If you’d met John Werring four years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you what an abandoned gas well looked like.

“We had no idea whether they were even accessible,” said the registered professional biologist.

That was before the summer of 2014, when he headed up to Fort St. John, B.C., on a reconnaissance mission. At that time, much was known about leaking gas wells in the United States, but there was very little data on Canada.

All Werring had to work with was a map of abandoned wells provided by B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission. Armed with a gas monitor and a metal detector, he headed into what the gas industry calls the “Montney formation,” one of the largest shale gas resources in the world. Shale gas is primarily accessed via hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

“Most of these places, there’s nobody in the field,” Werring said. “You won’t see anybody for miles and miles. Just well after well after well.”

In some areas, Werring — a senior science and policy advisor with the David Suzuki Foundation — could detect gas leaking from the wells just with his nose. His curiosity was officially piqued.

‘Out of sight, out of mind’

Fast forward three summers and Werring has now logged more than 10,000 kilometres on B.C.’s oil and gas roads in the hunt for leaking wells. In the process, he has revealed that B.C. is vastly underreporting its “fugitive emissions” — emissions vented or leaked during the natural gas extraction process.

“The whole city of Fort St. John is surrounded by wells,” Werring said. “The further away we got from the centre of Fort St. John the worse the conditions were in the field in terms of well maintenance. Out of sight, out of mind. No company was immune.”

Getting the data wasn’t easy. For starters, the equipment required to detect the gas was prohibitively expensive. But then Werring reached out to David Risk, a world-renowned expert on fugitive emissions at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S.

“He was game and had all the equipment,” Werring said. “He had mobile gas sniffing technology in the back of a Dodge Ram so what we’d do is drive around on oil and gas roads and try to detect plumes of methane gas and hydrogen sulphide.”

The research team travelled 8,000 kilometres of back roads in the summer of 2015, mapping where the plumes were detected and overlaying that with a map of gas wells. That research was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions in October 2017.

When Werring returned to the area in the summer of 2016, he came armed with a hand-held gas-sniffing device and an infrared camera able to see gases. This time he ventured right onto the well sites.

“You would see a cloud in the video,” Werring said. “It would look like smoke.”

The problem with methane leaks

Over the course of 12 days, Werring and his son visited 178 well sites. On any given day, they’d access between 10 and 30 wells. They discovered that, on average, 85 per cent of the active wells were venting methane gas directly into the environment. Additionally, they found that 35 per cent of inactive wells were leaking methane.

Natural gas is 95 per cent methane — and methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas, especially in the near term. A molecule of methane is 84 times more effective at trapping heat than a molecule of carbon dioxide over the course of 20 years.

That’s why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former president Barack Obama signed a landmark agreement in 2016 to cut methane emissions by 45 per cent by 2025.

“Forty-five per cent of what? We didn’t know,” Werring said. “The company just estimates what their vent rate is and that’s it.”

Right now, fugitive methane emissions in B.C. are reported via the greenhouse gas emissions inventory published annually by the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change.

More than 25,000 wells have been drilled in British Columbia since the 1950s. The challenge with addressing methane emissions is two-fold: first, there are all sorts of ways methane can leak from gas wells. Second, the pumps used to control the flow of gas from wells (called “pneumatic devices”) are fuelled with gas from the well itself and these devices often “bleed” gas directly into the atmosphere.

A number of U.S. states, including Colorado and California already require companies to move away from high-emitting pneumatic devices, according to Drew Nelson, director of international affairs for the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund.

“The technology exists,” Nelson said. “In most cases, you can pay back your switch almost immediately.”

The Canadian government’s draft regulations on methane require companies to use zero-bleed or low-bleed devices that minimize and contain emissions, even capturing gas so companies can sell it — but those regulations have been delayed for three years in what many see as a capitulation to the industry.

“And that’s wrong because they can capture that stuff,” Werring said.

Effective regulations will also need to target venting, leak detection and repair, Nelson said.

In its latest world energy outlook, the International Energy Agency found the oil and gas industry can feasibly reduce up to 75 per cent of its current methane emissions.

“Fifty per cent of that could be reduced at no net cost,” Nelson said. “And those reductions would have the same climate benefit as closing all the coal plants in China.”

