natgas and electric generation are increasing “joined at the hip”…
Yesterday MDN’s favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), issued our favorite monthly report–the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR). The DPR is the EIA’s best guess, based on expert data crunchers, as to how much each of the U.S.’s seven major shale plays will produce for both oil and natural gas in the coming month. The EIA projects natural gas production cumulatively across all shale plays will once again fall in September–the seventh consecutive month it will have fallen. However, as was the case in last month’s report, the Utica stands alone and against the trend by showing an increase in production month over month. Last month the EIA predicted the Utica would increase production by 5 million cubic feet per day, or MMcf/d (see 
“Everyone” thought that with low prices for oil and gas, and companies not able to turn a profit and heading into bankruptcy, that there would be a flurry of mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry. “Everyone” was wrong. According to the just-released “Oil & Gas Mergers and Acquisitions Report – Mid-year 2016” from powerhouse consulting firm Deloitte (full copy below), M&A activity in the o&g industry is at its lowest point in years. The number of deals in the first half of 2016 was 198, an “extremely low” number compared to what it has been in past years. Where were the highest number of M&As? The number one shale play where deals were done was the Permian Basin–an extremely oil-rich shale layer in western Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The number two shale play where deals were done was, yep, the Marcellus Shale. Here’s the low down…
The one great, huge, towering problem that anti-drillers have is that there is no scientific evidence that supports their wild claims that fracking contaminates water–which is their favorite lie to spread. When the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) arrived at the same conclusion–that fracking doesn’t pollute water–after four years of studying it, that really took the wind out of the sails of rabid fossil fuel haters (see 
In June MDN told you about another sham “study” on the way from an anti-drilling “researcher” from Yale University, funded by Big Green groups (see 
In July MDN told you about exciting new publicly-financed research at West Virginia University that finds waste from Marcellus/Utica drilling (“frack waste”) is not radioactive or hazardous (see