Frack Tour Checklist

Frack Tour Checklist

A number of distortions on hydraulic fracturing have been presented to the Yukon community and to the MLAs that serve in the Select Committee on fracking. I will enumerate a few that are important to be addressed during and following the fact finding tour in Alberta of the Select Committee commencing this week. The newly released agenda, as the original one, does not show any evidence of balance or respect for science but fortunately, Mr. Heffernan him-self has been put out of the agenda, which is a plus, you’ll see why. 

1. As a key unconventional natural gas industry promoter, Kevin Heffernan stated 28/29 Oct. 2013 in Whitehorse and Watson Lake that the average life expectancy of a frack well is 25 years. This is false as it is the production life of conventional gas wells, frack wells last on average (!) little more than 5 years. Industry data from a cross section of gas fracking companies in the with Yukon shales comparable Texas Barnett shale show an average well life of 7.5 years up to well abandonment. Only eight percent of Barnett frack wells ever made any money and that only over less than five years. Frack generated road damage exceeds all oil and gas revenue in the state and at a seven year boom’s endgame local unemployment is among the highest in Texas.
Source: Natural gas analyst Deborah Rogers and Texas Gov. figures

2. Heffernan referred to studies a known shale development lobby group, the Environmental Defense Fund initiated, funded and contracted with the University of Texas. Among the involved departments are the energy and chemistry institutes. Representative of a wider academic fraud scandal that follows the EDF is the UT energy institute study that claimed fracking supposedly does not pollute ground water. Lead author Prof. Groat and institute director Orbach had to resign after it became known that Groat had received personally 1.5 million dollars from the oil & gas company PXP before and while involved with the 2012 study. Groat had failed to mention this as did Heffernan. UT distanced itself from its energy institute’s water study.
Source: University of Texas

4. Heffernan painted as supposed outlier a 2012 Cornell University study by Ingraffea, Santoro and Howarth that observed higher than other fossil fuel GHG emissions as part of shale gas extraction; When in fact it is part of a growing body of work with similar results including from the University of Colorado, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
He claimed in Whitehorse that a 2013 EDF funded UT chemistry institute study that presents low findings on shale drilling related methane emissions was corroborated by other academic studies: “Ah, so it has been looked at by the US National Energy Technology Laboratory, National Resources Canada, the Environmental Protection Agency in the US, Stanford, Canadian Mc Gill University, MIT, University of California L.A., the list goes on and on”. Except for the MIT Energy Initiative with a series of gas frack related studies that were initiated and partly funded by the shale gas lobby group American Clean Skies Foundation, none of these bodies have carried out scientific work on methane emissions of shale gas extraction; Involved MITEI key authors Tony Meggs and Ernest Moniz were on the payroll of Talisman Energy and the oil consulting firm ICF International without declaring it while carrying out the frack gas studies. MITEI is funded to the tune 145 million dollars by the oil & gas industry. Heffernan failed to mention MITEI’s conflict of interest position.
Source: Listed universities and Public Accountability Initiative

5. Heffernan attempted to methodically confuse a well established nomenclature in the industry literature. Some of the firm basics that he mutilates are:
source rock applies to                   - conventional and unconventional
reservoir (rock) to                          - conventional
conventional requires                    - source rock and reservoir
trap, cap or seal characteristic to  - conventional
low, slow permeability to                - unconventional

unconventional reserve               ~ 5% - 10 % of unconventional resource, or less

frack gas well depletion               ~ 60% to 90% in year 1, after 2 years approaching zero
conventional gas well depletion   ~ several decades

These are universal operational parameters of the natural gas (oil) industry involving fundamentally different financial and logistics sets. They don't apply by 100% but close.
Key preparation for hydro fracking involves the use of a perfing gun that deploys explosive shaped charges punching through horizontal steel pipe (production casing) and into rock. Without it hydraulic fracturing fluid wouldn’t have holes to come through the steel casing essentially like water jets through the holes in a monstrous shower head. Hard to believe Heffernan’s omission was an accident, since it follows his strategy of hiding brute force shattering into gravel and mangling of geology and water tables as much as possible behind conventional gas drilling language and imagery.
Source: wide range of literature from oil & gas industry and petroleum engineering

6. Heffernan falsified and shifted the scientific understanding of gas flow in rock by tens to hundreds of times.
A key metrics of oil & gas geology and industry is the darcy scale, which describes permeability of rock for natural gas or water or crude oil. As illustration, a mosquito net would be more permeable for movements of air or water drops than a tent wall but less than an open tent door. Conventional versus unconventional gas is a meaningful distinction not randomly chosen. Conventional gas moves freely when tapped, unconventional gas does not flow without high intensity fracking.
Heffernan positions conventional gas above a permeability of 100 microdarcy (0.1 millidarcy).  
Everybody else in the oil industry and academia defines conventional gas reservoir rock in millidarcy, usually above 10 millidarcy, never less than one millidarcy.
He makes unconventional gas look conventional to say fracking is well established and was done since the 40s to falsely dismiss critics of brute force fracking in this way.
Again Heffernan prepared the ground for a false expectation that geological, hydrological, petroleum engineering, economic and environmental viability of gas fracking would be along the lines of conventional gas drilling architecture.
Sources: Exxon Mobile, Halliburton, Chesapeake Energy, Total and other shale gas players 

7. This kind of parallel universe communication approach by the unconventional oil & gas extraction PR is different to conventional oil & gas tactics and people are not prepared to resist its manipulation. A good example are some of the presentations made to the Select Committee late in 2013.
The Economic Development Department of the Yukon Government in its presentation stated: “The supply of North American natural gas is now largely dependent on unconventional resources.” In fact the opposite is the case and about half of Canadian crude oil production and three quarter of Canada’s natural gas production is conventional. About half of US natural gas and about three quarter of US crude oil production comes from conventional extraction.
Off course net production from conventional petroleum reserves is roughly five to ten times better than from unconventional reserves. Net energy is what counts as it relates to energy production figures in the way net income compares to gross revenue or wages before deductions. It means that unconventional production wastes precious and shrinking conventional reserves, creates mountains of public and environmental debt and derails the economy. The oil majors don’t pursue energy, they are after frack fiction based hand outs to extend an outdated monopoly position. Ecdev failed to mention even the aspect of net energy as it presented hype, not facts, to the Select Committee.
Sources: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, US Energy Information Administration, Oil Drum (petroleum economy internet archive) and the presentation of Yukoners Concerned to the Select Committee

8. Yukon Chief Medical Officer Brendan Hanley advised to implement regulations for fracking. His deduction from the regulatory landscape of fracking is false. There is no evidence anywhere that regulations break into the rock hard physics and mechanics that determine frack operation standards are becoming more destructive and even less safe going forward. The trend is to pulverize and crack the depth of entire regions and destroy their geological integrity more and more, not less. The context is further highlighted by the typical but already summed up extraction results in the end game of the Barnett Shale that show wells are abandoned with 8% of gas actually produced.
And there is of course the hope that more might be extracted with at this point staggering increases of force that already exceed the overall intensity of nuclear underground test scenarios.
Source: Colorado Medical Association and other medical associations who have said no to frack regulations because the process defies regulation. The “New Solutions” journal special issue compilation of peer reviewed health impact studies describing health decline and harm in regions with always regulated shale development.

9. The speaking notes of the Yukon Water Board to the Select Committee representatively state : “Further, since Hydraulic Fracturing is but one specific method of a rapidly evolving set of technologies of formation stimulation, the board chose to issue its guidance in a sufficiently general manner allowing for future industrial innovations and government policies.”
The adoption of the word stimulation more than by its out of place sexual possibilities indicates the Water Board has no clue. The meaning core of the word stimulation describes an acceleration or intensification of a reality that would be there without the stimulation. But a horizontal drill hole in shale without fracking is just that a hole in the rock releasing a cow fart. Yes, the Water Board made a joke out of a serious assignment, but what they presented is highly misleading or mislead or both.
Their presentation does not look coherent enough to have considered the Gas Buggy experiment from New Mexico in 1967 that used an atom bomb for shale gas fracking. It is the only other time in history or future conception that a significant release of shale gas entered the stage that is not based on brute force hydraulic fracturing. “ … is but one …” says the Water Board actually believes, along Heffernan style deceptions, there are other methods for shale gas extraction than high intensity hydraulic (or pneumatic, perhaps, but not likely have they heard of it) fracturing from multi well pads; A universal standard that was established for the first time in the North East B.C. 2007. The nuclear test ban treaty from 1973 also bans industrial uses of atom bombs like in the Gas Buggy experiment. The word “ban” might be hint for a Yukon Water Board that wanted to earn their department’s title and wages.

