Shale gas and fracking: the facts

Conventional natural gas has long been promoted as the most climate friendly of the fossil fuels with lower CO₂ emissions than oil and, even more so, coal. But – like oil – it is beginning to run out, especially in well exploited areas like the US or the North Sea.

However a new extraction technique is allowing the exploitation of the massive untapped reserves of so called ‘shale gas’. Shale gas is now being heralded as the "cleaner energy future" by, for instance, Shell, on the grounds that it is a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to coal.

The process to extract it - already in use in a big way in America - involves hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", where water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to fracture the shale rock and force out the gas, which is not extractable by conventional means. However this process has already, in its relatively short history, caused a great deal of controversy, due to the environmental problems it has caused, including water contamination and higher rates of air pollution than that of coal production – as identified, for instance, by Guardian writers George Monbiot and Chris Shearlock. The environmental impacts associated with the process in the US have been well portrayed in the documentary film Gasland, the most striking moment of which is the demonstration of contaminated tapwater being flammable because of methane pollution.

 

The UK government is keen to take America's lead and start "fracking" on British shores - starting with a site (see photo right) near Blackpool.

The real threat that ‘shale gas’ poses is that it is being pushed by the oil companies, and others, as a ‘cheap’ way of reducing  emissions – and therefore, implicitly, an alternative to renewables that could compete for funding. This is despite the fact that a recent study suggests that – due mainly to relatively high rates of inadvertent methane release – shale gas is little better, or even worse, than coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, especially as measured over a shorter rather than longer time scale.

 

A report from the Tyndall Centre is recommending a moratorium on shale gas pending further study. As the Centre points out,  whilst shale gas is being pushed as a ‘bridging’ technology between coal burning and fully developed renewables what we are actually seeing is yet another ‘unconventional’ fossil fuel – like tar sands – which is adding to, not subtracting from, the total amount that we are extracting from the earth. This is given that there can be little certainty that it will be used ‘instead of’, rather than simply ‘in addition to’ coal and other fossil fuels. And it is a dangerous distraction from the real solution that has to come from the rapid and immediate ramping up of renewable technologies.

 

 

Far from displacing oil, gas is set to continue in its current uses and ramping up production will not be cheap. Even if the 100-year natural gas supply forecasts are true, a 2% annual growth will exhaust the 100-year US natural gas supply in 56 years. If we assume production peaks when 50% of the resource is exhausted it brings the peak within 35 years. Now consider slightly higher rates of production growth and the fact that those supplies are almost certainly going to be less than claimed , it becomes apparent why shale gas cannot solve our energy problems. Former Canadian Geological Survey geoscientist, David Hughes also believes the promises of shale gas to be over-exaggerated. The Tyndall report presents unpromising evidence that shale gas will not act as a transition fuel in the move to a low-carbon energy production and that instead it will increase net carbon emissions and ultimately delay necessary investment in zero-carbon technology.
Find out more about why gas is NOT the solution to our energy problems. 

Shale gas, in short, is not all it is fracked up to be!

 

 

 

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