Frequently Asked Questions About Natural Gas

Is fracking worse for the environment than conventional gas?

There is little evidence that fracked gas wells produce significantly more greenhouse or terrestrial pollution than conventional gas wells. Several lifecycle pollution analyses find that shale gas wells produce similar volumes of greenhouse gases compared to conventional wells.^{13, 14} Shale wells do produce significantly less wastewater per unit energy than conventional wells.¹⁵

Done correctly, shale gas fracking is a relatively safe industrial practice. The risks of environmental contamination and local pollution are mostly related to errors in cement pouring and application, drilling near aquifers, and use of air valves and pneumatic pumps. All of these are simple technical problems with identified solutions. Major environmental infractions, which are rare, have been made mostly by small producers. Environmental regulation from the EPA and state-level agencies is appropriate to make sure the industry maintains strong safety and environmental practices and engages productively with local communities.

Like most energy technologies, fracking does have significant impacts on the surrounding landscape, intensifying industrial activity in areas unaccustomed to such practices, increasing heavy trucking activity, contributing to noise pollution, and creating conflicts within communities between those who wish to benefit economically from fracking and those who value particular aesthetic qualities of their communities.¹⁶

What about methane leakage?

Methane is not a pollutant that is a byproduct of natural gas extraction, it is the product that is being extracted. Methane leakage, as such, represents a loss of an economically valuable commodity. Reducing leakage and capturing fugitive releases increases profits from drilling operations. Not surprisingly, then, most studies find that methane leak rates are low –– less than 1.5 percent –– and lower than leak rates from conventional natural gas operations. Most leakage results from older wells and from wells operated by smaller, poorly capitalized producers, which represent a small minority.¹⁷

Methane leakage from both conventional and unconventional wells have declined substantially over time as practices have been improved and standardized.18 Despite the fact that natural gas production has grown substantially in recent decades, total methane emissions from natural gas production has been declining since the early 1990s. Once the leading source of US methane emissions, natural gas has been surpassed by the agricultural sector.¹⁹

While methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon, its impact is significantly diminished because it is far shorter lived and is emitted in vastly lower quantities than carbon dioxide.²⁰ While some analyses have compared methane and carbon dioxide on a molecule-by-molecule basis, climate scientists and climate models rely more on atmospheric concentrations. For these reasons, methane emissions from gas production appear to have little discernible impact on long-term warming in climate models and scenarios.²¹ To the degree to which use of natural gas contributes to rising temperatures, the overwhelming contributor to warming will be the carbon emissions associated with gas combustion, not methane emissions associated with extraction and transport. As such, gas, when it displaces coal, has positive climate and emissions benefits.²² However, long-term climate stabilization targets will require that we transition from gas infrastructure to zero-emission sources or capture a substantial portion of carbon dioxide emissions associated with gas combustion.

Isn’t fracking contaminating ground water?

There is little evidence that fracking fluids have contaminated ground water in the course of fracking operations underground, but there have been a few cases where wastewater associated with fracking operations has spilled or leaked out of storage tanks and ponds and contaminated surface waterways and groundwater. Industrial accidents of this type, as is the case with virtually all industrial activities, from mining to refining, are to some degree inevitable and largely preventable through improved standards, practices, and regulations.

There have been reports of methane contaminating water supplies, but most incidents have not ended up being attributable to fracking. Most incidents of high methane concentrations in groundwater have resulted from naturally occurring sources (often in regions where gas production also is occurring) or from older, conventional natural gas operations, which tend to operate at depths closer to aquifers and groundwater supplies.²³ In virtually all cases, both life-cycle water intensity and pollution associated with coal production and combustion far outweigh those related to shale gas production.

If fracking isn’t any worse for the environment than conventional gas and better than coal, then why do so many people oppose it?

The rapid spread of fracking to countrysides in Colorado to Pennsylvania and Ohio has created a lot of often unpleasant disruptions — truck traffic, pollution, new development — and so it is understandable that there has been a strong backlash against natural gas production in regions that historically have not been oil- and gas-producing.²⁴ At the same time, many advocates of climate mitigation favor natural gas. Yale University climate economist William Nordhaus praised replacing coal with gas in his 1994 book Managing the Climate Commons.²⁵ In their widely cited “stabilization wedges” paper in 2004, Stephen Pacala and Robert Socolow achieve one wedge of their climate strategy by replacing coal with natural gas.²⁶ Al Gore suggested that gas could contribute to emissions reductions pathways as recently as 2012.²⁷ And President Barack Obama made a forceful case for expanded natural gas drilling in a major 2013 climate speech.²⁸

What have been the economic impacts of the shale gas revolution?

The shale gas revolution suggests that significant emissions reductions can be achieved in ways that are very good for the economy. The investments American taxpayers made in the shale gas revolution paid for themselves many times over. Every year since 2007, cheaper energy prices from the shale gas revolution have contributed $100 billion to the economy.²⁹ These profits have acted as a critical stimulus to an economy in recession, particularly saving hard-hit rustbelt states like Ohio and Pennsylvania. As such, the shale revolution seriously challenges the notion that the only way to reduce emissions is to make energy more expensive and slow economic growth.

Is natural gas a “bridge” to cleaner fuels in the future?

It certainly could be. While replacing coal with natural gas is an improvement, gas-fired electricity still creates more carbon than lower-carbon sources. If greenhouse gas emissions are to peak and then decline, the energy transition from coal to natural gas must be followed by a transition from natural gas to nuclear or modern renewables like solar and wind.³⁰

Isn’t the gas revolution bad for renewables and nuclear?

Natural gas actually makes renewables like solar and wind viable. Because solar and wind are intermittent, natural gas or some other inexpensive back-up is required. Natural gas plants have ramping (up or down) rates that are 2 to 3 times faster than coal plants. This makes natural gas plants the default choice for supplying “peaking” power to electricity grids.³¹ There has been no historic correlation between the price and availability of natural gas and deployment of wind or solar power. Deployment rates of wind and solar have typically varied almost entirely based upon the level at which they are subsidized.

Cheap gas has exerted competitive pressure on nuclear, though the challenges facing nuclear — low energy demand and high upfront capital costs — predate and largely overwhelm low costs of natural gas. Natural gas can pair synergistically with nuclear, since baseload nuclear requires more flexible power generation sources to cover peaking demand. It is also the case that utilities do not want to become overly dependent on natural gas, whose price will rise if natural gas is increasingly exported to Europe and Asia.³²

Is fracking occurring in other countries?

Other countries – including Poland, Argentina, South Africa, and especially China – are experimenting with fracking for natural gas inside their own borders. However, factors suggest that it will be more difficult for fracking to take off in other countries than it was in the United States. The United States is unique in granting underground mineral rights to landowners and not the state, providing greater economic incentives for gas production in more places. The United States also had a massive preexisting oil and gas sector, including the necessary workforce, investment base, infrastructure, and public RD&D capabilities.