DOE Secretary of Energy Subcommitte on Shale Gas issues 90 day report
As was reported here on this site several months ago, the Secretary of the U S Department of Energy appointed a committee to look into the safety and environmental aspects of shale gas drilling and production in the US. The Subcommittee was charged with issuing a 90 day report, and it was released last week. The Subcommittee has made 4 basic recommendations, which are discussed in the Executive Summary. Here is a link to the report.
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/resources/081111_90_day_report.pdf
I haven't read all of the report yet (it is 41 pages long) but apparently there is an opportunity for the public to comment on the report. Interestingly, the following quote is in the executive summary: The Subcommittee shares the prevailing view that the risk of fracturing fluid leakage into drinking water sources through fractures made in deep shale reservoirs is remote.
This is very significant to me because half of the subcommittee is from the environmental activist community. Overall, the subcommittee clearly emphasizes the importance of shale gas to the US economy.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hopeful About Natural Gas on
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Thanks for posting this. it's good to read some good new for a change. It looks like the subcommittee had a range of technical folks. Over and over the report mentions the poor public relations job the industry has done - but it also comes down hard for disclosure of fracking chemicals. The overall thrust of it will be to move shale gas forward.
The report is fairly easy for novices like me to understand. Neither industry nor environmentalists will be totally satisfied with this report and I think that's a good thing. Here's an industry blog and an environmental one.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2011/08/12/industry-group-c...
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/doe_panel_finds_natural_gas...
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Permalink Reply by essay on
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i read it, and this is a good initial result, admittedly better than my cynical nature was willing to initially allow, but we'll see if this gets positive attention from the powers that be, or ignored like the recent economic commission.
i would only add, the natural gas industry has done a bad job at PR relative to what exactly, the various well established, highly organized and deep pocketed organizations that stand in the way? practically a given.
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Permalink Reply by LP on
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I'm in the process of reading the report but this caught my attention:
The challenges of protecting human health and the environment in
light of the anticipated rapid expansion of shale gas production require the joint efforts of
state and federal regulators. This means that resources dedicated to oversight of the
industry must be sufficient to do the job and that there is adequate regulatory staff at the
state and federal level with the technical expertise to issue, inspect, and enforce
regulations. Fees, royalty payments and severance taxes are appropriate sources of
funds to finance these needed regulatory activities.
"adequate staff" in government usually means redundancy. Paying 5 people to do what one could do efficiently.
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