Is Fracking All It's Fracked Up to Be? Jones Seminar and Video

Jones Seminar at Dartmouth

Once a week, Dartmouth Engineering School hosts the Jones Seminar, covering a topic of general interest.  Last week's seminar was Limits to Growth of Energy: Facts About Fracking in the US, presented by Dr. Dennis Meadows, University of New Hampshire.  I would summarize the lecture as below (my summary, not a direct quote):

"There's a great deal of unreasonable exuberance about fracking. However, shale gas is not going to be cheap and abundant. It is not going to save the U.S. economy."

About Dr. Meadows and about the video

Meadows is co-author of the book Limits to Growth, and was active in the Club of Rome project at MIT in 1970-1972. (Information from Wikipedia.)  However, this seminar was supposed to be mostly about fracking, and that was why I attended it.    

I have embedded the video of the talk below. Since the video is almost an hour and a half long, I will give a brief summary here:

• In the first half hour, he says that fracking is oversold, but spend most of his time on models and limits-to-growth.  At around 29 minutes, he gives some numbers about coal and nuclear which do not jibe with my experience of those two technologies. 
• Starting around 30 minutes, he discusses fracking.  He provides slides of typical well profiles and field profiles. The wells have lousy profiles, and the fields become "middle-aged" (best areas have been drilled and are declining) within a short time, maybe ten years or so.This isn't a century worth of cheap gas.
• Zinger in the video: There's a very interesting section at the fifty-five minute mark. Meadows asks a rhetorical question: "If fracked gas is so bad, why is everyone so enthusiastic about it?"  His answer is that the enthusiasm is based on the idea that everyone in the gas industry has an incentive to lie about the situation.  Quite a strong statement!

A Credibility Gap Resolved

By the end of the talk, I actually hoped that shale gas would be a better resource than Dr. Meadows predicted.  I was also having some problems with his assessment of nuclear and coal. (I write more about that in a section below the video.)

Therefore, the question arises: if I didn't believe Meadows assessment of nuclear or coal, why was I believing him on the future of fracked gas?  Was I just a victim of confirmation bias: "He's finally saying something I agree with, so he must be right"?  I try to check my biases at the door, when possible.  Therefore, I emailed Meadows and asked him for the source of his slides on fracking.

Meadows was kind enough to send me the major source that he used for fracking information. This was a set of slides on The Shale Revolution (I link to it there...it is a long pdf of slides) by J. David Hughes of the Post Carbon Institute.  Hughes article of the same title was published in Nature Magazine, which is a very reputable source. 

Now, the Post Carbon Institute is pretty much what you would expect it to be, including Bill McKibben as a member. Still, what I wanted to do was simple: I wanted to judge the credibility of Hughes fracking slides. I judged them to be completely credible.

In the Hughes slides, I saw well profiles of the type I have seen in many articles about fracking: 80% decline in well productivity within about three years.  I also saw whole-field profiles about well-drilling and production: these slides matched what I have read about drill counts, etc. According to the notes on his slides, Hughes slides were assembled from data that came from a very reputable source, DrillingInfo (data at this site is behind paywalls).

So, for me, this was a credibility gap resolved.  Whatever Dr. Meadows said in the rest of his talk, his section on the future of fracking was well-researched and credible.

There isn't a century of cheap abundant shale gas.  It's a bubble.

Supplementary Information on the Big Energy Picture

Meadows on Nuclear and Coal

 I had real questions on Meadows views of nuclear and coal. Meadows dismisses nuclear energy by saying we can't build it fast enough.  (He doesn't say how fast we are going to build renewables, but I suppose they will be built "fast enough"?)

Meadows talks more about coal, but I disagree with him. For example, around  the 29 minute mark Meadows says (or implies, his words are not clear) that we pulverize coal as part of pollution control for coal.  That if we just shoved it in the furnace we would have a better energy-return-on-investment.  Not really.  We pulverize coal for a very practical reason: pulverization allows us burn it hotter and get more thermodynamic efficiency out of the system.  Stoker systems just don't burn as hot, and that old efficiency equation still holds. 

Meadows also claims that coal clean-up brings the energy-return-on-investment for coal down from 80 to 10. (His slide 12) As someone who worked in coal clean-up and taught the All Around the Coal Boiler Course...this is just not right, in my opinion.  There is a significant parasitic load of various types with coal cleanup, but it doesn't cut the coal energy output to 1/8 of what it would otherwise be.    

Meadows has been good about answering questions, so I should probably ask him about his basis for the coal numbers.  But my interest was the future of fracking, not about  his assessment of coal, nuclear, wind, Malthus etc.  So I only asked him about the sources for his fracking information.  He was good about sharing this information, and I am pleased to share it with my readers.

