Natural Gas Drilling is Radioactive (and its coming to New York) WARNING: ANGRY blogger alert
I've gotten to the point of rage.
Well meaning (and generally wonderful) democrats such as Kerry, Boxer (more here and here and here) support natural gas in their attempt to pass any kind of climate change initiative under the theory that one evil is better than another. Democrats support swiftboater-Pickens' plan, and support the Dubai-based Halliburton process because we all know that natural gas burns a little cleaner than oil, so even if it causes incredible amounts of pollution and spews methane into the air, it must be okay.
And certainly we can trust Halliburton to do right by American. Hasn't Pickens' always had America's best interests in mind?
That is why I am so glad that TPM is reporting state issues regarding the poll numbers in NY for a governor's race a year away, and on all kinds of great gossip concerning other governors and elected officials,but is not reporting anything regarding an issue that will affect:
The New York City Watershed
The Chesepeake Watershed (the one that reaches Philadelphia and Washington D.C. as well as entire states)
Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people in upstate New York and in rural areas of Pennsylvania
Millions of people living over shale deposits all over the country
Watersheds all over the country -- some of which are already weak.
I will give you the latest:
New York is on its way to welcoming the Natural Gas Industry, Halliburton and TBoon Pickens to bring its healthy money to the oh so healthy environs of Albany (known to be an incorruptable government of the best kind) so it can enact a policy that supports a methane based economy.
Millions of miles of pipeline will be dug.
(Pipes that leak.)
Billions upon billions of gallons of water will be used that can never be used for drinking water again.
Billions upon billions of poisonous water will be created.
Major air pollution associated with asmtha, lung-damage and (in this case, due to volitile chemicals) neurological disorders.
And, to top it off:
Radiation.
You have to read this ProPublica Article.
You won't hear about it in the progressive press.
Or in The New York Times
Or in TPM
Or anyplace that is supposed to impart major news stories because, apparently, massive pollution is not an important issue.
Anyway, I'm fed up.
I'll try to write more substantively on the issue in the next day or so, but if you do read this, for goodness sake, please do some reading. I recommend reading the following:
Democracy Now (recent developments)
Industry Pamphlet on Controlling Health Issues
NYS DEC deception (http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20091108/NEWS01/911080372/Natural-gas-quest--State-files-show-270-drilling-accidents-in-past-30-years)
Scientific American (an oldy, but a goody)
Latest in Congress (where the issue apparently matters)
Health study (cattle, immune system, air pollution from NGP)
As I wrote, I will try to get back to writing more subtantively. Right now, I am just angry.
If this weren't so caustic it would be laughable.
If you live in New York, call Governor Paterson at 518-474-8390 and ask him to stop this fiasco.
(This may have nothing to do with his poll numbers, and so is irrelevelent and rather unimportant. My apologies.)
Vs.
Plus all the stuff that you've put together about hydraulic fracturing equals a really compelling and alarming story. It looks to me that if we choose to continue to go down this road then we need a renewal of the EPA oversight lost during the Bush years at the very least.
Hope to see what you come up with.
November 10, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comment. Thankfully, the EPA is the good news. Friends in the know told me months ago that the Obama EPA is a completely different animal than the Bush EPA: they actually care about pollution. They have already tied natural gas production to water pollution. Furthermore, Obama named Armandariz (http://energyandenvironmentblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/11/epa-appointment-could-be-a-cou.html)to a mid-level EPA post. She published the first major study linking natural gas production to air pollution. He also appointed New York's Judith Enck to another mid-level post -- and I've heard good things about her, at least as an environmental advocate.
The issue is this:
If we allow natural gas to create an industry, then we will have yet another major power looming over our governments, local, state and federal. They will have significant power to corrupt.
