Statement from the European Academies Science Advisory Council

This week the European Academies Science Advisory Council released a statement on shale gas in Europe. EASAC is formed from the national science academies of EU member states. You can read the full statement here, and an executive summary here. 

A spokesman for EASAC stated:

"While there is no scientific or technical reason to ban hydraulic fracturing, there are clear rules to be followed: Companies must work harder to obtain societal approval to operate, by engaging stakeholders in constructive dialogue and working towards agreed outcomes. Trust is critically important for public acceptance; requiring openness, a credible regulatory system and effective monitoring. Data on additives used and the results of monitoring to detect any water contamination or leakages of gas before, during and after shale gas operations should be submitted to the appropriate regulator and be accessible for the affected communities. The same openness to discuss on the basis of factual evidence must, however, also be expected from the other stakeholders." 

Key passages in the statement include the following:

• This EASAC analysis provides no basis for a ban on shale gas exploration or extraction using hydraulic fracturing on scientific and technical grounds, although EASAC supports calls for effective regulations in the health, safety and environment fields highlighted by other science and engineering academies and in this statement. In particular, EASAC notes that many of the conflicts with communities and land use encountered in earlier drilling and hydraulic fracturing operations based on many single-hole wells have been substantially reduced by more modern technologies based on multiple well pads, which can drain up to 10 km2 or more of gas-bearing shale from a single pad. Other best practices, such as recycling of flow-back fluid and replacement of potentially harmful additives, have greatly reduced the environmental footprint of ‘fracking’. Europe’s regulatory systems and experience of conventional gas extraction already provide an appropriate framework for minimising disturbance and impacts on health, safety and the environment.
• Overall, in Europe more than 1000 horizontal wells and several thousand hydraulic fracturing jobs have been executed in recent decades. None of these operations are known to have resulted in safety or environmental problems.
• Regulations intended to ensure safe and environmentally sensitive drilling activities are already in force in those European countries with their own oil and gas industry.
• The reservoir volume accessed from a single site has increased substantially through such multi-well pads and longer horizontal laterals, offering a potential extraction area of 10 km2 or more from one pad and reducing surface land use area accordingly. Unconventional gas fields thus no longer have significantly higher well pad densities than conventional fields. Technically, horizontal wells with a reach of up to 12 km are possible (although such wells would at present be uneconomic), but even with clusters of only 3 km radius, it becomes viable
to produce unconventional gas in heavily populated areas.
• A recent meta-analysis (Heath et al. 2014) of the scientific publications on this issue [shale gas and CO2 emissions] came to two conclusions: (1) that emissions from shale gas extraction are similar to those from conventional gas extraction and (2) that both when used in power generation would probably emit less than half the CO2 emissions of coal.
• Regarding potential sources of emissions from shale gas extraction, flaring and venting in conventional exploitation in Europe ceased during the 1990s (with the exception of initial flow tests in successful exploratory drilling); industry therefore possesses the necessary expertise to avoid this problem. ‘Green’ completion technologies are also widely used to capture and then sell (rather than vent or flare) methane and other gases emitted from flow-back water (they can be recovered at low cost by taking out the gas within a confined separator). This will be mandatory for hydraulic fracturing of all gas wells in the USA from 2015 onwards. Ensuring ‘green completion’ is fully applied in Europe is thus an essential prerequisite for maximising benefits from shale gas to climate change policies.
• General industry practice in conventional wells (which typically have higher pressures and gas flow rates and longer lifetimes than shale gas wells) has solved the problems of gas migration. By pressure testing, the tightness of the well can be verified. Hydraulic fracturing also uses external casing packers to separate individual fracked zones from each other, creating mechanical barriers in the lowermost part of the well against gas migration outside of the casing.

Finally, I can only conclude that the EASAC are avid readers of Frackland, as they illustrate how lateral well drilling allows a substantial reduction of the surface footprint, as I have done numerous times on this blog. 

Figure 2 Innovation in well design and operation (source: Range Resources Ltd.). Left: old single well spacing (Texas); right: modern multi-well cluster configuration accessing gas from an area of up to 10 km2 (Pennsylvania).

