The fracking boom has progressed at breakneck speed across the U.S., with roughly one in 20 Americans now living within a mile of a well drilled since 2000. So, how much has the economy benefitted from this drilling surge? Not much, according to a report presented to the European Union Parliament last month, which found "no evidence that shale gas is driving an overall manufacturing renaissance in the US.”
America’s oil and natural gas revolution is running into new public opposition to hydraulic fracturing that could slow development unless the industry gets a better handle on the environmental challenges. The battle is currently focused on Colorado, where activists are attempting to have a referendum this fall that would allow local municipalities to ban hydraulic fracturing – or fracking, as it is known.
No one following the media coverage prior to the last provincial election could have overlooked the speculative nature of B.C. Liberal promises on liquefied natural gas. “When the gruel is this thin, fantasy looks like a good alternative: Liberals throne speech focused on dreams of riches from unbuilt LNG plants,” read one headline in this newspaper. “Fantasy gas fund built on shifting sands: putting faith in LNG is like counting your chickens before they hatch — or banking on a future that may never arrive,” read another.
When a tight oil boom invaded rural Alberta five years ago, Diana Daunheimer was, as she puts it, just another "ignorant landowner." The mother of two and vegetable farmer knew little about the practice of horizontal drilling or multi-stage hydraulic fracturing. The practice involves the injection of highly pressurized fluids into mile deep wells that later mole out horizontally for another mile or two, in order to break open shale rock as tight as granite.
One glaring problem with the provincial government’s strategy to turn B.C. into a LNG-exporting juggernaut is that it scuttles any chance B.C. has to be a climate-change leader. But equally problematic is how our government’s economically dubious fixation with liquefied natural gas exports jeopardizes our irreplaceable water resources. In Alberta as well as numerous U.S. states where natural gas companies operate, there is a growing public backlash against industry operations.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — British Columbia Premier Christy Clark plugged her vision for an economy fuelled by liquefied natural gas during a speech Thursday to California's senate. Clark told senators that exporting LNG, which she described as the cleanest fossil fuel, to Asia would create jobs, investment opportunities and eliminate the debt in her province. She said the LNG industry will be the biggest step B.C. has taken to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions and growing its economy responsibly.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued an alert Thursday that the rig operator, Louisiana-based EnVen, had lost control of the well, allowing the flow of natural gas.
The company seeking to build the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has had a massive explosion on its decades-old natural gas pipeline in southern Manitoba. The rupture of the TransCanada PipeLines (TCPL) gas line occurred in the middle of the night on Saturday, January 25 near the village of Otterburne. A massive fireball erupted into the night sky and burned for many hours.
The closing remarks to a federal-provincial panel examining BC Hydro’s Site C proposal were made by a grey-haired native leader who said bands in the area are determined not to let the dam get built. Treaty 8 Tribal Chief Liz Logan told the Joint Review Panel, which wrapped up five weeks of public hearings on Friday, that Peace River native communities hope a treaty they signed over 100 years ago to protect their way of life will be honoured and the dam, which would flood more than 5,000 hectares in the valley, will not be allowed.
In Alberta, Ronalie and Shawn Campbell’s previously excellent well water is now saturated with methane, ethane, propane, butane and isobutane. The trees flanking their well – which is surrounded by over 50 energy wells within a one mile radius – have died. Jessica Ernst is heavy-lifting a $33 million lawsuit against Encana /Alberta Environment / and the Energy Resources Conservation Board. Her skin burns and develops rash when she showers. Not that she can do that anymore. But she can light her water on fire.