And damned if methane (25 X more effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2) doesn't scare the crap out of me. What no one thinks about is those hundreds of thousands of miles of pipe, and the leaks, and the fact that satillites can pick up those leaks, for they are that substantive.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/business/energy-environment/15degrees.html?hpw)
November 10, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right about the EPA, and I hope Congress doesn't preempt their authority. One problem, of course, is that an alternative to natural gas, coal, is even worse as a polluter and a contributor to greenhouse gas mediated warming. We need as expeditiously as possible to get off our fossil fuel addiction and onto conservation and alternative energy.
One small technical note - methane, on a molecule for molecule basis, is slightly less potent than CO2 as a global warming threat - mainly because its infrared absorption maxima are less strategically placed in the spectrum of terrestrial infrared radiation. Its greater relative potency stems from its much lower atmospheric concentration, which causes a given molar increase to represent a far higher percentage increase than CO2. Methane is, however, a legitimate threat, but more from its release from tundra and oceanic sources as a result of warming than from the natural gas industry. Still, any additional source of atmospheric methane is one too many.
November 10, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
According to the IPCC, methane is always more potent than CO2. If you look at their 2005 report (p212), Table 2.14, you can see that no matter the time window that methane is more effective than CO2. They actually use CO2 to form the baseline of their calculation. Over 20 years, methane is 25x worse than CO2. That goes down over 100 years as methane reacts with oxygen in the atmosphere to 7.6x as bad.
Regardless of whatever band you look at, the total effect of methane is always worse than CO2 at atmospheric concentrations. At least until it all breaks down into water and carbon dioxide (which both, coincidentally are also GHGs!) So if you want to argue a benchtop radiation infrared band experiment, you win. But in that setting, I'll see your CO2 and raise you sulfur hexafluoride (16000x worse? eek).
November 10, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our interpretations are not totally divergent. The 23X estimated potency reflects a composite of factors. 1. The methane molecule is slightly less potent as an infrared absorber than CO2 at the infrared wavelength distribution of terrestrial radiation at existing temperatures. 2. Temperature responses to both methane and CO2 are proportional to the logarithm of concentration, and since methane concentration is orders of magnitude lower than that of CO2, a given methane increment induces orders of magnitude greater effect. These two by themselves, although mutually counteractive, would dictate a very substantial greater methane effect, but the third, mitigating, factor is the much shorter atmospheric lifetime of methane - about 10-20 years - compared with the lifetime of atmospheric CO2, which is characterized by a series of decay curves varying from a few decades for a small fraction of the atmospheric burden to many millennia for a substantial fraction at the tail end. The resultant overall is the 23X effect that is generally cited.
I'll concede your point on sulfur hexafluoride. It proves that if the world ever runs out of fossil fuels, we'll have something in reserve to keep us from freezing to death (just kidding).
November 11, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
For a reference comparing CO2 with methane responses to infrared radiation, see page 212 of Raypierre's book
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateVol1.pdf
"It is often said that, molecule for molecule, CH4 is a better greenhouse gas than CO2.
However, this is more a reflection of the relative abundances of CH4 and CO2 in the present
Earth atmosphere than it is a statement about any intrinsic property of the gases; in fact, the
absorption coefficients for the two gases are quite similar in magnitude, and CH4 absorbs in a
part of the spectrum that is less well placed to intercept outgoing terrestrial radiation than is the case for CO2. The high effectiveness of CH4 relative to CO2 in the present atmosphere of Earth
stems from the fact that currently there is rather a lot of CO2 in the air (380ppmv and rising) but rather little CH4 (1.7ppmv and also rising). In a situation like this, one has already depleted infrared of those frequencies that are most strongly absorbed by CO2, so when adding CO2 one is adding ”new absorption” in spectral regions where the absorption is relatively weak. Hence, it takes a large amount of the gas to have much radiative effect. In contrast, when starting with a small amount of CH4, when one adds more, one adds ”new absorption” where the absorption coefficient is quite strong, since the strongly absorbing part of the spectrum is not yet depleted.
This behavior depends crucially on the lack of significant overlap between the Methane and CO2
absorption regions."