Europe's Geological Surveys Make Joint Statement on Shale Gas

After a meeting in Copenhagen, the North Atlantic Group of the European Geological Surveys released a statement on shale gas and fracking. More info is available here.

This group is made up of the Geological Surveys of the UK, Germany, Ireland, Holland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark, so it represents most of Europe's geological expertise. Make no mistake, these guys are experts.

Below are a choice selection of quotes both from their Copenhagen statement, as well as comments from the President of Germany's Federal Institute for Geosciences (the BGR) in a press release. The press release is in German, so I have used google to translate as best I can. Apologies to any German speakers who spot any mis-translations, but the general gist of the statements should be clear to all.

Firstly from the Copenhagen Statement:

"The Survey Directors are concerned that frequent misleading media messages regarding exploration and exploitation of raw materials and geo-energy have the potential to obscure scientific results and conclusions, and may ultimately lead to poor decisions for Society."

"The Survey Directors emphasise that their Surveys hold the majority of key sub-surface data for their Nations. They are thus best placed to objectively and independently inform decision makers, on shale and other georesource estimation exercises, and on some of the potential environmental risks of the operations."

"Particular concern was expressed that the role of the national Geological Survey may be bypassed, resulting in the submission of poorly formulated geoscientific advice to governments."

The press release from the BGR was even more explicit:

"The European Geological Surveys of the North Atlantic area, which include the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), fear in the face of misleading reports in the media about the exploration and extraction of raw materials negative socio-political consequences."

"Often dangers are evoked where there are none. When fracking for production of natural gas there are widespread fears in the population, most of which are unfounded from geoscientific perspective."

"Since the early 1960s, more than 320 fracking measures in conventional natural gas production have been carried out in Lower Saxony. The technique used here is similar to the method for the development of shale gas resources. In these past operations by fracking there has not been a single incident in which the environment has been damaged. When critics speak in connection with fracking as an uncontrollable high-risk technology, this is just wrong under scientific criteria." (my emphasis)

I think these comments will be worth remembering as the shale gas debate rumbles on over the coming months.

German Success...?

A big week for Germany in the news. And no, I'm not talking about 7 - 1!

New rules for hydraulic fracturing have been announced in Germany. This has been widely reported as "Germany bans fracking", but the devil may be in the detail - indeed some groups opposed to fracking have referred to it as a "fracking enabling law". This is because it appears that fracking will be allowed at depths below 3,000m, and "where drinking water is not in danger". It is not clear whether this means in areas where no potable groundwater is present, and/or "if the liquid being used cannot contaminate water".

The laws are due to be further discussed in the Autumn, where hopefully some of these ambiguities will be addressed.

Fracking is not new to Germany. Most of Germany's existing natural gas production, from Lower Saxony in the north of the country, requires hydraulic stimulation to be economic. These are not shale rocks, but "tight sandstones", with low permeability requiring fracturing to improve flow rates. The figure below shows the number of frack-jobs performed in Germany over the last few decades.

It's not clear whether the proposed ban would include these existing reservoirs.

Shale gas in the news this week

A fairly low-effort post this week, as I have just arrived back from the annual AGU conference in San Francisco. While it was interesting to compare the differences between AGU, which is a very academic conference, and the more industry-centered conferences which I more typically attend, it seems I went at a bad time, because shale gas has been all over the news in the last couple of weeks.

Firstly, we saw about 300 people erect a mock drill rig outside parliament in protest about shale gas extraction. Does 300 sound like a lot? Not sure. Hundreds of thousands once protested about the Iraq war, to little effect....

Meanwhile, the Independent reported that 60% of the UK countryside could be exploited for shale gas. However, DECC were quick to rubbish that statement.

Andrew Rawnsley wrote about how poor the UK's shale prospects are, unilaterally declaring that UK shales are the thinnest in Europe, despite the fact that the Bowland shale is in fact remarkably thick. The fact that this hasn't been corrected on the website version of the article is fairly shocking to me. Especially given that the piece comes up with a new term: 'frack-heads'.

Believers in shale gas have a tendency to rave about it as if they are using a mind-bending substance. So I suggest we call them frack-heads.

