Photo: UC Santa Barbara Geography Department. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as seen from space by NASA's Terra satellite on May 24, 2010. The spill has yet to be contained and is the worst oil spill in US history.
View of the Macondo well leaking oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
The subject of gas drilling in the Marcellus may be looked at in its historical, legal and scientific contexts. The need to heal the ineffective and mistrustful relationship between environmentalists, the U.S. government and the international energy industry concerning the preservation of American air and water becomes more urgent by seeing images like these.
See: Kara Cusolito. The Nation. "The Next Drilling Disaster".
On Sunday, Sept. 26, a committee of the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council that is conducting an analysis of the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill held a public meeting to hear from Mark Bly, group head of safety and operations for BP, and other company representatives about BP's recently released accident investigation report. Also on the agenda were executives from Halliburton and Shell Oil.
- Photos
- Webcast Audio Part 1 (Opening Remarks, BP Presentation)
- Webcast Audio Part 2 (Q&A with Committee and BP)
- Webcast Audio Part 3 (Halliburton Presentation and Q&A)
- Webcast Audio Part 4 (Shell Presentation and Q&A)
- Meeting Agenda
- Project Information
See: "More Questions About BP’s Limited Investigation Into Gulf Disaster".
See: Dave Cohen. Energy Bulletin. "Shale Gas Shenanigans."
See: National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling
See: The Questions BP Didn’t Answer
See: Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf | Interactive Map
For more on the estimates, see these articles:
May 14: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say
May 28: Estimates Suggest Spill Is Biggest in U.S. History
June 7: Rate of Oil Leak, Still Not Clear, Puts Doubt on BP
June 10: New Estimates Double Rate of Oil Leak
June 15: Panel Sharply Raises Estimate of Oil Spill
Aug. 2: Gulf Spill Is the Largest of Its Kind
See: Cain Burdeau. "Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP Well." AP. Coastal Care. Nov. 6, 2010.
See: Peter Hart. July 2010. "Still Drill, Baby—Despite Spill
Little rethinking of oil after Deepwater disaster." FAIR. (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
See New Book:
Institute of Medicine, Margaret A. Mccoy, and Judith A. Salerno. Assessing the Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill on Human Health: A Summary of the June 2010 Workshop. National Academies Press, 2010.
President Bush delivers his 2006 State of the Union address, where he famously stated that “America is addicted to oil.” AP/Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Rebecca Lefton includes a timeline: 2001-2008 of the Bush Presidency's corrupt energy policy.
BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is without a doubt former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Katrina. President George W. Bush and Cheney consistently catered to Big Oil and other special interests to undercut renewable energy and energy efficiency initiatives that would set the United States on a more secure clean energy path.
Oil companies raked in record profits while benefitting from policies they wrote for themselves. These energy policies did nothing for our national security and left consumers to pay the price at the pump and on their energy bills, which rose more than $1,100 during the Bush administration.
See: The Bill From Bush’s Broken Energy System
Read also: The Prelude to Cheney's Katrina by Joshua Dorner
River Valley Resident. Posted on blog by Liz J. Bucar, Breathing is Political. Thoughtful soul-searching essay on Gas Drilling.
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - April 7, 2010.
Series: Buried Secrets: Gas Drilling's Environmental Threat.
A federal study of hydraulic fracturing set to begin this spring is expected to provide the most expansive look yet at how the natural gas drilling process can affect drinking water supplies, according to interviews with EPA officials and a set of documents outlining the scope of the project.
The research will take a substantial step beyond previous studies and focus on how a broad range of ancillary activity – not just the act of injecting fluids under pressure – may affect drinking water quality.
The oil and gas industry strongly opposes this new approach. The agency’s intended research "goes well beyond relationships between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water," said Lee Fuller, vice president of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum Association of America in comments (PDF) he submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency.
See 22 page Powerpoint, Hydraulic Fracturing Applicability of the Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act Science Advisory Board Discussion.(2010).
Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a leading independent North American natural gas producer. The company’s reserves are focused in both conventional and unconventional basins in Appalachia, the Rocky Mountains, the Mid-Continent and the Gulf Coast.
See: Cabot Oil & Gas’s Marcellus Drilling to Slow After PA Environment Officials Order Wells Closed. Lustgarten, Abrahm. ProPublica. (2010).
See: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania DEP takes aggressive enforcement action against Cabot Oil
See: Associated Press. December 16, 2010. The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. "Gas driller to pay $4.1 million in settlement."
HARRISBURG — The state Department of Environmental Protection has abandoned its plan to force a Houston-based drilling company to pay nearly $12 million to extend a public water line to residents whose wells have been contaminated with methane gas, citing a lack of political support.
