Environmental questions fuel natural gas drilling debate

Uncertainty over the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, a method of drilling for shale natural gas, dominated a debate on regulating such drilling at a May 24 NPC Newsmaker.

Adrian Kuzminski, an anti-drilling activist from Sustainable Otsego, an upstate New York "grass roots" organization of 600 people, opposed fracturing. "Natural gas is not a substitute for oil, but an extension," he said.

Gas is at least as dirty as coal or oil because it releases methane that could migrant into water supplies, he said. He proposes substituting conservation and clean energy sources for further fracturing. "We are burning the furniture to heat the house," he said.

Alan Krupnick, an energy expert at Resources for the Future, countered that all energy sources have risks and costs, but that there are energy demands to be met, so fracturing needs to be conducted responsibly.

Krupnick pointed to the absence of baseline data on the presence of methane in water supplies. He cited a Duke University study that compared methane levels in water wells within and beyond one kilometer of gas wells. The study recorded low levels of methane in all water wells more than a kilometer away and in some closer, he said. But, he noted, it also recorded low or no levels in some wells closer than a kilometer to a gas well.

The question arises of whether geologic conditions favorable to gas wells lead to methane in wells, he explained. He called for baseline studies of methane levels in water before gas wells are drilled.

Such a study is underway at EPA, in which wells will be drilled with data collected before during and after drilling, he reported. He said that first reports are due in 2012.

Listing the alternatives to gas for generating electricity, Krupnick noted that coal is "hardly a benign energy source," nuclear is under debate since the Japanese earthquake and that the Energy Information Administration estimates wind energy to provide five percent of energy use by 2035 and solar less.

Wind and solar energy need subsidies, he noted, "But shale doesn't need subsidies; it can create tax revenues." he said.

Krupnick recommended upgrading research, industry practices and regulation. He proposed that the Department of the Interior, which grants drilling leases on public lands, develop best practices for leases that states could also use in regulating drilling.

The industry, he said, could develop best practices and make them available as information to the public.

Regulation, he said, needs to shift the costs and risks of drilling from communities where it takes place to the industry by means of taxes and regulation.