Peter Becker, Whitehorse Energy Consultant

John Streicker Backtracks and Frack Dances

John Streicker Backtracks and Frack Dances

Feb. 28 Jacqueline Ronson reports on an interview of the Yukon News with John Streicker, in which his relentless campaign for moving forward with regulated gas fracking in Yukon attempts damage control but continues (for more evidence google: streicker synergy deception).

In the interview his denial of supporting fracking lacks credibility as an actor’s role does in a badly written theatre plot. One that might re-appear unexplained on stage 20 min after dying a memorable death. The News and Ronson pitched Puff Balls, delivering less than critical thinking. It seems to me Streicker droned on in self reference while shutting out criticism from science and the community, as he has done.

John Streicker, who now tries to say he opposes fracking, in the interview does not come clean on any of his pro-frack positions and well worn industry talking points such as the following ones.
Streicker’s language is seductive, it charms Yukoners into the frack tent to hang themselves. 
Who would push back against nice sounding ideas and who would want: 

- to oppose a "local energy source" (streicker pitch for fracking, Whse Star, Aug. 2, 2013)? 

- to go against “prime alternate energy” (Streicker in a green party blog:
"Our prime alternate energy potential is natural gas.")? 

- to go against "open and informed discussion" (streicker's committee submission implies independent science and citizens as not "open and informed”)? 

- a "polarized debate" (streicker essentially blames frack critics, in his submission, to be an extreme pole)? 

- draw adversarial lines in the sand (Streicker mass email to Yukoners Oct. 4, 2013 “I have never liked making ‘fracking’ the line in the sand.”)? 

- to go against a 0.4% target for frack gas leakage that supposedly helps the climate (submission)? 

- to oppose regulations to manage or minimize “risk” (Streicker uses “risk” in the interview, as before, to hide proven frack harms that are not risk but geological certainties)?

And his most recent cover up for his frack lobby work is as dishonest as the litany of frack industry talking points he again brings forward seamlessly. In the News interview he starts off with the "benefits and risks” advertisement language he introduced to Yukon in 2012. 

Streicker’s false language was adopted in its title by the select committee on the risks and benefits of hydraulic fracturing in 2013. The by him brokered synergy contract from 2012 already attempted with the same words to recruit the community to fracking, in the fine print. (google: synergy yukon contract). We are not splitting hairs as Streicker is known for a clever command of words.

In the first sentence of the Ronson report on the interview he is quoted asserting there are  “benefits of fracking”, as if benefits were a fact. He claims to weigh those unfavourably against “risks”, as if “risks” would be truthful to proved harms. By shifting these aspects Streicker opens the back door further to a YG under fire to come up with a supposed balance in favour of fracking.

In reality there are no credible net benefits, profits or useful energy returns except for falsely presenting geological occurrences of oil & gas in shales as reserves. Hollow energy security and phoney geological reserve claims are fabricated to look worthy of investor commitments and government subsidies. 

The point is made by natural gas industrialists like Art Berman, veteran geologists like David Hughes, and financial analysts specializing on oil & gas like Deborah Rogers.

Consequently Streicker’s hype starts to look like the oil & gas version of salting gold claims. But a false front is advertisement gold as it appears not big oil doing the frack bubble bidding but the green party guy.

Except the investment fraud in the unconventional oil & gas sector, exceeds in scale large crimes like the Bre-X scandal. Streicker’s talk of benefits and conventional/unconventional bait and switch tricks hide the disastrous write down of billions in shale gas assets and investment, but also job and infrastructure losses.

No, with two nearly abandoned conventional wells at Kotaneelee the Yukon does not have an oil & gas industry or possibilities. A dangerous exception are shale and coal bed fracking disasters moved forward by Streicker’s frack regulation advice.

The Yukon News report on the Streicker interview concludes: "Those regulations need to be in place whether or not fracking is allowed in the territory, because methane leaks from conventional gas production pose the exact same risk, he said.”