Environmental regulators say Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. instead will pay residents of Dimock a total of $4.1 million under a settlement with the company announced late Wednesday. Cabot also has agreed to pay to install whole-house gas mitigation systems in each of the 19 affected homes.
The settlement infuriated residents, who say the DEP caved to political pressure.
See also:
- Legere. Hazards posed by natural gas drilling are not limited to below ground
- Legere. Cabot and DEP clash over Dimock water contamination
- Lippert. Shale Gas Costing 2/3 Less Than OPEC Oil Incites Water Concern
- Lustgarten. Frack Fluid Spill in Dimock Contaminates Stream, Killing Fish.
- Lustgarten. Pennsylvania Orders Cabot Oil and Gas to Stop Fracturing in Troubled County
- McFerrin. Fight Over Gas Wells in Chief Logan Heads to Supreme Court
- Noell. Natural Gas Drilling Threatens Communities in Northeastern United States
- Piette. Water All Around … Or is There?
by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - April 16, 2010.
More than 15 months after natural gas drilling contaminated drinking water in Dimock, Pa., state officials are ordering the company responsible -- Houston-based Cabot Oil and Gas -- to permanently shut down some of its wells, pay nearly a quarter million dollars in fines, and permanently provide drinking water to 14 affected families.
The order is among the most punitive in Pennsylvania's history and reflects officials' frustrations over a string of drilling-related accidents. The record of spills, leaks and water contamination in Pennsylvania -- several of which are tied to Cabot -- has spotlighted the environmental risks of drilling for natural gas across the country, jeopardized development of the massive Marcellus Shale resource deposit, and contributed significantly to actions by both Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to bolster federal oversight of drilling.
"The events at Dimock have been the black eye for the industry and have also been a black eye for Pennsylvania," the state's chief environment official, John Hanger, told ProPublica. "It's been an enormous headache. If Cabot doesn't get this message, the company has got an amazing hearing problem."
CalFrac is one of the companies the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating on the potential environmental impacts from hydraulic fracturing.
"Hydraulic fracturing operations are constantly improving through advances in technology, which are intended to translate into cost savings and enhanced production for Calfrac’s customers."
"We need to develop a system to minimize the disposal costs for gas producers and make water safe for all users," said Gregory, who is responsible for the development of a new remediation technology based on electrochemical cells."
Catskill Mountainkeeper is a member based advocacy organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the long term health of the six counties of the Catskill Region. Up to date news about gas drilling, boating, bears, stories, and more.
See: People's Stories
Our mission is to explore life beneath the seafloor and make transformative discoveries that advance science, benefit society, and inspire people of all ages and origins.
In a provocative 1992 essay, Thomas Gold postulated the existence of a "deep, hot biosphere", supported by geological energy sources. The potential for the oceanic deep biosphere to influence global biogeochemical processes scales with the size of the subseafloor as a habitat.
See: Probe Earth's Interior with Advanced Radiation Sources
The ramifications of a massive buried biosphere of "intraterrestrial microbes" are significant, leading to paradigm shifts in our thinking in the biosciences and geosciences.
"Despite an intense focus on discovering abiotic hydrocarbon sources in natural settings, only a handful of sites convincingly suggest that abiotic organic synthesis occurs within the geosphere...
...The crux of this topic is that currently there is no foolproof approach to distinguishing abiotic versus biotic organic synthesis. Thus, it is especially important to be cognizant of the possibilities and limitations of abiotic hydrocarbon production when considering a deep subsurface biosphere where the organic matter may be synthesized by both abiotic and biotic processes." (Proskurowski, 2010)
See: Life in the Oceans | The Why Files.
See: The Sloan - Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO)
The Deep Carbon Observatory is a program of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
The Sloan - DCO mission includes the fostering of international cooperation in addressing global-scale questions, including the nature and extent of deep microbial life, the fluxes of carbon dioxide from the world's volcanoes, and the distribution and characteristics of deep hydrocarbon reservoirs.
The DCO is currently composed of four science directorates: Deep Life; Reservoirs and Fluxes; Energy, Environment, and Climate; and Physics and Chemistry of Carbon.
Gold, Thomas. The Deep Hot Biosphere : The Myth of Fossil Fuels. New York: Springer | Copernicus, 1998.
Goncharov, Alexander. “Unanswered Questions in Deep Carbon Research” presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting keynote | Sloan Deep Carbon Cycle Workshop, Carnegie Institution, Geophysical Laboratory | Washington, D.C., May 15, 2008. (PDF 4.4 MB)
Proskurowski, G. “Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at the Geosphere-Biosphere Interface via Serpentinization Reactions” in Timmis, Kenneth N., ed. Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer, 2010.
