Oil and New Technology

1. Oil and New Technology By: Kristen Kasper, Bridget Kelley, Nathan Hale, Marie Laplante, and Alexis Haight

2. How each technology works now & potential advantages

3. Impact on Climate Change • By drilling out the oil, we let out pollutants, those pollutants make the atmosphere thicker so heat cant escape, overall the Earth gets warmer. (An Inconvenient Truth) • Black carbon contributes to climate change as it is a potent warmer both in the atmosphere and when deposited on snow and ice. • We are seeing more drought, wildfires and floods because of the climate change. • Because of these pollutants being put in the air, it threatens to disrupt habitats faster than the wildlife can adapt.

4. Safety • When using HDD, risks need to be evaluated and re-evaluated during the design, pre-drilling and drilling stages of a project. • Some occurrences of contractor deaths resulting from HDD operations do occur and include fatalities attributed to rotating drill pipe and tooling. • Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals needed to run our current gas wells. • During this process, methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater • Methane concentrations are 17x higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells. • Contaminated well water is used for drinking water for nearby cities and towns. • There have been over 1,000 documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling as well as cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water. • Only 30-50% of the fracturing fluid is recovered, the rest of the toxic fluid is left in the ground and is not biodegradable. •  The waste fluid is left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone • In the end, hydraulic fracking produces approximately 300,000 barrels of natural gas a day, but at the price of numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards • Hydraulic fracturing, also called “fracking,” is a federally unregulated extraction process used in many natural gas drilling sites. The process can contaminate drinking water supplies with cancer-causing chemicals and significantly deplete freshwater aquifers. Natural gas extraction poses a grave threat to families, communities and ecosystems.

5. Reliability • Drilling is about location but you cannot guarantee a location has oil.

6. Long term future and Ability to meet Energy needs • U.S. to be World’s top oil producer in 5 years, report says. • A prediction was made that the energy demand would grow between 35 and 46 percent from 2010 to 2035 • U.S. benchmark crude oil prices in 2013 are expected to be almost 5% lower than previously forecast amid a sluggish economy and domestic production that's headed for a two-decade high, the Energy Information Administration said in a report • EIA's International Energy Outlook 2011, the global supply of crude oil, other liquid hydrocarbons, and biofuels is expected to be adequate to meet the world's demand for liquid fuels for at least the next 25 years.

7. Job Creation • The oil and natural gas industry in America has produced 9.2 million jobs throughout the country. • The oil and natural gas industry is projected to produce 1.4 million jobs from now to 2030. • By 2035, the percentage of U.S. energy demand will increase by 20%.

8. Sustainability Cons: • Groundwater contamination • The gas can contain heavy metals and radioactive matter • The gas is held in holes in the ground, it is then more likely to contaminate groundwater cause it seeps through the ground • Well casings can also allow the gas to leak into water, which causes contamination • Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid, including known carcinogens and toxins • Methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells. • Only 30-50% of the fracturing fluid is recovered, the rest of the toxic fluid is left in the ground and is not biodegradable. • The waste fluid is left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone. Pros: • Natural Gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels in terms of air pollution • A report prepared for the Department of Energy states that, for an equivalent amount of energy production, the combustion of natural gas produces only half the carbon dioxide of coal and a third less than oil. The same report notes that combustion of natural gas also produces less particulate matter, less sulfur dioxide, and less nitrogen oxides than does the combustion of other fossil fuels. Cost: • “One drilling platform normally drills between seventy and one hundred wells and discharges more than 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluids and metal cuttings into the ocean.” • Produced water is fluid trapped underground and brought up with oil and gas. It makes up about 20 percent of the waste associated with offshore drilling. Produced waters usually have an oil content of 30 to 40 parts per million. As a result, the nearly 2 billion gallons of produced water released into the Cook Inlet in Alaska each year contain about 70,000 gallons of oil. • Exploration for offshore oil involves firing air guns which send a strong shock across the seabed that can decrease fish catch, damage the hearing capacity of various marine species and may lead to marine mammal stranding. • The drilling waste, including metal cuttings, from exploratory drilling are generally dumped in the ocean, rather than being brought back up to the platform. • Bird mortality has been associated with physical collisions with the rigs, as well as incineration by the flare and oil from leaks. • Drilling activity around oil rigs is suspected of contributing to elevated levels of mercury in Gulf of Mexico fish. Horizontal drilling • Prevents environmental destruction because the drill site can be away from the gas. • Fluid migration to the surface is the greatest environmental risk associated with horizontal drilling. This is when drilling fluid which contains numerous toxins rises to the surface of the ground and compromises the environment. • Horizontal drilling is the most sustainable form of retrieving natural gas.

9. Sustainability (continued)  Off Shore Drilling: • “One drilling platform normally drills between seventy and one hundred wells and discharges more than 90,000 metric tons of drilling fluids and metal cuttings into the ocean.” • Produced water is fluid trapped underground and brought up with oil and gas. It makes up about 20 percent of the waste associated with offshore drilling. Produced waters usually have an oil content of 30 to 40 parts per million. As a result, the nearly 2 billion gallons of produced water released into the Cook Inlet in Alaska each year contain about 70,000 gallons of oil. • Exploration for offshore oil involves firing air guns which send a strong shock across the seabed that can decrease fish catch, damage the hearing capacity of various marine species and may lead to marine mammal stranding. • The drilling waste, including metal cuttings, from exploratory drilling are generally dumped in the ocean, rather than being brought back up to the platform. • Bird mortality has been associated with physical collisions with the rigs, as well as incineration by the flare and oil from leaks. • Drilling activity around oil rigs is suspected of contributing to elevated levels of mercury in Gulf of Mexico fish. Horizontal drilling • Prevents environmental destruction because the drill site can be away from the gas. • Fluid migration to the surface is the greatest environmental risk associated with horizontal drilling. This is when drilling fluid which contains numerous toxins rises to the surface of the ground and compromises the environment. • Horizontal drilling is the most sustainable form of retrieving natural gas.

10. Cost of oil and natural gas technologies • For horizontal drilling, it may cost anywhere between 4 and 7 million dollars per shale well. • The drilling rigs alone can cost about 16 million dollars. • Fracking can be dangerous to the public. In 2008, an estimated 10 million dollars of health costs for people were caused by the drilling in the Arkansas’ Fayetteville Shale region. • Fracking also can cause emissions of methane. Those emissions caused approximately $130,000 in social costs of global warming.

11. Environmental Considerations • Over 600 chemicals are used in drilling muds and fracking fluids, many of which are known to cause severe health problems, including cancer and chronic diseases. The most dangerous among them are benzenes and other volatile organic compounds • For an average five million gallon frack job, we’d look at 100,000 gallons of chemicals. That’s about 14 tank trucks full of toxic chemicals that need to be trucked to the fracking site, in addition to over 700 tank trucks of water • Based on previous experiences with leaks, spills, and accidents in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas, it is safe to say that the most common dangers of fracking are water and air contamination • According to Anthony Ingraffea, a rock fracturing expert from Cornell University, cracked well casings are the most common culprit in aquifer contamination—and once the groundwater is polluted, it can’t be cleaned up.