This is false. Every single study that was not contracted, paid for and controlled by the oil & gas industry determines frack wells and frack fields leak more methane and cause more pollution. Also unconventional oil & gas heavily industrializes communities and landscapes, conventional does not.

Again, Streicker is using the uncertainty language of frack PR, and the word “risk” to great effect. With this method he confuses awareness of proven destruction in order to silence the community and control dialogue.

As with he conclusion of the interview Streicker’s representations are permeated with putting gas fracking in a continuum of conventional drilling. It is also a much repeated gas industry angle we have heard in Whitehorse from Kevin Heffernan (CSUR) and Aaron Miller (CAPP).

When unconventional really is different to conventional oil & gas drilling which is spot development. A steel pipe is inserted into a reservoir essentially like a straw into a cocktail drink. Unconventional drilling is spatial development and involves shattering the geology of entire regions. 

It is seamless spatial saturation and toxic degradation in 3D.
In the interview Streicker does not address these or any specific concerns his critics bring forward, and rather quotes himself instead throughout the interview. This appears arrogant and certainly not trust promoting for an engineer.

Ronson quotes Streicker, without probing or following up:
“If methane leaks, or fugitive emissions, are any higher than 0.4 per cent of production, natural gas is no better than other fossil fuel alternatives, according to Streicker’s Jan. 31 submission to the (YG frack) committee.”

Countless times he has brought up the 0.4 figure that is out of whack with reality. Independent studies by the University of Colorado and others show fugitive frack gas field emissions that are 20, 25 times higher than that.  

The oil funded shale lobby group Environmental Defence Fund (EDF) is the funder and initiator of a bulk of phoney frack studies. It created the fiction of a 0.4% target together with other frack talking points that in broken record fashion come out of Streicker.

High leakage and pollution, resulting in economic and environmental devastation are consistent with unconventional geology. They are not as Streicker claims determined by regulatory regimes.

That is why there are moratoriums and bans in place in many jurisdictions, nationally and internationally, that have extensive regulations or the ability to generate them, like Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Germany, France and most recently and notably, even oil producing Los Angeles. Los Angeles City Council, as most recent high profile case, passed the fracking ban in a 10 to 0 vote (google: list of bans worldwide). 

It is disturbing how Streicker sets up his argument and how he positions the conversation on climate crisis and unconventional oil & gas extraction. 0.4 per cent might not be met but he gets to say it again and again exercising his power of suggestion on people. Especially those folks are exploited with gaps in their understanding of energy technologies and policies.

He continues to pitch climate concerns and even anxiety to counter-act and demobilize as much as possible an effective no-frack position. John Streicker has proven to be formidable in deceptive and slick application of such gas industry tactics.
(google: Newfoundland Bans Unconventional Oil & Gas Extraction yukonblogger) 

However, John Streicker’s misuse of the 0.4 per cent leakage figure is among the finest in trade craft of psychological frack warfare.   

4 Nov. Newfoundland Bans Unconventional Oil & Gas Extraction (Whitehorse Star, Dec 2013)

4 Nov. Newfoundland Bans Unconventional Oil & Gas Extraction (Whitehorse Star, Dec 2013)

On 11 Dec. The Whitehorse Star Star syndicated a story by Ezra Levant

"Newfoundlanders aren't getting the fracking truth!”

In the story Mr. Levant, without referring to evidence, presented as fact that with the genuine purpose of critisizing gas fracking a fictional or anonymous Syd Peters made insider revelations in St John’s Telegram. 

There is no record of critics to gas fracking pitching stories as misleading or hidden entities.

Whereas it is day to day practice for the pro frack promoters to not disclose who they are and in fact act as false flag environmental critics. What are they hiding?

There is an entire industry of oil funded organizations without community roots who pretend to be environmentalists, pitching provocations, distorting independent and peer reviewed evidence and stabbing the citizens in the back. 

Just a few weeks ago on invitation of the Yukon Chamber of Commerce’s Darielle Talarico a speaker for the unconventional gas drilling industry, Kevin Heffernan, appeared in Whitehorse and Watson Lake. 