Fairly offensive from a main-stream journalist, especially from one who has gotten his facts completely wrong with respect to the main premise of the article.

I've never used mind-bending substances, but we've found a new chief frack-head who certainly looks as though he might have: Boris Johnson has waded straight into the middle of the fracking debate. Turning a phrase as only BoJo, love him or hate him, can:

Beware this new technology, they wail. Do not tamper with the corsets of Gaia! Don’t probe her loamy undergarments with so much as a finger — or else the goddess of the earth will erupt with seismic revenge

Of course, as I've mentioned before, James Lovelock, the inventor of Gaia theory, is actually hugely in favour of shale gas.

Meanwhile the EU parliament has taken it upon itself to regulate our moves towards shale gas exploitation. I'll admit to not being particularly pro-EU at the best of times, but sometimes they really don't help themselves do they?

So why all the palaver? Well, George Osborne has revealed a new gas strategy, promoting domestic gas extraction and the construction of new gas fired power plants. My only issue with this: we shouldn't be giving tax breaks to shale gas companies - we should take our full slice of the money they make and use it to benefit the economy!

Shale gas and emissions of greenhouse gases - finally put to bed

Burning methane (whether from shale gas or elsewhere) produces half as much CO2 per unit energy as coal. So switching from coal fired power stations to gas leads to significant reductions in CO2 emissions. This is why 5 to 10 years ago, every environmentalist was calling for a 'golden age for gas'.

However, methane itself is a potent greenhouse gas: 75 times more potent than an equivalent mass of CO2 over 20 year timescales, 20 times more potent over 100 years (the potency goes down over time because methane comes out of the atmosphere faster than CO2, meaning that if equivalent masses are released, the methane gets removed faster). So, if while extracting methane you end up releasing lots of it to the atmosphere, it can cause more warming than you save by burning gas instead of coal.

This was the suggestion made by Howarth, a professor at Cornell. Since then, the debate has rumbled on, with a number of rebuttals, including from Howarth's colleagues at Cornell. Nevertheless, I still see the 'shale gas is as bad as coal for the climate' line being trotted out regularly in news reports and discussions about shale gas.

However, I think the shale-gas and climate change issue can finally be put to bed. A new report for the European Commission has been produced, looking at the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for European shale gas. It runs to 158 pages, so I can't tell you I've read it all, but here are the highlights. These number are based on an assumption of a loss of 1 - 5% of the methane at the well head during the fracking process - generally accepted numbers for most people. So, what does that mean?

1.) Shale gas isn't as good as conventional European gas (i.e. from conventional fields, mainly in the North Sea and onshore Netherlands). GHG emissions from shale gas are 4% - 8% higher than conventional gas. But that was hardly surprising. However, our conventional gas fields are all beginning to run out.

2.) European shale gas may well be better than gas piped from Russia or Algeria, or shipped in as LNG. Obviously, it takes energy to transport gas from these distant places in to Europe, increasing the amount of GHG emitted per unit of energy you generate. So European shale gas has emissions 2% - 10% lower than piped Russian or Algerian gas, and 7% - 10% lower than gas imported as LNG. This is REALLY interesting - it says that if we plan to burn gas (even as a backup to large wind farms and solar), it should be our home-grown European shale gas, rather than gas imported from afar (not to mention the geopolitical implications of having to give Mr Putin et al all our money).
 
3.) Shale gas is significantly better than coal. Not surprising to people who have studied that numbers from previous studies, but hopefully if enough reports say this, I'll get to stop reading in newspapers and environmental publicity that shale gas is more dirty than coal. Emissions from shale gas-fueled electricity are 41 - 49% lower than emissions from coal. That's a really significant chunk we could take out of our GHG emissions just by switching from coal fired power to gas.

And is there evidence to back this up? There sure is! US CO2 emissions are plummeting as cheap shale gas displaces coal from the electricity generation market. While some of the 9% decrease in CO2 emissions can be attributed to improved efficiency reducing demand, and increased renewable energy sources, the major bulk (77% by John Hanger's estimate). Wouldn't it be nice if we could have cheaper energy bills while reducing our CO2 emissions over here in Europe?