My ideas about fracking 

Meadows seminar confirmed much of what I have been predicting about fracking.

When I first started at EPRI, I was in the geothermal group, which was part of the Renewable Resources division. I often found myself in a small group of people attempting to evaluate a "new" type of geothermal resource.  Our group looked at the Los Alamos Hot Dry Rock Project and at the geopressured zones near the Gulf of Mexico, among other areas.

Some general conclusions:

• All things otherwise being equal, a more expensive well produces more expensive fluid.
• A well with poor permeability can be fracked to produce more fluid, but you will have a better well (producing more fluid overall) if the well itself has good permeability. 

How does this relate to fracking?  Well, drilling a horizontal shale gas well is more expensive than drilling a conventional gas well. Also, the need to frack the shale shows the original permeability is low. So I expect shale gas to be basically more expensive than "regular" gas.

Imagine my surprise to find people who are convinced that shale gas is cheap now, and going to be cheap and abundant forever!  Whenever I objected to this scenario for the future of gas prices, people looked at me as if I were crazy. Some said that I just want nuclear to be the low-cost provider so I'm hating on shale gas.

No.  Expensive wells with poor production profiles (shale gas wells) make expensive gas.  We're in a low-price gas bubble now, but the bubble and the low prices are unlikely to last.  

In other words, in the shale gas overview, Dr. Meadows and I agree.

The Underpinnings of Energy Choices: Philosophy and Power

ANS Plenary Session, from ANS blog

Showing Up and Paying Attention

I returned recently  from the American Nuclear Society meeting in Atlanta. The plenary session featured chief executives from many facets of nuclear energy.  However, in my opinion, there was a pall over the meeting, due to the recent permanent closing of four American nuclear plants.

I have a blog post up today at ANS Nuclear Cafe: Philosophy, Shale Gas and the ANS Annual Meeting.

In this post, I discuss the statements of the industry executives in terms of the philosophy; Show Up, Pay Attention, Tell the Truth, and Don't be Attached to the Consequences.

 Fair Share

Clearing for a wind turbine

Earlier this month, my friend Howard Shaffer had a post at the ANS Nuclear Cafe: A Dangerous Precedent or a Slippery Slope.  This was also cross posted at The Energy Collective.

In this post, Howard looks at local control over energy projects, and discusses when this is a good thing, and when it is the slippery slope to unbridled nimby-ism.  The philosophical question: What is a community's "fair share" of a common burden? He includes extensive discussion of wind energy regulations in Vermont.

30th Carnival of Nuclear Energy Blogs

Asia: The New Frontier for Nuclear

Several nuclear energy blog posts this week explore the new builds in Asia. At ANS Nuclear Cafe, Dan Yurman reviews China's ambitious nuclear program. China is planning 40 GWe of nuclear by 2020. Will China be able to execute its ambitious plans? A target of 40 GWe by 2020 could involve at least 30 new reactors. However, the official target is almost 120 GWe. Yurman discusses China's targets, challenges and plans in his post. For example, China would have to become self-sufficient in reactor design.

Brian Wang at Next Big Future also looks toward China. In An Even Bigger Century of Nuclear Energy, Wang shows that China has been able to maintain Walmart type prices for its nuclear builds. In McKinsey Proposes a Green Revolution Development Plan for China, Wang reviews a McKinsey report from late 2009, and notes that China is moving faster on nuclear and green technologies than that report recommended. In a related post, Wang looks at the Chinese energy mix for now, 2015 and 2020. And finally...what is China planning to do with all this electricity? Here's one answer. In a post on amazing facts of China's high speed rail buildout, Wang points out that by the end of 2012, China may have more miles of high-speed rail than the rest of the world combined.

Looking at the costs in China, however, Charles Barton describes how molten salt reactors, built in the United States, could still be the most cost-effective way to produce nuclear power. As Barton explains, Keeping Up with China may mean leapfrogging current technology.

North America Moves Ahead

Current technology in North America is doing very well: David Bradish of NEI Nuclear Notes shares some statistics. Nuclear power electricity production in the United States is on track to break all previous yearly records. So far, 2007 was the record year for nuclear generation. At the end of October in 2007, nuclear had provided 669.5 bkWh. This year, nuclear provided 670.0 bkWh by the same date.

North of the border (that is, the border between the U. S. and Canada) the situation is decidedly mixed. In Idaho Samizdat, Dan Yurman describes how the Ontario provincial government plans to build two more nuclear plants at Darlington, and refurbish ten more reactors. However, the Ontario provincial government also wants to sell (privatize) Atomic Energy Canada Limited (AECL). This is the company that would build the reactor. As usual, Yurman gives insights into these murky waters.

