Note: the following is a synopsis of a lead article published in the June 20, 2011 special energy edition of National Review. Click here to read the full article (subscription required).
A major boom in domestic oil and gas production is under way, brought about by breaking through refinements of a 1940s technology known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
Human ingenuity, catalyzed by market dynamics, has foiled predictions of irreversible decline in domestic oil and natural-gas resources. Official estimates of the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas have soared. Last year, global natural-gas supplies rose 40 percent. From 2010 to 2011, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) doubled its estimate of Texas’s natural-gas reserves by 70 percent between 2005 and 2008, and Texas also is doing prolific fracking in oil: Producers now have access to 2 billion barrels in the Wolfberry formation in the Permian Basin. The Eagle Ford fields in south Texas increased oil production fourfold in the first ten months of 2010.
The EIA also believes that natural gas in the Marcellus formation of New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia contains more BTUs of energy than do the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
Most of the currently surging oil and gas production is on private land, where federal permission is not required and state governments are supportive.
A fierce anti-fracking movement is nonetheless growing. According to its most zealous critics, fracking may even kill you. They claim that the technology may transform the water from your faucet into fire, make your house explode, cause earthquakes, or poison you with toxic chemicals. Just watch the Oscar-nominated documentary film Gasland, shown on HBO.
The list of environmental perils attributed to hydraulic fracturing is long: contamination of drinking water, wastewater pollution of rivers, groundwater depletion, air emissions of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases, radiation, and even earthquakes. But, with the exception of groundwater depletion, no causal connection between hydraulic fracturing itself and any of these environmental problems has been demonstrated. Faulty well construction, breaches in cemented and heavy-steel-encased wellbores, and accidents could, of course, lead to adverse environmental impacts. But there is no evidence that fracking itself is inherently damaging.
The Society of Petroleum Engineers estimates that over the last 60 years, more than 1 million oil and gas wells in the U.S. have used hydraulic fracturing. During this time, it has never been connected to groundwater contamination.
Worries about some other dangers are equally unfounded. Air emissions from drilling sites have been the most persistent public concern in the Barnett shale area. Studies by the Texas Department of Health and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have confirmed that the emissions do not exceed levels protective of human health
In deciding on a policy on fracking, we should not wait for a congressionally mandated EPA report on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water, due in 2012. A congressional hearing held in May revealed fatal flaws in what was supposed to be a definitive, vigorously peer-reviewed study. For one thing, it will be an inside job from the EPA; the study’s review panel excludes anyone with professional expertise in current industry practices or the technology of hydraulic fracturing.
Risk can be managed and reduced, but never eliminated. Over the last 30 years, the on-shore oil and gas industry has had a sound environmental record. The many risks-more uncertainties than palpable dangers-attributed to hydraulic fracturing have not occasioned serious environmental harms. But, in only a few years, fracking has allowed recovery of approximately 7 billion barrels of oil and 7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Vast stores remain, and almost all new wells will need hydraulic fracturing.
The U.S. has far more energy resources than any other country, yet no other country so limits and blocks access to its own energy supply. The opposition to fracking displays this unfortunate mentality.