Economist defends method used to extract natural gas
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Get John Felmy started on the subject of hydraulic fracturing, the process by which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is blasted into rock formations to create fractures that release natural gas, and he responds with something that one does not typically associate with economists: passion.
In a phone interview, the chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association for oil and natural gas producers, said claims that hydraulic fracturing may be responsible for consequences ranging from fish kills to explosions are "complete nonsense."
"The fracturing process in itself has never been found to have contaminated a water supply in over a million wells that have been fractured over the last six years," he said, speaking with rapid-fire intensity.
That intensity reflects the intensity of the attention that hydraulic fracturing has received recently. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., has introduced legislation to regulate the practice, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment is examining it, and the Environmental Protection Agency has scheduled a public meeting this evening in Canonsburg about it, the third of four such forums being conducted as part of a study to be concluded in September.
Meanwhile, a new study has upped the estimate of jobs to be created by development in the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation underlying much of Pennsylvania, and a new program to train workers has received nearly $5 million from the U.S. Department of Labor.
Mr. Casey joined with U.S. Representatives Diana DeGette, D-Colo., Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y., and Jared Polis, D-Colo., last month to introduce the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act.
The senator said the act would repeal a provision of the 2005 energy bill that exempted hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It would also require natural gas producers to publicly disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
Mr. Felmy said those chemicals are already disclosed in data sheets available at each well site, and that many companies also list them online; and that the FRAC Act threatens to slow down or even stop natural gas production in the Marcellus Shale.
First Published July 22, 2010 12:00 am
