3
people can understand, this adds to the confusion. Their reluctance to discuss operational details is often interpreted as being elitist, secretive, and unresponsive. A few
companies and industry groups have published brochures and webpages attempting
to explain fracking, but many opponents see this information as “tainted” or biased
because it comes from the industry. Ironically, the people who really understand
fracking technology are almost all employed in the O&G industry, so that is where
the expertise can be found.
The industry response to questions about fracking is commonly along the lines
of “We know what we are doing; trust us.” This falls flat on the public after incidents
like the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, which clearly demonstrated that
although industry may know what they are doing for the most part, accidents still
happen with disastrous consequences. The credibility of fracking proponents is further strained by vocal supporters with obvious conflicts of interest, such as climatechange deniers, politicians funded by big oil donations, and wealthy O&G investors.
The lack of trust between the American public and big oil is a longstanding issue.
The only industry Americans consider less trustworthy is big tobacco (Theodori 2008).
So how does one sort all this out? The only legitimate, defensible way to assess
the risk of fracking is through rigorous science, accurate data, careful review, and
unbiased conclusions. A two-state assessment by Kell (2011) found that gas wells
have a rate of “reportable incidents” or environmental violations on the order of
0.5–0.1% or less of the total wells drilled. This ranges from one well out of 200 to
one well out of 1000 and includes both unfracked and fracked wells. The majority
of these “reportable” incidents are minor, such as incorrect signage or small spills.
Significant violations are rare, but they do happen (Brantley et al. 2014). Wellbore
integrity problems were found to be statistically more frequent in “fracked” versus
“unfracked” wells (Ingraffea et al. 2014), although the incident rate is similar in
both types (Kell 2011).
Even a risk of one in 1000 is still significant. If aircraft had this risk of crashing,
there would be two crashes per day at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport, which
operates around 2000 daily flights. The actual commercial aviation risk in 2019 was
about one fatal accident per 5.5 million flights (Source: https://to70.com/to70scivil-aviation-safety-review-2019/; accessed 1/1/19). The aircraft example serves to
introduce another aspect of risk. Risk is defined not only by the probability of an
event, but also by the consequences of the event. Risks that have severe consequences must be reduced to a very low probability of occurrence. Commercial aviation has spent huge amounts of time and money to reduce the probability of aircraft
accidents because the consequences are horrendous.
Does fracking have any positive benefits to offset potential risks? According to
data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), the United States
is now the top producer of natural gas in the world, exceeding Russian production
in 2009. The U.S. is also the number one producer of petroleum in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia in 2013 (Fig. 1.2). These huge volumes of hydrocarbons are
being recovered by fracking into previously untapped resources.
In a little more than a decade, the U.S. has gone from preparing to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to becoming an LNG exporter. Petroleum imports have
1 Introduction
people can understand, this adds to the confusion. Their reluctance to discuss operational details is often interpreted as being elitist, secretive, and unresponsive. A few
companies and industry groups have published brochures and webpages attempting
to explain fracking, but many opponents see this information as “tainted” or biased
because it comes from the industry. Ironically, the people who really understand
fracking technology are almost all employed in the O&G industry, so that is where
the expertise can be found.
The industry response to questions about fracking is commonly along the lines
of “We know what we are doing; trust us.” This falls flat on the public after incidents
like the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon, which clearly demonstrated that
although industry may know what they are doing for the most part, accidents still
happen with disastrous consequences. The credibility of fracking proponents is further strained by vocal supporters with obvious conflicts of interest, such as climatechange deniers, politicians funded by big oil donations, and wealthy O&G investors.
The lack of trust between the American public and big oil is a longstanding issue.
The only industry Americans consider less trustworthy is big tobacco (Theodori 2008).
So how does one sort all this out? The only legitimate, defensible way to assess
the risk of fracking is through rigorous science, accurate data, careful review, and
unbiased conclusions. A two-state assessment by Kell (2011) found that gas wells
have a rate of “reportable incidents” or environmental violations on the order of
0.5–0.1% or less of the total wells drilled. This ranges from one well out of 200 to
one well out of 1000 and includes both unfracked and fracked wells. The majority
of these “reportable” incidents are minor, such as incorrect signage or small spills.
Significant violations are rare, but they do happen (Brantley et al. 2014). Wellbore
integrity problems were found to be statistically more frequent in “fracked” versus
“unfracked” wells (Ingraffea et al. 2014), although the incident rate is similar in
both types (Kell 2011).
Even a risk of one in 1000 is still significant. If aircraft had this risk of crashing,
there would be two crashes per day at Chicago’s O’Hare International airport, which
operates around 2000 daily flights. The actual commercial aviation risk in 2019 was
about one fatal accident per 5.5 million flights (Source: https://to70.com/to70scivil-aviation-safety-review-2019/; accessed 1/1/19). The aircraft example serves to
introduce another aspect of risk. Risk is defined not only by the probability of an
event, but also by the consequences of the event. Risks that have severe consequences must be reduced to a very low probability of occurrence. Commercial aviation has spent huge amounts of time and money to reduce the probability of aircraft
accidents because the consequences are horrendous.
Does fracking have any positive benefits to offset potential risks? According to
data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), the United States
is now the top producer of natural gas in the world, exceeding Russian production
in 2009. The U.S. is also the number one producer of petroleum in the world, surpassing Saudi Arabia in 2013 (Fig. 1.2). These huge volumes of hydrocarbons are
being recovered by fracking into previously untapped resources.
In a little more than a decade, the U.S. has gone from preparing to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) to becoming an LNG exporter. Petroleum imports have
1 Introduction