“Reducing CO2 is incredibly important, but the fruits of that labour aren’t going to be felt until my grandchildren are around. Reductions of methane now can be felt immediately.”

There are also immediate human health risks to methane leaks, because natural gas contains toxic gases like xylene and benzene, which are known carcinogens.

‘You can just drive down the road and boom, you’re on a well pad’

While Werring wasn’t initially sure about how he’d access the well sites for his research, it turned out to be easier than he thought.

“A lot of these well sites are just sitting out in the middle of nowhere with no fences, there’s no ‘no trespassing’ signs, there’s nothing. You can just drive down the road and boom, you’re on a well pad,” Werring said, estimating that about 90 per cent of the wells were accessible.

“We would drive on a well pad, we’d check to make sure the site was safe, we’d check to see if we could find a leak by listening and smelling. When we did smell or hear gas, we’d look closer to try to find the leak. When we found a leak, we detected it with the measuring device to determine that methane was present.”

Next Werring would put a balloon over the leak point and measure how long it took to inflate to a certain dimension. Based on that, he was able to estimate the rate at which the gas was leaking.

The wells he couldn’t access were on private land or were surrounded by fences.

Run-ins with workers rare

Since most of B.C.’s wells are located on Crown land leases, Werring could legally access them without permission.

For the most part, the workers he came across seemed unfazed by his presence.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time, we’d be standing on the side of the road and company trucks would drive by and see us on the site and we’d just wave at them and they’d wave back and just keep going,” he said.

But on one occasion he encountered Progress Energy employees who told him he wasn’t allowed on the site. Werring told them he had all the appropriate safety training and equipment, including personal gas monitors and hydrogen sulfide training.

“We had a cordial conversation and we continued doing what we were doing. They went back to their truck and about 10 minutes later, they came and said, ‘Our bosses told you they want you to leave,’ ” he said. “And so we left and then we went across the road to another site and did our work there.”

Progress Energy did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Not a single animal — or well inspector — in 5,000 kilometres

In the 12 days, Werring estimates he and his son drove 5,000 kilometres.

“We never saw one animal. Not one anywhere. We’d be starting off at 6 o’clock in the morning and not getting back until like 10 o’clock at night, just driving hundreds and hundreds of kilometres a day down oil and gas roads. But there were no animals … I found that to be quite disturbing actually,” Werring said, adding he did see moose and caribou tracks, especially around sour gas wells.

Another thing Werring didn’t see? Inspectors from the B.C. Oil and Gas Commission.

The Oil and Gas Commission’s director of public and corporate relations, Phil Rygg, said in an e-mailed response to questions that the commission performs 4,000 to 5,000 inspections per year on oil and gas infrastructure.

“If unauthorized methane releases are identified, deficiencies are noted and industry is required to take corrective action,” Rygg said.

Companies are not typically given advance notice of inspections, Rygg said.

The commission uses an “AVO technique (audio, visual and olfactory) to identify leaking infrastructure.” Inspectors have portable gas detectors and infrared cameras for more comprehensive inspections.

Werring said he’s provided his data to the commission and is waiting for a response.

An active gas well in the Montney shale formation near Fort St. John. Werrring said he saw a few wells like this, which appeared to have suffered major issues, but were still in operation.

Province’s biggest polluter not paying carbon tax

The new data comes at a key moment in the fight to regulate fugitive emissions in B.C.

In B.C., the agreement between the Greens and the NDP includes a commitment to expand the carbon tax to fugitive emissions.

The Pembina Institute estimates the cost of reductions under the federal government’s draft guidelines is just under $12/tonne. At the current carbon tax rate of $30 a tonne, it would be cheaper for companies to reduce their emissions than to pay the tax.

In addition to swapping out equipment on active wells, Werring would like to see leaks from inactive wells addressed.

Those leaks are largely springing from something called a “surface casing vent.”

“That vent is there to alleviate any excess gas pressure that comes up through the well that might be caused because of a well fracture or a pipe burst or cementing that’s failed,” Werring said.

Thirty-five per cent of inactive wells are leaking gas through that surface casing vent.

