Natural Gas is Organic, Abundant, Clean, Safe, Reliable and Inexpensive
Nancy Schmitt
The Energy Mom
Author of the “Dear Shale Protestor” Letters Where This Post First Appeared
The “Energy Mom” is an engineer, management consultant and investment manager who has spent most of her career working in the energy business. She lives in New York City, has three kids, lots of pets and a husband. Here she reports on testimony she gave before a committee of the New York State Assembly.
Last month I testified in front of a New York Assembly hearing on HIgh Volume Hydraulic Fracturing hosted by: Robert Sweeney, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Environmental Conservation; Richard Gottfried, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Health; and Charles Lavine, Chair of the Assembly Administrative Regulation Review Commission.
I was given five minutes and I stayed within my time constraint , unlike many.
After I introduced myself, here is what I said:
… I am convinced that natural gas is the fuel of the future.
New York is a good example. Our state is the fourth largest consumer in the nation and poised to grow. Increasing consumption will be driven by: stricter air emission regulations that phase out coal and fuel oil, possible shutdown of Indian Point, aggressive renewable standards beginning 2015, new technology for natural gas transportation and low prices.
Yet, despite the resource beneath our feet, New York imports 95% of what it consumes; while the revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS) is bogged down in its fifth year of review. This is foolish at best and hypocritical at worst. Every concern that has been raised has either not born out or already been addressed.
Somehow what is being done in 15 other states is impossible in New York. Some claim that the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is not up to the task. Others point to accidents or historical problems. Still others point to incidents that happened in Pennsylvania before the state updated regulations. People are skeptical that industry will be accountable, despite numerous examples to the contrary.
New York can learn from what is happening elsewhere. Pennsylvania, for example, chose not wait for perfect regulation. With 50-years of experience and 1 million plus wells already fracked in the United States, they did not put themselves at risk either. They learned as they went and changed when necessary. If elections are an indication, the people are happy with the tradeoffs that their officials made. All eight state representatives from Tioga, Bradford and Susquehanna counties — Republicans and Democrats both — favor natural gas. The tone of local media also shows it mostly favors natural gas. If there are monsters under the bed, they did not find them.
Pennsylvania is no pushover either. Last year the legislature passed, and the governor signed, a comprehensive bill tightening and clarifying oil and gas regulation, as well as authorizing a price-indexed impact fee for each unconventional well. While the precise scope of Act 13 is still being decided by the state’s Supreme Court, the first collection of the impact fee totaled $204 million. The money is given to all counties and municipalities in the state, divided 60/40 between those that host development and those that don’t. It goes to repair roads and bridges, provide affordable housing, preserve open space and buy equipment for first responders.
Some say leave the gas in the ground. Wind and solar are the fuels of the future. I disagree. There are no alternatives to natural gas except heavy hydrocarbons with worse environmental impacts and nuclear power. Wind and solar will not supply the energy we need. They are expensive, and always will be, because they require large surface installations. Over 30-years, one natural gas well on a 3-acre pad will deliver the same amount of energy as 200-acres of solar panels or 500-acres of wind turbines. To put that in perspective, the amount of energy already developed in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus is equivalent to 32-square miles of solar or 80-square miles of wind. Or to put it another way, covering every square inch of Tompkins and Cortland Counties with wind turbines and solar panels will not generate as much energy as the Marcellus.
Natural gas is abundant, clean, safe, reliable and inexpensive. It is natural, organic, local and renewable. [Note: The crowd laughed at this statement.] Holding the future hostage to wait for utopia, or pay for the past, is like cutting off the nose to spite the face. It mostly harms our own — especially landowners in the economically depressed Southern Tier. Approving the revised draft SGEIS, as is, without further delay, will ensure that New Yorkers benefit from this extraordinary resource right now when they need it most.
I don’t think the Assembly members present heard a word I said.
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“It is natural, organic, local and renewable. [Note: The crowd laughed at this statement.] ”
Well, it is a bit over the top. Anything that isn’t synthesised can be called “natural” (something the processed food marketing folks understand well). It’s “organic” in that it arose in association with life, or simply because of its carbon chemistry. And the gas is certainly local.
But “renewable”? Maybe in some Hindu cosmological sense … but then that would apply to everything in existence. In our time reference, once that gas is burnt, it’s gone, with only CO2 and water remaining.
