Green Fracking?

Green Fracking?

Re: Commentary by John Streicker (Whitehorse city councillor), Star, 2 Aug. 2013.

According to a short bio taken from the YEC site, John Streicker has a Bachelor degree in computer science and Geography and a Masters degree in Geodesy and Geomatics; Which is essentially more geography, GIS, mapping etc. as his qualification of a registered engineer. The Duty of a Professional Engineer to the Public under the Code of Ethics of the Association of Professional Engineers of Yukon clearly stipulates that: “ Every professional engineer shall: 

1. regard their duty to public welfare as paramount; 

4. not express publicly, ... opinions on professional engineering that are not founded on adequate knowledge ...”.

Short of qualifications not listed, it means as an engineer, he should not speak to drill technology and field geology (I have work experience and training in those fields).  If he could talk about well bore integrity his statements would have to include existing and certain harm to the public. This has been left out of his statements on hydraulic fracturing.

John Streicker speculates about risks of gas fracking. In reality the already accumulated evidence for harm to environment, economy and energy security describes a prohibitive certainty, according to leading independent scholars and experts.  Among them are natural gas drilling veteran and inventor, Dr. Ingraffea, and natural gas drilling entrepreneurs such as Arthur Berman, along with veteran economists and financial analysts for natural gas like Deborah Rogers.  Beyond that, there are many more aspects of intensifying damage in abandoned and forever decaying frack gas fields.

Streicker states: “These (risks) include water usage (1), contamination (2), and fugitive emissions (3).  All three of these risks depend on the integrity of the wells drilled.” 

This limitation and linking of pollution only to well integrity has no basis in Petroleum Engineering, Hydrology and Geology.

1. Water contamination is not limited to the effect of well failures which are fairly constant at about one third of all wells within 20 years.  It is not water that is pumped downhole, as Streicker claims, but frack fluid which is water polluted by toxic frack ingredients and chemicals like Benzene and Glycol.  Regardless of well failures, on average, water turned into polluted frack fluid has increased to about 50 million litres per well. This is equivalent to trillions of litres from one of the Yukon Southern Lakes to frack about 100 000 wells. These are typical figures for full spatial build out of a large shale development like the Horn Basin, or potentially the Whitehorse Trough. 

2.  Methane that never touched the well area rises up through fault lines and fissures from fractured deep shale, some of which goes into solution in water bodies. This is demonstrated in “Potential Contamination Pathways from Hydraulically Fractured Shale to Aquifers” by Tom Myers in the scientific “Groundwater” journal, April 2012.  Myers’ modelling represented an important achievement as methane goes into solution of lake, river and aquifer water. There it is found in toxic concentrations, while the individual faultline/fissure pathways are hard to pinpoint.

3.  Obviously, fugitive emissions are not limited to the gas well zone and cannot be minimized by improvements in drill technology. Streicker states, “As a fossil fuel, I think we should consider it only if we have confidence that fugitive emissions will be well below one per cent.” There is no basis to talk about minimal fugitive emissions of frack gas development that would or could be under 1 % of production. Indications and evidence for fugitive well emissions around 4 - 8 %, many fold of Streicker’s considerations, existed for some time and the percentage is increasing.  At an American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in Dec. 2012, delegations of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado at Boulder looked at the trend of peer reviewed studies. One recent study showed a figure of 9 per cent fugitive well emissions of total frack gas production, but the findings may continue to creep upwards. 

Streicker raises the expectation that regional energy needs would be met by local natural gas production: ”And this convoluted path brings us back to natural gas, because it is a potential local energy source.” This is another complete fiction. Companies at the doorstep or already operating in Yukon like the China National Off Shore Oil Corporation, Shell, Encana or others like them, are not interested in Yukon jobs or the heating of Yukon homes.  Their focus is to profiteer on financial, carbon trade and other subsidy markets and make our energy security and affordability dependent on their whims. Natural gas is never produced for local needs in the way of renewable energy. Producing regions have, except for a shipping discount, no priority access to their gas, which levels out in a North America wide distribution.

Mr. Streicker wants to “... establish solid regulations.” That only makes sense as part of gas fracking. Along regulations it does not improve safety but descend into a standard of more and more brute force destruction of geology and total degradation of landscape.

Streicker posts on a Green Party blog, "Our prime alternate energy potential is natural gas."  This is a continuing drive towards gas fracking the Yukon. According to up to date oil & gas reserve studies at the Yukon Geological Survey, Yukon doesn’t have proven, recoverable, conventional natural gas reserves. 

Streicker follows the concept of fracked gas as alternate energy; When on the contrary, it is the dirtiest fuel known to man but it just sounds a little bit like alternative energy. Recently, visitors to Whitehorse City Council chambers have noticed city councillor Streicker leaves no hair un-split and no stone unturned to stop city council from passing a frack free resolution. It would follow the common sense of municipalities across North America, CYFN and the Vuntut Gwitchin in passing a frack free resolution.  The resolution is before council partly as a deterrent against threats to Whitehorse drinking water such as gas fracking into the Whitehorse aquifer.  This is relevant as the oil & gas moratorium for the Whitehorse Trough will run out in 2016. 

A cold pursuit of gas fracking the Yukon, somewhat disguised by a language of ecological sentiment, requires this high level of communication skills. It also involves a disrespect to those green minded people who gave Mr. Streicker their support.