Heffernan has a record as paid and registered lobbyist with the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying in Canada without mentioning this in his introduction. He tried to beef up the gas frack industry’s limited credibility and substantiate his claims that water and air are supposedly not poisoned by rattling down a reference list of such oil & gas funded false front groups, among them: Environmental Defense Fund, Center for Sustainable Shale Development, Synergy Conservation and Stakeholder Groups, Groundwater Protection Council. According to informed sources Heffernan is also slated as prominent lecturer for the upcoming tour to Alberta and B.C. of the Legislative Frack Research Committee; And no credible science or information will be offered to balance the apparently well choreographed junk science program.

Enlightening us on how these things come about, CNBC provided an investigative report on a closed door training session about how best to lie to people, the: Media & Stakeholder Relations Hydraulic Fracturing Initiative 2011, Oct.31/ Nov.1 Houston/Texas. 

Michel D. Kehs, then Chesapeake Energy Vice President and PR chief spoke to an audience that included Canadian gas fracking outfits like Encana: “Chesapeake has got nearly 100 people whose sole jobs are to deal with community relations. We have got people going out and speaking in the community every night.” and “It does not matter what the facts are!”

In the list of sessions was the PR director for Range Resources, Mat Pitzarella, who had this advice: "We have several former PSYOPs folks (military psychological warfare experts) that work for us at Range because they're very comfortable dealing with localized issues and local governments.”

As we know him and his Sun Media/FoxNorth spin masters Mr. Levant in his story continues not with honest common sense but likewise with deception on the unconventional oil & gas disaster for human and civic rights, ruin for the economy and destruction for the environment. 

Peter Becker

Where is the Green Party on Fracking

Where is the Green Party on fracking?  (Comment, Whitehorse Star, February 19, 2014 )

The territorial Green Party, led by Kristina Calhoun, as well as the federal leader, Elizabeth May, have made it clear to Yukoners the party stands against unconventional oil and gas extraction or fracking.

The territorial Green Party, led by Kristina Calhoun, as well as the federal leader, Elizabeth May, have made it clear to Yukoners the party stands against unconventional oil and gas extraction or fracking.

However, the public watches the most prominent Yukon Green Party politician and ex-federal party president, city councillor John Streicker, continuing a multi-year lobby campaign in favour of gas fracking the Yukon, unopposed in the Green Party.

On Jan. 31, 2014, John Streicker submitted a proposal to the legislative frack committee for it to recommend regulations for fracking and to proceed with gas fracking.

(google: streicker says frack the yukon, or click:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Xj3vidIf08M3pReUtRLTZRZjA/edit?usp=sharing )

Streicker advises that regulations determine the outcome of shale fracking development.

In reality, independent science and regulators in the substance of their findings everywhere are clear that shattering unconventional shale geology locks in and involves increasing destruction, with only room for corrupt and corrupting oversight. 

Streicker has created an image of owning well-rounded science qualifications. He does hold a mapping-related geodesy and geomatics masters degree which involves mostly GIS skills.

But these skills are, at best, narrow in relation to the subject.

However, he does have political skills, including those of public speaking and writing, which are relevant for his oil and gas lobby efforts.

The format of his proposal follows closely the Synergy Alberta model using cloaked terms that, when added up after the fact, become plain in their message and intention of a one-way frack lane.

The oil industry-developed synergy method and organization has played a major role south of the 60th parallel to silence and strong-arm communities.

This happens by way of narrowing consultations to few or just one player.

By his own account, this narrowing is how Streicker worked with the Yukon Conservation Society, evidently for the purpose of controlling consultations.

The introduction of his frack Yukon proposal to the Yukon legislative frack committee from Jan. 31 starts off by reminiscing on this, stating:

“In the fall of 2012, I approached the Yukon Conservation Society (YCS) to discuss gas development in the Yukon. (At that point in time, EFL Overseas was not yet on the scene.)

“To begin with, I would like to commend both YCS and NCY (China National Offshore Oil Corporation/Northern Cross Yukon) for their openness and willingness to dialogue on a contentious and often polarizing topic.

“Both groups agreed that there is a need for the public to be engaged in an open and informed discussion about the oil and industry, including the benefits and risks of various oil and gas industry activities such as hydraulic fracture stimulation (fracking), and how Yukon’s regulations govern these activities.”