North America Falls Behind

Steve Aplin of Canandian Energy Issues also casts some light into the murk. Ontario has a long-term energy plan that includes phasing out its coal plants. However, the plan includes replacing most of the coal plants by natural gas. Aplin explains why this is not a particularly good idea. He concludes by pointing out that the plan is a pdf document, no more. It's written in pixels, not stone. It can be changed.

Meanwhile, at Atomic Insights, Rod Adams brings a blast from the past: at year-old document on radiation from gas and production water in the Marcellus shale. Did anybody except Adams ever read this document? I hope so. Thousands of wells are going to be drilled, in thickly-settled farm county, and someone should be thinking about the effects.

Speaking of the countryside, in my Yes Vermont Yankee post, I temporarily stop describing protests against the nuclear plant in southern Vermont. Instead, I describe protests against the proposed biomass plant in southern Vermont. Just in case you thought renewables would make people happy.

Not exactly a blog post, but Cool Hand Nuke helps you nuclear-power your browser. You can bring nuclear news, views, and job openings to your browser with Cool-Hand Nuke's free widgets. (I think they are widgets. Maybe they are plug-ins. Anyhow, they are free and they are all about nuclear.)

The Carnival Calls

Come to the Carnival! It's always fun. It's never cold and windy. The comestibles are brain food, not cotton candy. Something to learn! Something to see! Always something new!

Natural Gas and a Waltz

Reading my fellow-bloggers posts recently, I was struck by the fact that I spend almost no time talking about fossil fuels. Jason Ribeiro at Pro-Nuclear Democrats took on natural gas, and Nuclear Fissionary compared coal to nuclear. I did no comparisons.

I'm changing that, but not in a depressing way. We'll have music and maybe dancing while we discuss fossil fuels. Even though the Sierra Club has come out for natural gas, and the CLF has invested heavily in natural gas, well, natural gas has its problems.

So I'm going to steal a video clip about natural gas from a post by blogger Jason Ribeiro at Pro Nuclear Democrats. (Jason, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as well as the most annoying.)

Fracking Shale

Most natural gas is found in sandstone formations, but the big excitement now is finding gas in shale formations. Fracking shale for natural gas means injecting a nasty mix of chemical underground to open up paths for the gas to travel to the gas wells. These chemicals can contaminate aquifers that are used for drinking water. The gas companies will not reveal which chemicals are being injected. A recent Scientific American article explores some of the problems. The City of New York has set a moratorium against fracking beneath its watershed lands.

Is fracking shale really a problem? In many cases, I think that concerns about energy technologies are overblown. There is no free lunch, no form of energy without its drawbacks. Furthermore, people have stimulated ordinary (sandstone-based) gas wells with injection for a long time. Oil and gas wells have been stimulated with hydraulic fracturing since 1947. The technology should be well known and (hopefully) controllable. Perhaps the outcry against fracking the Marcellus shale is another environmental-scare-of-the-month story?

I don't think so. The Marcellus shale is a shale, not a sandstone. Sandstones are the usual reservoir for oil and gas reserves. Fracking shale is not the same thing as stimulating a traditional gas well.

My Friend Shale

In my opinion, shale is our friend. Sandstones have high porosity and high permeability. Shale can have high porosity (holes) but has low permeability (few connecting holes). Therefore, shale is the barrier between different types of water-containing layers. For example, a groundwater aquifer may contain agricultural run-off and be unsuitable for drinking water. However, that shallow aquifer is usually separated by a layer of shale from a deeper drinking-water aquifer. The impervious rock that defines an artesian aquifer is usually shale.

If you fracture sandstone, you can hope for a layer of shale to protect local aquifers from the fracturing chemicals. If you fracture shale, on the other hand, you can expect no protection of aquifers. As a matter of fact, you are destroying that protection by making the impermeable shale permeable.To fracture shale, you have to add permeability to a rock that basically doesn't have any. It's harder than stimulating sandstone. You have to try harder, blast harder, use more chemicals. All that stuff.

All in all, fracking shale is dangerous for aquifers. It's a good idea to have a moratorium on fracking the Marcellus shale.

Singing and Dancing

When anti-VY activists do their song and dance how we don't need VY, they often say that we have recently found lots of local natural gas.

They are talking about shale. They are talking about possibly destroying our aquifers.

It's kind of like the Tom Lehrer song about Wernher Von Braun. In this song, Werner explains that the consequences of his rockets are "not my department."

Once Vermont Yankee is closed, who cares where the energy comes from? From the point of view of an anti-VY activist: "It's not my department." Using Marcellus shale to substitute for VY will be a problem for everyone in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. It won't be a problem for the anti-VY activists. It's not their department.