I’ll offer another word: Euphemism. It can help sell products, ideas, and agendas, but it is a form of deception. When educated people encounter it, they grow suspicious and skeptical.
You’re quite right about the absence of alternatives. New York needs to harvest its gas, and it will. It’s an economic imperative. Prosperity, at least as we’ve come to expect it, is impossible without copious supplies of energy. Property rights, too, are fundamental to our civilisation. If there is gas on your property you’d like to sell, the state needs an overwhelmingly compelling reason to stop you, and even then, the burden rests with the state to prove that interfering with your rights is an incontrovertible necessity.
But many of us prefer to look at issues like this for what they really are, and not for what what we would like them to be. Reasoned policy requires us to confront the good, the bad, and the ugly, and balance our approach accordingly.
So be thankful you live in New York, where the democratic process is alive and well.
And money will rule.
Are you a socialist, Michael? You seem obsessed with others’ money and profit.
Neither… but in these kind of political duels, the organization with the most money almost always takes the prize. In this case, the natural gas industry (and its oil allies). Just politics, Tom. Just politics.
If either of the two “sides” is completely happy with the result, there’s reason to be gravely concerned.
Fortunately, neither the “pro-” nor “anti-” camps are a monolithic as they appear.
I’d refrain from making too many assumptions about the alliance between the oil and gas industries. Their interests are parallel, but not identical. In fact, there’s a huge fight simmering below the surface. Google the terms “Mineral Rights”, “gas lease” and “Susquehanna,” and you will see what I mean.
Richard,
“But “renewable”? Maybe in some Hindu cosmological sense … but then that would apply to everything in existence. In our time reference, once that gas is burnt, it’s gone, with only CO2 and water remaining. ”
Come now, you are smart enough to know that NG is methane AND a bridge energy source. All the infrastructure we have in wells and pipelines and appliances can be readily switched over to renewable methane.
You know as well as I that 30-50 years out, there will be ample energy to convert common sources of carbon (coal, biomass,etc) into liquid fuels that we will need for our homes and vehicles.
Lets not be so temporally challenged.
Sorry, I just don’t see the “renewable” part (though I am all in favour of building gas infrastructure as you describe). Nor do I see where that “ample” energy will come from in 30 years’ time.
We can do a lot with wind, solar and tidal, but in my view those sources (all of which require large amounts of coal energy to build and install) will top out at around 20% of current consumption. That leaves nuclear and fossil fuels, if we want to maintain our current standards of living.
Natural gas is a finite fossil fuel, as is coal. By most standards it is the lowest-impact fossil fuel (though it is much more costly than coal, and the environmental impact of fracking probably won’t be tallied for many years).
The conversions you speak of from coal, biomass or any hydrocarbon into gas (like methane) or liquid fuel cost energy, thanks to that infuriating 2nd law of thermodynamics, which simply can’t be repealed. In fact biomass – as liquid or gas – is usually energy negative, meaning at least as much fossil fuel energy has gone into producing it as the resultant biomass yields. I am particularly sceptical about commercial biofuels, not least because of the huge fossil fuel inputs required to grow enough food to feed the population. They can survive as a significant fuel source only if subsidised, which isn’t sustainable and ultimately threatens the food supply.
It’s nice to think we might have a hydrogen economy one day, where H2 is produced from sustainable, non-fossil sources — but I have grave doubts about this, too. There is simply no terrestrial source of hydrogen that yields more energy than it took to produce it.
It’s quite true that I am a pessimist, and I hope that I’m wrong. Natural gas is probably the best we can do, for now. But the statement that it is “natural, organic, and renewable” strikes me as propagandist tripe intended to mislead. I’ll take my information unfiltered, if you please.
” Nor do I see where that “ample” energy will come from in 30 years’ time. ”
Yes, there is ample energy on the horizon and in fact, we once had it in this country but sadly, our priorities at the birth of the nuclear industry were weapons driven and not safety driven.
http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/
Thorium Reactors, which were first developed in the US, will be a godsend and in fact, China and India more moving full speed ahead. Thorium reactors not only generate no waste, they will consume the existing nuclear waste, and they will do so in a closed reactor system that is Fail Safe with no possibility of a “melt down”.