“And that’s a problem because that means that there’s likely a real problem with the well integrity that needs to be repaired to prevent that gas from leaking,” Werring said.

“We need rules in place,” Werring said. “Every single citizen in the province of British Columbia pays the carbon tax when you go to gas up your car or when you’re heating your home … and here we have the single biggest polluter in the province that is just not being held to account.”

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A groundbreaking study published today in Seismological Research Letters has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas and earthquakes. 

"Hydraulic Fracturing and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin" confirms the horizontal drilling technique (which in essence creates an underground mini-earthquake to open up fissures for oil and gas extraction) is responsible for earthquakes, above and beyond what is already canonized in the scientific literature. We already knew that injecting fracking waste into underground wells can cause quakes. But now it's not just the injections wells, but the fracking procedure itself that can be linked to seismicity. 

The study focuses on an area in Canada known as the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), one of Canada's biggest shale basins and tight oil and gas producing regions.

The researchers "compared the relationship of 12,289 fracking wells and 1,236 wastewater disposal wells to magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes in an area of 454,000 square kilometers near the border between Alberta and British Columbia, between 1985 and 2015," explained a press release. They "found 39 hydraulic fracturing wells (0.3% of the total of fracking wells studied), and 17 wastewater disposal wells (1% of the disposal wells studied) that could be linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger."

If that sounds like a fairly small percentage, Atkinson and colleagues readily admit that is the case in the study. Yet they also write that it could portend worse things to come as more and more wells are fracked in the region.

"It is important to acknowledge that associated seismicity occurs for only a small proportion of hydraulic fracturing operations," they wrote, proceeding to cite another paper written in 2015 by lead author Gail Atkinson — a professor of earth sciences at the University of Western Ontario —  and colleagues on the impacts of induced seismicity. "However, considering that thousands of such wells are drilled every year in the WCSB, the implications for hazard are nevertheless significant, particularly if multiple operations are located in close proximity to critical infrastructure."

The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin uses less water during fracking operations than in places like the current mecca of frackquakes, Oklahoma. In the paper, the authors also conclude that the massive amount of wastewater incidents in the U.S. may cloak the impact fracking has had on induced seismicity in the central U.S., which calls for more scientific investigation.

"[I]t is possible that a higher-than-recognized fraction of induced earthquakes in the United States are linked to hydraulic fracturing, but their identification may be masked by more abundant wastewater-induced events," they explained.

One of their most important finds appears to be the definitive link the researchers found between fracking and earthquakes in the region, rather than the sheer number of quakes. They also found no link between the amount of fluid pumped into the ground during fracking and the size of the earthquake.

"More than 60% of these quakes are linked to hydraulic fracture, about 30-35% come from disposal wells, and only 5 to 10% of the earthquakes have a natural tectonic origin," said Atkinson in a press release. And "if there isn't any relationship between the maximum magnitude and the fluid disposal, then potentially one could trigger larger events if the fluid pressures find their way to a suitably stressed fault."

What's the big takeaway, then, according to the paper? Of course, a call for more investigation, but in the meantime they also call for more thoughtful public policy moving forward.

"The nature of the hazard from hydraulic fracturing has received less attention than that from wastewater disposal, but it is clearly of both regional and global importance," they wrote in the conclusion. "The likelihood of damaging earthquakes and their potential consequences needs to be carefully assessed when planning HF operations in this area."

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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The Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) has published a timely "back to school" report concluding that "frackademia" is alive and well at U.S. universities. 

While only focusing on the people and money behind five recent studies, PAI's report sits within a much broader universe of research in its Frackademia Guide. The new report serves as an update of its February 2015 report titled, "Frackademia in Depth," a title poking fun at hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") front group Energy in Depth (which did not react kindly to its report).

As PAI points out in the new report's introduction, the results of many recent science studies (some funded by the industry) have tarnished the reputation the industry spends so much money aiming to keep shiny. These include studies on fracking's climate impacts and health impacts, environmental justice issues associated with fracking, among others.

Given that backdrop, the oil and gas industry has swept in and funded fresh studies whose outcomes were more favorable — aka "frackademia" — on topics ranging from fracking's groundwater impacts, environmental impacts and economics. 

