Gasland

Our next video assignment was to watch Gasland, a 2010 documentary made by Josh Fox, which shows you his journey to expose the dangers of hydraulic fracturing. "Fracking" as it is known, is a method that has been developed to extract natural gas from deep underground.

In the process, a high pressure mixture of water and chemicals is pumped into a deep well, creating small cracks in the rock formations which have trapped natural gas. A sand slurry is injected to keep these cracks propped open while the gas escapes to the surface to be harvested. The technique was first developed in 1947, but was not used widely until decades later, when horizontal drilling made the practice more economical in the 1990's and 2000's. Natural gas is the fastest growing of any type of energy production in the U.S. due to fracking.

Objections have been made as to the safety of the process. In Gasland, Fox visits with residents of rural Pennsylvania and across the country who leased their land to the gas companies to drill on, and have since encountered serious issues with their drinking water. For example, some of it can be lit on fire! Testing conducted on these water samples has shown that natural gas and chemicals associated with fracking have been found in their water supply. Other environmental concerns also exist, such as air emissions, earthquake causation, and fresh water depletion.

Because of these concerns, some states like New York have put in place a moratorium on fracking until further studies on environmental impact have been conducted. However, fracking is required to access much of the shale gas found in the U.S. Without fracking, approximately 45% of U.S. natural gas production and 17% of U.S. oil production would be lost within five years. So the country is between a rock and a hard place. We want to be able to produce our own energy, but can it be done without destroying our backyards and poisoning our water supply?

I actually saw the movie last year, but a sequel was just released on July 8, called Gasland Part II.

After watching Gasland, we were asked to come up with 3 discussion questions for tomorrow's class about the economical, societal, and environmental effects of this technology.

1. For any new technology, should the burden of proof be on the industry to prove that the practice is safe, or on the community to prove that the practice is unsafe? Who should pay for the scientific studies that must be done to assess the safety of the process to the environment, workers, and the surrounding community? How can we ensure these studies are conducted neutrally, without influence from either industry or environmental groups?

2. If an EPA study on the effects of fracking on groundwater contamination is expected to be released in late 2014, should the process be allowed to continue in the meantime?

3. If there is a localized negative environmental impact, (ie. groundwater contamination), or the studies are inconclusive, is some amount of environmental damage an acceptable price to pay for moving a step closer to energy independence? Or is this step towards natural gas merely postponing the inevitable, and hurting progress towards renewable energies that would continue to be seen as too expensive, when another low-cost fossil fuel comes onto the market?

4. When hearings were conducted to assess the safety of fracking, many of the chemicals used in the process were considered confidential and were not completely disclosed, due to patent law. Should companies be required to list every chemical used in their process for safety reasons, or would doing so reveal their trade secrets and be an infringement of patent law?