“Natural gas is energizing America’s economic recovery.”
Hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas offers an opportunity to build a more competitive U.S. economy. Programs that result in the establishment of less expensive energy sources boost U.S. manufacturing and jobs. Combined with horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing is a technique being used to produce shale gas that now accounts for more than a third of U.S. gas production. That has led to an abundance of natural gas, which is helping manufacturing.
After many years in decline, the chemical and steel industries are beginning to come back. A $650-million steel factory is under construction in Youngstown, Ohio, to produce piping for new wells needed to extract natural gas from the Marcellus Shale that underlies 50,000 square miles from West Virginia to New York. Also, chemical companies are investing in new plants to turn ethane made from shale gas into feedstock for plastics and fertilizer.
At first glance, it might seem absurd to talk about the need for cheap energy in West Virginia. Appalachian coal has played a major role in making our nation the one with the most competitive and productive economy in the world. And now we are exporting record amounts of coal. But environmental problems with coal have increased the cost of using coal to produce electricity.
What is known as the “shale gale” has turned a natural gas shortage into a surplus of cheap gas. Energy companies are now engaged in producing shale gas in West Virginia, Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland, Louisiana and Arkansas. There are at least 20 untapped shale formations around the country that could turn Michigan, Colorado and other states into big gas producers. Estimates of the entire U.S. natural-gas resource base, including shale gas, are now as high as 2,500 trillion cubic feet. That amounts to more than a 100-year supply.
This same technology is being used to also produce large amounts of shale oil in North Dakota, Texas and Ohio.
Hydraulic fracturing — known as “fracking” — has made this possible. When combined with horizontal drilling, fracking can penetrate shale 7,000 to 9,000 feet below ground and free up natural gas that for many years had been considered beyond reach.
Shale production has a good safety record, and states are doing a responsible job of regulating the process. Fracking has been used at more than one million conventional gas wells since the late 1940s, with only a small number of incidents in which drilling fluids leaking from well casings have contaminated underground water systems.
Yet, for the risk-averse, the only acceptable thing to do now is retire all the drilling rigs immediately and import more oil and liquefied natural gas from overseas. I am disgusted at the lack of common sense that attitude shows.
Fracking is done thousands of feet below the water table, separated by more than a mile of impermeable rock. What’s more, companies now are recycling wastewater from fracking instead of discharging it in disposal wells. Some companies drilling in the Marcellus Shale are recycling 100 percent of the water they use, which reduces the need for groundwater and possible tremors from discharge wells.
Companies also are using better well-casing design, especially adequate casing cement around the well pipe, to prevent leakage. Also, better casing cement prevents methane from escaping into groundwater, the sort of problem that once made it possible to ignite tap water, as seen in the documentary film “Gasland.”
Natural gas is energizing America’s economic recovery. Domestic gas production is so high — and is expected to climb even higher — that seven companies are seeking licenses to export gas in LNG tankers to markets in Europe and Asia.
That would never be seriously considered if not for the success of shale-gas production. In 2010, natural gas had a $76 billion share of the GDP, $33 billion in capital investments, $18 billion in federal tax and royalty revenues, and supported 600,000 jobs, according to a study by IHS Global Insight. And the price of gas has fallen sharply due to shale-gas production, which helps consumers and the chemical and steel industries.
Lyons is an engineering professor at West Virginia University.
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