Shale Gas: Just the facts please...

Although I have written several posts on shale gas development in New Brunswick, I thought it was a good time to post another blog attempting to present some facts on shale gas exploration and extraction. My goal is to present facts for my fellow NBers to decide for themselves if this industry is something they should support. I admit, based on a review of the facts, I support the development of a shale gas industry in New Brunswick, but my attempt here is to present facts, with no opinion.

One foundational fact to keep in mind when looking at this industry is to make sure you compare apples to apples when looking at the experiences of other jurisdictions. There has been a lot of comparison to the shale gas industry in the US, particularly Pennsylvania, and predictions that any issues that have happened there will inevitably happen here. The problem with that logic is that the regulatory environment of the US shale gas industry versus that of the Canadian, and New Brunswick, industry are vastly different.
Where New Brunswick has implemented the most stringent regulations on the shale gas industry in the world, the US industry is virtually unregulated. In the Energy Policy Act of 2005, then President Bush actually exempted those companies doing fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act, and removed the requirement for companies to disclose the contents of their fracking fluids. (See here)

The NB government has no such exemptions; the contents of the fluid must be shared with government regulators, and the industry practices must comply with clean water laws. In fact, the NB regulations go a step further than that and require more robust testing of water before and after development, and the companies working in the industry must establish a remediation fund to deal with any water issues before they start development.( See an overview of water protection regulations here )

Lets continue to focus on water, which seems to be a main hub of concern in most debates/discussions of shale gas development. Much of the discussion has focused on how many millions of gallons of water is used in the fracking process. But as with any large number, or any number in general, we need to put these water consumption numbers into perspective. According to this article , the percentage of fresh water used by all 27,000 wells completed in the USA in 2011 was just 0.3 percent of all freshwater consumption in the USA for the same year.

This same article suggests that on average a fracked shale gas well uses about 5 million gallons of water. So using that generous estimate, let's look at what that amount of water would mean in New Brunswick. I had a hard time finding the average annual rainfall for all of New Brunswick, so let's assume the city of Fredericton is close to the province wide average. Fredericton gets 42 inches of rain annually. That calculates to 1.1 million gallons per acre/year (based on the table on this USGS website). A quick Google search shows that New Brunswick has an area of a little less than 73,000 square Km, or 18 million acres. To simplify the math a bit, let's say each acre receives 1 million gallons of rainfall per year. So 18 million acres will get 18 trillion gallons of rain per year. To put that into perspective, it would take over 4 million shale gas wells to use up all the rain that falls in our province per year. And it is very unlikely that New Brunswick will ever see more than a 1,000 wells, even if the industry takes off. If we go with that optimistic number of 1,000 wells, with 5 million gallons being used per well, we would see 5 billion gallons of water being used. That sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.02 % of the 18 trillion gallons of water that falls on NB in  an average year. And remember, even if 1,000 wells are producing in New Brunswick, they won't all be drilled in one year.  

The reality is that New Brunswick has an abundance of fresh water with a very healthy annual rainfall replenishing it every year. There are several other industries that have been operating in New Brunswick for hundreds of years that consume more water than shale gas does, and we have no shortages of water in New Brunswick.

The other concern when it comes to water and shale gas development is the potential to have water supplies tainted by fracking fluids. The reality is, the shale gas deposits in New Brunswick are 1-2 km from the surface, and the average depth of our water table is around 50-100 meters. So the fracking fluids would have to seep through 950-2000 meters of rock of various geologies to get to the water table. And add to this the fact that the natural gas we are looking to extract has been held in place under a "cap rock" for thousands, if not millions of years. Reservoirs of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) are usually formed when the fluids are trapped under a layer of harder, less permeable rock. Fracking is not going to dislodge this cap rock.

The risks to groundwater are well described by UNB Geologist Adrian Parks paper in the Journal of New Brunswick Studies paper on the shale gas industry in New Brunswick; which you can read here.
There have been several examples cited where shale gas development has been blamed for spoiling people's wells. Some of these examples have been discredited when it was learned that the areas sited have had high level of methane in them many years before the shale gas industry arrived. Most of the other examples have been traced to poor casing practices. Let me explain this:

When a well is drilled for shale gas (and other types of hydrocarbons), the hole is lined with cement (a casing) that is supposed to maintain the integrity of the hole. If the casing cement is of a poor quality, or the casing itself is not properly poured, the casing can fail, allowing fracking fluid of hydrocarbon's to leech into the groundwater. In the US, there are no regulations in regards to these casings. The stringent New Brunswick regulations require inspection of these casings as they are being poured, and requires a triple casing of the wells. So the cement quality is regulated, the pouring is regulated, and then 2 fail safes are put in place to ensure the integrity of the well casing.

The industry is working hard to find environmentally neutral fracking additives, which would eliminate and risk of contamination. I have personally visited 2 such labs; one at the largest fracking service company in Canada, and the other at the largest oil and gas service company in the world. Both report that they are close to releasing environmentally benign fracking additives. 

As Adrian Parks notes in the aforementioned paper, there are risks involved in shale gas development, but they are no more dire than the risks posed by any other natural resource development. The forestry industry that New Brunswick is famous for poses as much risk to water quality; and the agriculture industry over the years has caused more damage to groundwater than any other industry. In the last 20 years the agriculture industry and forestry industries have proven to be sustainable when regulated properly. The government of New Brunswick has made good strides to learn from the mistakes made in the US in regards to shale gas development, and put in place regulations to avoid these mistakes.

The key to any regulation, be it traffic, environmental or fiscal, is to have enforcement of the regulations. This will be a key part of the safe development of the shale gas industry, the government must provide the human resources and budget to properly enforce its stringent regulations for the industry.

The other question mark with the development of this industry in New Brunswick is in regards to revenue to be gained. The government has made strides to strengthen the royalty structure to ensure New Brunswick citizens see the financial benefits of this industry, and these strides need to continue.

The last fact I will leave you with, faithful reader, is to point out that no company has yet to confirm that they will be doing any hydrofracking in New Brunswick. The seismic testing that has been done over the last few years does not automatically mean that fracking will take place. This exploration phase is meant to ensure there is enough gas or oil in the ground to make production profitable. With natural gas prices falling over the last few years, the size of the reservoirs in New Brunswick may not warrant the expense of extraction, and this debate could be for naught.

As always, I encourage everyone to think for yourself, do some research and make sure you base your opinions and decisions on facts; not conjecture, hype, emotion or sound bites.