This will be the ample supply of electricity that we can use to liquify coal, or biomass methane or even hydrogen from water. Yes, it will take more energy that what comes out but that is the price we will pay for liquid fuels for vehicles, appliances, etc.
But who cares – it is cheap and safe.
I hope you are right (and you’d probably be a much more positive influence on my kids than I am).
I must confess to a certain optimism over thorium fuel – although there are still hurdles that have deterred significant commercial interest. Thus far I don’t think they have found a way to “enrich” the fissile isotopes in thorium fuel without using a whole lot of plutonium or U235. For now, thorium power is by far the most expensive in the world. But that could change, especially if there’s a Manhattan Project-style federal effort.
If the thorium industry materialises, it will make all the bad experiences with nuclear power worth it. It probably won’t produce enough power to remineralize all the fossil carbon we’ve spewed into the atmosphere. But if it one day produces electricity cheap enough to split water into hydrogen, we may yet be able to hand over a viable planet & a promising future to our children.
Thorium requires no enrichment to be used as a fuel and that is another plus. It gets us away from a weapons capable nuclear technology.
http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=187:thorium-as-a-secure-nuclear-fuel-alternative&catid=94:0409content&Itemid=342
“Thorium requires no enrichment to be used as a fuel and that is another plus. ”
Well … sort of. You’re right that one does not “enrich” thorium fuel like uranium is enriched (ie, increasing the relative proportion of the fissile isotope, U235, which is also used in weapons). I should have chosen a different word.
In fact naturally occurring thorium isn’t fissile at all (which is why it is much safer than uranium), and neither are the initial fuel pellets. It is used to produce fissile material that can sustain a chain reaction. Placed in a high-temp reactor core, these absorb neutrons to yield (eventually) Uranium 233, which is the actual fissile material (and NOT a source of weaponised uranium 235). But the reaction must begin with U235 or Plutonium, and as far as I know there has been no practical application of the thorium fuel cycle without the use and production of one or both of these.
http://www.thorium.tv/en/thorium_fuel/thorium_fuel.php
In theory, the real efficiency benefits come from building TFC breeder reactors. As far as I know, we’re decades away from this. Thorium can be used now, though, to vastly reduce the quantity of uranium or plutonium used in a commercial nuclear reactor.
Again, pessimism is in my nature. When I say there is promise in this technology, that’s the highest praise I can muster. The proof, though, is in the pudding.
I think there is a confusion on the word “renewable” as it applies to NG. Natural gas, methane, the fossil fuel, is NOT a renewable resource. Natural gas, methane, produced from pig manure and rotting vegetation and collected from landfills IS a renewable resource. It cannot be renewed from its original source as fossil fuel.
Also, not sure what % the Southern Tier gas fields (if and when tapped) will be bitten off of NYS’s 95% imports of NG will be. Geologically speaking, we are not PA. I’m sure there are feasible estimates out there though, but until the NG companies actually decide where and when they will drill, the jury is out. The 30-50 years out with “ample energy” is also speculation. I won’t be here to verify it though ;)
“…but until the NG companies actually decide where and when they will drill, the jury is out.”
There are thousands of gas wells in NY including fracked wells and by using the logs of these wells and other types of wells, the industry does know where the gas is.
Here is where China and India are going to get ample and cheap energy before we do despite our having developed it.
http://www.thoriumenergyalliance.com/
1000′s of conventional wells. None have the potential that HVHF wells have on the production scale and the profit scale that any NG companies are looking for now. We are debating HVHF, are we not? Old conventional wells are like comparing apples to oranges on a production scale comparison. The thorium argument is hopeful and promising , but…..according to a 2012 report by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, about using thorium fuel with existing water-cooled reactors, it would “require too great an investment and provide no clear payoff,” noting that “from the utilities’ point of view, the only legitimate driver capable of motivating pursuit of thorium is economics.” Time will answer your speculative assumption. Note that even after the Far East builds thorium reactors, they are predicting that will only produce 25% of their energy needs. That means 75% will still need to come from somewhere.
Logs from all sorts of wells tell us where the good fracturing well fields are – including salt wells and failed gas wells.
Re: thorium, no one is expecting anything quick or significant utilization of conventional nuclear gen plants. That is why we need NG for the next 30 years running cogen plants.