The referred-to synergy contract from Oct. 5, 2012 between YCS/NCY and forwarded to YG/VGFN, officially brokered by him and fellow gas promoter Darielle Talarico, was soon after abandoned as deceptive and wrong by the YCS. (google: "Synergy Yukon Contract" or follow the link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Xj3vidIf08Wk02M0hndWJHR0E/edit?usp=sharing )

Analysis of documents requires selected parts to be quoted fairly. This I have always shown to be committed to carry out. Not out of context, but to make context accessible to citizens in their righteous assertion to hold political power and its hired experts accountable.

Let’s look at key synergy code words Streicker uses consistently in his campaign and most recent proposals.

The words “polarizing” or “polarized” in the dictionary refer to opposing extremes in aspects or geography or views, for example. However, most of the critique on fracking the Yukon has been based on mainstream science from independent academics in the field of petroleum engineering, geology and economics such as Dr. Ingraffea or David Hughes; and been received in the public in this way.

Demagogic is Streicker’s application of a benign-sounding “open and informed discussion”, which in reality is one that excludes hearing the public.

In November 2012, Premier Darrell Pasloski physically waved the Synergy Yukon contract in the legislature while claiming that consultations with YCS had met his obligations to consult with the public.

“Open and informed discussion”, as borrowed from Synergy Alberta practices, is the language frame by which a process is contained. It is thus limited to oil and gas scenarios and expertise without possibility of recognizing a “no” or alternatives in the evidence.

This has defined the activities and hearings carried out by the so-called “Select Committee Regarding the Risks and Benefits of Hydraulic Fracturing”.

The committee title carries forward from Streicker’s 2012 Synergy Yukon contract “ … benefits and risks of various oil and gas activities such as hydraulic fracture stimulation (fracking).”

The frack committee is now as well playing out every other note of Streicker’s long-standing frack lobby playbook.

John Streicker has a history of lobbying for fracking. In a Whitehorse Star commentary from Aug. 2, 2013, he raised 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.”

It is fiction, as oil majors like CNOOC are not obliged to accommodate local needs or heat Yukon homes.

Streicker posted on a Green Party blog, “Our prime alternate energy potential is natural gas.”

On Oct. 4, 2013, in a mass email to frack critics in Yukon, he stated in summary: “I have never liked making ‘fracking’ the line in the sand.”

All of it leads to fracking, as Yukon does not have proven conventional oil and gas reserves that are known or significant (google: oil and gas potential yukon geological survey).

During the shale oil frack session of the Canada North Summit in Whitehorse, on Oct. 16, 2013, John offered advice on selling fracking:

“... How you build sustainability in thinking around this (fracking) ... If you got this resource there, are you trying not (to) do boom and bust by trying to find some ways to mete it (shale fracking) out in a fashion that would be more palatable for the communities themselves ….” (google: streicker strategizes fracking; pay attention to sound level in the uncut 90-second clip re. Tim Coleman, N.W.T. oil and gas director who provides the location references, N.W.T. Sahtu region and North Dakota Bakken Shale, or click:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7VtPMBW4IU ).

In his Jan. 31 proposal for fracking, Streicker does not mention a single one of the harms proven by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, including well failure rates of about one third over 20 years.

Close to the end of his conclusion, Streicker states: “Regulation for both fugitive emissions and pollution should exist for all natural gas operations, whether fracking is involved or not.”

He does not allow a sliver of the finality in the unconventional gas extraction reality in other regions already learned, where massive environmental degradation is occurring regardless of best practices and regulations.

The mechanics of his submission are simple and effective, the choice of words sophisticated.

People take with a grain of salt what neo-conservative governments and the oil industry say to promote oil and gas fracking.

But when the Green Party candidate does it,  many are defenceless, let their guard down and even adopt his phrases.

John Streicker’s claim that the Yukon government is listening to his advice may have proved right on Feb. 12, 2014.

On this day, YG issued a press release stating it has entered into a services agreement with the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission also for the purpose of “… working collaboratively on common issues such as trans-boundary oil and gas basins and regulation development.” (Star, Feb. 18).

This applies to shale formations such as the Horn and Liard Basins as well as for the Whitehorse Trough.