November 11, 2009 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, basically you are saying that because there's so much CO2 in the atmosphere, it self shields. And CH4, because there's so little and it goes after bands that CO2 doesn't, gives a lot more bang for the buck at atmospheric concentrations. If CH4 went up to CO2-comparable concentrations, then it's effectiveness goes down to just near CO2 levels.
So, I'm thinking that on the whole, we're both right on this. Thanks, though, I learned something pretty cool.
November 11, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
How does the radioactivity of gas compare with the radioactivity of coal.
It would seem fairly easy to separate the radon from the water and exhaust it into the air.
November 11, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, Inc. (TEDX)
November 11, 2009 7:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
So one more energy source you kook democrats want to eliminate. No nuclear, no coal, no oil, no gas. Welcome to the stone age. So how do we live? Solar? Sure, tell me how that's going to work up north in the winter, when it's dark and snowy most of the time, or at night. How are you storing power for night use, batteries? flywheels? Ever look at how inefficient these options are? Or the pollution they cause?
November 11, 2009 7:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are you gonna drink the poisoned water?
November 11, 2009 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, how about filtering it? This radioactive material is naturally occurring. Your current drinking water likely has some traces in it.
November 11, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's naturally occurring down where it occurs, not in the above aquifer where it may become drinking water. There's a distinction there. Shale normally is an aquatard, meaning that water doesn't move around in it very much (which is why, probably, there's so much radium in it--the water's in contact with the radiation source for a long time)
But once you hydraulically fracture the shale, the fractures let what was once impermeable become permeable--the whole point of the hydraulic fracturing. This lets the oil or gas move to the pipe and out. But apparently, there's side effects too.
So the question isn't getting rid of an energy source as checking out what we are doing before we do it. Fracturing isn't exactly reversible.
November 11, 2009 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is radon in the gas. Radon is continuously produced in rocks due to the decay of heavier elements.
Radon has a half-life of 3.8 days. Therefore, any radon brought to the surface decays to less than one millionth part in 76 days.
November 11, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, the problem's radium. Much longer half life. Gets transported in the sediment in water, and depending upon the species can dissolve in to the water. I'm not sure how radon would behave in natural gas, but, as you say, it goes away quickly anyway.
Plus if you check out LBS's other blogs on hydraulic fracturing, there are a lot more problems. Like the fluid used for fracturing is, depending upon the mix, quite toxic. There's also the potential to release hydrocarbons that were in traps in to aquifers as well.
November 11, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
"kook Democrats"...now that's constructive criticism...
Hey, I live in Southern Nevada. Can we bury the waste stream from the production of electricity from Nuclear reactors in your back yard, instead of my state? Nevada generates none of its electricity from Nuclear sources. Why should it get screwed with the waste created by others?
November 11, 2009 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
lol, because the whole world's screwed by the CO2 your coal-fired power plants emit? (choosing to supply California their electricity since their laws practically disallow coal in power plants has consequences my friend. Take your medicine, Nevada!)
November 11, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
but it's low-sulfur Utarded coal...
we wouldn't even need that if we got our fair share of hydroelectricity from Hoover Dam.
i get pissed when i think about all of the roof space available on these hotels, and the lack of any solar panels on them.
UNLV has a decent solar research project going on though.
November 11, 2009 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Here in NM, every building ought to have panels--especially since most of the adobe-style buildings have flat roofs. It's pretty easy to put them up facing any way they want (meaning, south). The state has some good incentives to get people to do it, but there needs to be more.
November 12, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I heard about this on NPR this morning, and my first reaction was, that since this directly affects NYC's water supply, why the hell wasn't this issue brought up during the recent mayoral campaign? If not by the MSM, then by the Democrat running against Bloomberg?
November 11, 2009 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
People in CT complain that Lamont ran a terrible campaign in the general election, but Thompson was actually IMHO worse. An inept campaign in every way.
And yet he almost won. That should say something about the trust New Yorkers place in their current government, if nothing else.
November 11, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
your Scientific American link is in error. the URL is a duplicate of the previous link.
November 11, 2009 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink