Dot Earth Blog: Is 'Wild West' Era for Fracking Coming to an End?

While in Washington to run a panel at an invaluable conference on disasters and the environment this week, I spent a few minutes in a studio to discuss the issues and opportunities surrounding hydraulic fracturing for natural gas (and oil) on the Current TV show The War Room, hosted by Jennifer Granholm, the former governor of Michigan.

I describe my recent posts on ways to identify gas leaks or prove ? one way or the other ? if water contamination came from a particular well. We talked about big impediments to the development of China?s huge shale gas reserves or increasing exports of liquefied natural gas to Asia. I also stressed that President Obama?s ?all of the above? energy strategy could be disrupted by cheap gas ? without an overarching energy policy to sustain investments advancing the next generation of non-polluting energy technologies.

Here?s an excerpt from a related post on the program?s blog:

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has remade the global energy market and could propel the United States to the top of the energy pack. New U.S. crude oil and natural gas supplies have driven down the average price per barrel and led oil giants like Saudi Arabia to?reduce their own production in order to stabilize prices.

The U.S. boom has also brought millions in development dollars to states like Colorado, Texas, Pennsylvania and Wyoming. And this year, we?ll see a host of new states consider getting into the lucrative fracking game.?Under withering pressure from environmentalists and industrialists, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has yet to decide whether his state will following neighboring Pennsylvania in developing its portion of the Marcellus shale.

Surprisingly, California may be the next gas game changer, with an estimated?400 billion barrels of oil potentially buried in its Monterey shale. That?s the one of the largest reserves in the country and is equivalent to roughly half of Saudi Arabia?s conventional oil resources. California state regulators have proposed new fracking rules and auctioned off the first Monterey tract in December. [Read the rest.]

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/is-wild-west-era-for-frackingas-drilling-coming-to-an-end/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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