In short, it is a regulatory go-ahead for fracking before the select committee has even made its recommendation. This makes the committee look more biased and
pathetic than before.

Some of the public, in comments to the committee and media, appear under Streicker’s spell. They imply the proven harms under risks.

Synergy and Streicker have concerned citizens driving the frack lane by demanding that fracking not occur until regulated or supposedly proved safe or beneficial. Not wanting it, but inviting it – unbeknownst to them.

This is what YG wanted: to frack this year, and Streicker facilitated it. Both know full well that frack regulations are not interlinked to reality, and are proven enablers of destruction and fiction.

This is recognized by three Canadian provinces with moratoria in place, but not by Streicker. The endless synergy commentary he inspires is not an arbitrary derailment.

For those who want to keep Yukon intact, it would be simpler to say that the many proven harms and biased review process demand a ban.

To understand Streicker’s influence, one needs to know that he is a Facebook champion with thousands of friends and likes.

Yukoners who’ve been away for a while might have a more objective sense of how big the problem is.

Streicker has taken on a strange guru status. Elected and hired officials have stated in public: “I am a Streicker fan.”

Nobody seems to recall what he charmingly talked about aside from elevating politics above the ordinary as the one leader who unites opposites in a new age.

After his election to city council in 2012, five personalities, recognized in the community, published a laudatio, or praise page in the papers. Nobody had ever heard or seen anything like it before. A public person was shifted into a cult figure in down-to-earth Yukon.

Aside from the author of this Socratic piece, there have been community elders critical of Streicker’s actions too fearful or tactical to speak up, but it’s not idle gossip now. Streicker is the born-again synergy man, pushing on the community the repulsive program of fracking the Yukon.

Streicker’s lead role in disconnecting the community from the real dangers of fracking can’t be separated from remarkable anecdotes during and alongside the hearings.

The plain words of Fort Nelson First Nation chief Sharleen Gale in the legislature lobby, “Don’t let it happen here,” would have been much needed for truth finding inside the hearing dominated by a one-way frack ticket.

Outspoken critics of the process display a fatal flaw or perhaps lack courage. Their submissions and press releases do not admit how corrupt the process is, and the biased selection of presenters. They thus endorsed the process, and the value of critical evidence that emerged, nonetheless, was diminished.

As a city councillor, Streicker continues to stall a frack-free resolution for Whitehorse, which receives its water supply from the Whitehorse Trough. It had been targeted for fracking before a YG moratorium in 2012.

In other cities, a frack-free resolution simply reflects the will of the people to protect their drinking water. The jurisdictional and logistical problems against a frack-free ordinance portended by Streicker have not occurred, nor for Yukon First Nations with frack-free resolutions already in place.

Streicker often has intervened with the impeccable timing of a fixer. He is right there with well-crafted frack rescue narratives when other gas lobbyists are in trouble, after Talarico’s piece in the Star on July 26, 2013, was ripped apart, after the YG issued a drilling moratorium for the Whitehorse Trough, after YCS walked from his synergy contract, during September 2012, when he refused to sign a widely supported Yukon anti-frack petition and advised others not to sign it, when citizens and engineers brought a frack-free resolution to city council, when the CAPP representative could not answer questions at the Canada North Summit 2013, after negative evidence emerged during the 2013/14 select committee proceedings.

The Sierra Club’s executive director at the time, Carl Pope, secretly raised $26 million from Chesapeake Energy. He promoted hydraulic fracturing. When the Chesapeake bribe surfaced, the public revolted. Frack promotion and bribery are no longer supported by the Sierra Club, after Pope was made to leave in January 2010.

The facts I’ve outlined may not be the first nor the last high-profile episode of a Manchurian gas candidate.

Peter Becker is a Whitehorse energy consultant.

Frack Free Yukon PPT

Frack Free Yukon PPT Presentation given to Select Committee on Fracking of the Yukon Legislature
9 Oct. 2013.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Xj3vidIf08SmhGVjBkalhnd00/edit?usp=sharing

EMR and YWB slides with a few additional annotations in digital ink that highlights the text analysis:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_Xj3vidIf08MTV6TTg3NGJlRHc/edit?usp=sharing

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. 

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