Are we closer to having renewable natural gas using solar power, water and CO2? That’s what HyperSolar, a technology company based in Santa Barbara, CA, is hoping to achieve. The company has filed a patent application for clean, renewable gas which it hopes replaces traditional natural gas without having
A U.S. Energy Department advisory panel has issued a qualified endorsement of the controversial shale gas exploitation technique of hydraulic fracturing, but a group of scientists charges that the panel’s recommendations are tainted because six of its seven members have current financial ties to the
Natural gas has been getting a lot of bad press recently because of the fracking (‘hydraulic fracturing’) debacle. The problem is that this method of gas drilling is riddled with controversy and real environmental risks. Gasland, an Oscar-nominated documentary about fracking, brought to the world’s attention how people
Last week the French government was the first to enact a law forbidding hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”.
This technology enables to recover shale gas via the use of massive amounts of water and chemicals. The former remaining afterward polluted, hence the controversy.
The law had been discussed by both the lower and upper chambers since March before being finally enacted on June 30th by the Senate with 176 votes in favor and 151 against.
It is noteworthy that the senators who voted against the law believed it wasn’t going far enough. Indeed, as Scientific American notes, the vote doesn’t not ban other methods to recover shale gas.
As you can surely imagine, large energy companies like the French oil giant Total are “deploring” this. Indeed, as the website Natural Gas for Europe notes :
” French shale oil and gas fields are potentially some of the most promising in Europe but remain “largely” unknown due to a lack of exploration, and the potential commercial viability of the fields is also unknown because of a lack of tests. “
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Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, New Jersey took a similar decision. The vote there was massively against as the Senate voted 33 against and only one for.
This occurs as the State of New York in the United States is preparing to lift a moratorium on the same method.
To conclude, I would like to give my personal opinion as I believe all countries should follow the lead.
Indeed, finding more oil and gas is only pursuing the headlong rush, and postponing the inevitable. We need to get out of oil, gas and coal, not finding more sources. Fossil fuels are already massively polluting, finding new ways to extract them will be even more polluting. It is high time we work on energy efficiency and low carbon energy sources…
Image credit : Flickr, animoore
The U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 8 percent, almost half of the country’s unofficial 2020 emissions reduction goal, by increasing use of natural gas plants, according to a new M.I.T. report.
The report, “The Future of Natural Gas,” found that
Natural gas has a relatively comfortable relationship with the transportation world. It is largely seen as clean, domestic, and inexpensive, a win-win-win situation that is not often found in the transportation industry. While the market for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) remains comparatively small, the growing
Natural gas is domestically abundant (2,587 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas in the United States) and it burns cleaner than oil and coal (30% and 50% less carbon dioxide emissions respectively), but removing the hydrocarbons from mile deep shale beds has proven to be a dangerous and environmentally damaging endeavor.
The Ukrainian government, long reliant on imported sources of energy to power the country, is aggressively pursuing the latest advances in natural gas drilling in hopes of tapping into large reserves trapped in shale deep underground.
The former Soviet state is working with major energy
A large U.S. producer of natural gas from underground shale formations says it will suspend the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, at seven well sites until it has investigated the causes behind a drilling accident last week.
Chesapeake Energy has halted its
Congress isn’t going to regulate hydraulic fracturing any time soon. But the Department of Interior might. For starters, Interior is mulling whether it should require drilling companies to disclose the chemicals they use to frack wells drilled on public lands, and already the suggestion has earned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar an earful.
In a scramble for new sources of natural gas, European energy companies are increasingly turning to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a drilling technique that has generated controversy in the U.S. because of potential harmful environmental effects.
In Poland, Halliburton has constructed a well for the state-owned Polish Oil and Gas
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a controversial practice used to drill for natural gas, also causes uranium trapped inside shale formations to be released, according to a new study.
After mapping Marcellus shale concentrations in Western New York and
Hydro fracturing is a profitable method of natural gas extraction that uses large quantities of water and chemicals to free gas from underground rock formations. But New York City’s concerns that the practice would threaten its water supply have slowed a juggernaut that has been sweeping across parts of the northeastern United States.
The highly productive method of natural gas extraction known as “hydro fracturing” has spread rapidly across the United States in recent years, opening up vast new reserves in Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and other states.
Last fall, however, the process — also known as “fracking” — ran headlong into opposition from New York City. And for now at least, stiff resistance from the city, which fears the contamination of its pristine water supply in upstate New York, seems to have slowed the momentum behind this highly touted — and highly controversial — drilling technique.
Two of the largest companies involved in natural gas drilling have acknowledged pumping hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel-based fluids into the ground in the process of hydraulic fracturing, raising further concerns that existing state and federal regulations don’t adequately protect drinking water from drilling.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., who released the information in a statement Thursday, announced that the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which he chairs, is launching an investigation into potential environmental impacts from hydraulic fracturing.
The process, which forces highly pressurized water, sand and chemicals into rock to release the gas and oil locked inside, gives drillers unprecedented access to deeply buried gas deposits and vastly increases the country’s known energy reserves. But as ProPublica has detailed in more than 60 articles, the process comes with risks. The fluids used in hydraulic fracturing are laced with chemicals — some of which are known carcinogens. And because the process is exempt from most federal oversight, it is overseen by state agencies that are spread thin and have widely varying regulations.