It’s all about the Marcellus and HVHF. NG companies are looking at fairways and sweet spots in this zone. Very few if any HVHF will be tapped outside of the Marcellus and the best zones are few and far between. We can dance around this all day if you wish my friend.
Who says that NG can only be renewable from peat bogs or landfills or pigfarms?
Why not from coal beds? They are making more as we speak though over a longer time frame.
No one said “only”.
And CSG is NOT renewable. It’s a fossil fuel. You are confusing the word.
Do you consider lignite and peat a fossil fuel?
Hmmm?
Its not so black and white, is it?
Yes, for all practical purposes, both are finite “fossil” fuels. They both include carbon that has been removed from the atmospheric carbon cycle. When used, their supplies are diminished absolutely and net carbon emissions rise.
I didn’t invent the definition. Look, you can call it what you want. That’s apparent, but those in the industry have a definition. Renewable gas is the term that is used to describe pipeline-quality biomethane produced from biomass. It is interchangeable with natural gas. It is carbon neutral. Renewable Natural Gas, also known as RNG or biomethane, is chemically identical to fossil natural gas but much cleaner. The other term the industry uses is “sustainable”….
made from an abundant renewable resource—organic waste—renewable natural gas can help reduce our carbon footprint. So you see, it is black and white to them.
Well stated Nancy.
Even though I live in Washington County in Southwestern Pa. I have an interesting story to add to Nancy’s article as to why New York needs to lift it’s moratorium on the the gas drilling industry. I had a house for rent on my farm here and I listed it on Craiglist. 6 hours after I listed it I recieved a phone call about it. It was from a young girl who works for the industry. She asked if it would be all right to have 2 roomates live with here and share the rent. The other 2 are another young girl and a young man that also work for the industry. I just got together with them tonight to sign the lease and we got to talking about the anti-gas movement. The young man’s father was there helping them move in and he also works for the gas industry. He is a pipeline land lease agent from of all places, the Southern Tier of New York, so he was very familiar with the anti’s!!!! When I asked them why did these 3 young people come to Washington County, Pa. to work for the gas indusrty? Here’s what they told me. It’s because of the moratorium in New York the bans hydraulic fracking !!!! So not only is it keeping the gas industry out, it is also chasing out young people who need a job and want to work in the industry. This is a true story !!!!!!!!
Don, this is an invaluable story. Though anecdotal, it is verified by the facts and backs up the facts, which we discussed here:
http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/rumors-of-a-southern-tier-revival-absent-natural-gas-are-greatly-exaggerated/16899/
Nancy,
Re: Natural gas is abundant, clean, safe, reliable and inexpensive. It is natural, organic, local and renewable. [Note: The crowd laughed at this statement.]
These people have displayed rude and unacceptable behavior at every meeting they attend in the past year. The mainstream media even portray this behavior as if it is honorable. Well it is deplorable and the state should have removed these obstructionists from these meetings. When you lack facts to support your position,
You have no choice but to shout in order to be heard. Those in favor of drilling have acted in a respectful manner, hopefully the governor and DEC have noticed this difference.
dave
So, the gas industry will provide a boom for landlords… fabulous.
Every hotel in our area’s parking lots are full of white trucks from the gas industry workers.
I had two of them in my house before from Indiana County, Pa., that were living in a hotel, and they were very HAPPY to get out of it and into my house. Also I found them to be very respectful.
Natural gas and oil millions of yrs ago was,extraction of the NG today is far from organic .Just making this analogy is ridiculous .Absolute desperation …….
No, conviction.
Bill,
You really are devoid of any serious arguments. You might want to re-evaluate your positions, I chuckle every time I read your posts. Just saying…
Nancy, great words. Your testimony resonates with me deeply. I too am from NY but now I reside in Pa. Why? The industry is here, jobs are available and progress is being made. With not other words to elaborate I simply say amazing.
In New York my family struggles to keep the family mine alive. We have 15 employees but every month about half are laid off because nothing is going on in terms of development or infrastructure. Here in PA, mines cannot keep up with the demand for aggregate material.
My family’s example is just one of thousands. I would much rather live closer to my family but at what cost?
NY needs to open its eyes especially since natural gas consumption rose over the last few years!
Keep up the hard work Nancy!