Barnett Shale

Dueling air quality studies

There's been a war of words for the past six months over how much natural gas production contributes to the air pollution in the Dallas Fort Worth region.

Al Armendariz, an engineering professor at SMU, and Ramon Alvarez, a researcher with the Environmental Defense Fund, issued a study in February that said gas drilling produces more of some pollutants than all the cars and trucks in the Metroplex. Study: Drilling fouls the air

(Read the full report here: Barnett_Shale_Report )

The Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, a trade group, released a study last week questioning some of Armendariz and Alvarez' conclusions:

http://www.bseec.org/index.php/content/news_detail/air_quality_and_the_barnett_shale/storiesimportant

The debate has been going on since the fall, when Armendariz released a draft of the report:  Drilling’s role in pollution examined

The question of air pollution has come up during discussions about Fort Worth's drilling ordinance: Expert: Existing technology can reduce pollution from drilling

 and in the Legislature: New rules for gas drilling proposed

-- Mike Lee

EPA sued over lack of oil and gas regulations

A Colorado environmental group sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month, asking a judge to force the EPA to tighten regulations on the oil and gas industry.

(Read the suit here)

Ed Ireland, with the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, thinks there will be a trend toward more environmental regulation under the Obama administration. The suit comes a few months after a bill that would impose rules on hydraulic fracturing. He's worried about driving up the cost of production.

Loyal readers will recall that, at a City Council hearing in October, there was a lot of discussion about low-cost ways reduce pollution from drilling.

What do y'all think? 

-- Mike Lee

Thanks God it doesn't snow here . . .

A new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that high levels of ozone can form in natural gas fields in the dead of winter.

Now, anyone who's found themselves wheezing on a hot day knows that ozone typically forms when the sun starts to work on our air pollution and creates a chemical reaction. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has been under orders from the EPA to clean up its air for almost a decade. In the last year or so, researchers have started exploring the effects of natural gas production on our air pollution and disussing ways to reduce the impact.

But researchers found high levels of ozone in Wyoming when the gas and chemical fumes  released around wells can got caught in a temperature inversion. The sun reflecting off the snow created enough heat to turn the pollution into ozone.

Here's the NOAA news release NOAA news release and a story from the Rocky Mountain News:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2009/jan/19/winter-ozone-levels-a-concern/

 

 -- Mike Lee

Natural gas and air pollution

There's going to be a lot of talk this week about the impact of natural gas drilling on air quality, starting with a City Council workshop on Tuesday.

For you devoted readers, here's a little light reading to get up to speed on the subject:

The Houston Advanced Research Center, dealing with pollution from tank batteries: h051cfinalreport.pdf

A paper by a group of University of Colorado researchers dealing with the health impact of oil and gas exploration in rural Colorado:

hea_08091701b.pdf

A link from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showing the sources of methane released into the atmosphere:

http://www.epa.gov/methane/sources.html

And a link to the EPA's Natural Gas Star program, which includes information on reducing methane emissions from gas drilling sites:

http://www.epa.gov/gasstar/index.html

What's up with that flaring well?

Motorists on Interstate 30 may have noticed the flaring of a gas well just off of Beach Street lately. Here's Jim Fuquay's story on it from the S-T last Friday:

A sizeable yellow flame at Interstate 30 and Beach Street in east Fort Worth is the result of natural gas being burned, or "flared," from a well operated by Fort Worth-based Finley Resources. Chairman Jim Finley said the company has completed two wells at the site since late December and has been flaring the gas as it prepares to connect the wells to a pipeline. He expects the flaring to end soon.

When it happens: After a gas well in the Barnett Shale is "fractured" by pumping in water and sand that breaks the rock containing the gas, much of that water flows back out under pressure from the gas. As the gas begins to flow, if the water can't be separated sufficiently, the gas can't be moved to a pipeline. Instead , it can be vented or flares until it has dried sufficiently. The result flame can flare 50 feet.

Not all wells are flared: the largest operators in the Barnett Shale, such as Devon Energy, say they can usually avoid flaring by having equipment on site that can handle the large volume of water that initially flows out of a well and still dry the gas enough to ship it to a pipeline.

How it's controlled: the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the Texas petroleum industry, allows the safe release of gas for 10 days after a well is completed, longer with a special exception. It also allows short-term releases under several other circumstances. No permit is needed for routine flaring and venting. Producers also prefer not to vent or flare gas, because they lose the revenue it would have brought if sold into a pipeline.

It is safe? Flaring is considered safer than venting, which is unburned gas released under pressure. Natural gas, which is mostly methane, is the cleanest-burning hydrocarbon, but it still introduces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere and also contributes to the formation of ozone, a pollutant and health hazarad, said Brian Boerner, environment management director for the city of Fort Worth.

-- Scott Nishimura

(Photo: Flaring on Jan. 16)

Footprints in the shale?

Don Young, whose organization FWCanDo opposes urban gas drilling, applauds an effort by the University of Texas at Arlington to measure its carbon footprint.

"This study should help provide a baseline to gauge the effects of urban gas drilling on air quality in the Arlington area," Young writes in a blog posting.

He called on Texas Christian University and the city of Fort Worth to do the same thing.

Here's a link to a UTA blog with more information about the carbon footprint.

http://blog.uta.edu/sustainability/2008/01/18/ut-arlington-carbon-footprint-analysis/#respond

-- Mike Lee

(Photos: Don Young and Linda Yarbrough, and their Just Say No campaign)

Parade Mag weighs in on domestic gas exploration

Parade Magazine weighed in on natural gas over the weekend with this question: "Is extracting domestic oil and natural gas important enough that companies should be granted exemptions from pollution laws?" Click here for the full report.

-- Scott Nishimura

Region's clean-air plan is flawed, engineer reports

Here's Saturday's story on air quality and the Barnett Shale from Scott Streater, the S-T's environment reporter.

-- Scott Nishimura

(Photo: Archive, compressor going up behind Mercado Juarez at I-35 and Northside Drive, Fort Worth)