Rick Berman, Tim Considine

Among the most compelling findings in the PAI investigation is that Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman, infamous for creating industry-funded front groups in many policy arenas via his consulting company Berman & Company, has gotten into the frackademia game.

The Berman connection becomes clear when investigating the men behind the curtain of a study published in September 2014 titled, “Economic and Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Development Offshore the Delmarva, Carolinas, and Georgia,” which makes the case for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. As PAI explained, it was funded by Interstate Policy Alliance, "a project of the Employment Policies Institute."

What's Employment Policies Institute? A Berman & Company front group.  

"Though Berman and Company does not disclose the identities of its clients, the firm and its network of front groups have recently begun attacking fracking opponents and climate change regulations, suggesting it has been retained by the oil and gas industry," explained PAI.

view this map on LittleSis

Just as important as Berman, in this case, was the author: Timothy Considine. Considine has been embroiled in other frackademia scandals, including a 2010 study eventually retracted and reissued by Penn State University after it was revealed that he didn't disclose its funder, the Marcellus Shale Coalition lobbying organization.

He's actually featured twice in the PAI report. The other recent Considine frackademia example came in the form of a study titled, “The Economics Impacts of the Proposed Natural Gas Severance Tax in Pennsylvania," funded by the American Petroleum Institute. 

That report predicted brutal impacts for Pennsylvania's economy if its legislature adopts a severance tax for those fracking in the state's Marcellus Shale. 

Harvard, Syracuse

Harvard Business School and Syracuse University also feature prominently in PAI's report. The Harvard Business School example, in particular, serves as almost a perfect case study of how frackademia works in action. 

“America’s Unconventional Energy Opportunity,” the title of Harvard's report published jointly with Boston Consulting Group in June 2015, was featured in an opinion article by The New York Times writer David Brooks and in an uncritical article distributed to newspaper wires worldwide by Reuters.  

Like a prominent 2013 Environmental Defense Fund-convened study on the climate change impacts of fracking, the steering committee of the Harvard study was a who's-who of people with industry ties. 

Image Credit: Public Accountability Initiative

As PAI pointed out, co-author "David Gee, a [Boston Consulting Group] managing partner, has worked for the energy industry for more than 30 years, with stints at Baker Hughes, PG&E, and AES Corporation."

Another co-author not mentioned in PAI's report is Michael Porter, a faculty member of the Harvard Business School and formerly of the Monitor Group, a prominent consulting firm that went out of business in November 2012. Monitor Group has been involved in undisclosed pay-for-play before, conducting de facto shadow public relations work for former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  

Energy in Depth also stars in PAI's report in the form of a Syracuse University study on fracking and groundwater contamination that served as a counter of sorts to earlier Duke University fracking groundwater contamination studies. 

That study was promoted by both EID and Natural Gas Now, the latter often featuring the work of Tom Shepstone, a former EID employee and current industry consultant. As it turns out, the study was covertly funded by Chesapeake Energy, though the co-authors claimed they had “no competing financial interest” in any entities potentially impacted by the study's results. 

Lead author Donald Siegel "had failed to disclose that, in addition to providing the data upon which his conclusions were based, oil and gas driller Chesapeake Energy had also funded the study and paid Siegel directly," wrote PAI.

"Further, one of Siegel’s co-authors, Bert Smith, is a former Chesapeake employee who now works for Enviro Clean, a firm that consults for Chesapeake Energy. While Smith’s employment at Enviro Clean was noted when the study was published, the fact that his employer works for Chesapeake Energy was not."

On at least one instance, PAI pointed out, Siegel actually wrote an article on EID's website.

Tobacco, Climate Denier Playbook

As highlighted many times in the report, journalists often take press releases from universities and write stories about these studies without following the money.

"Since the tobacco industry pioneered the use of compromised scientists to sow doubt about the harmful effects of smoking, corporations have employed a complex of industry-funded academic institutes, public relations outfits, lobbying firms, and independent consultants to provide seemingly independent support for their lines of business," explained PAI.

PAI has done a great public service by naming names and doing the work journalists all too often fail to do to reveal conflicts of interest.  

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The electricity created by the controversial Site C dam — long touted for producing enough electricity for 450,000 homes — could end up powering natural gas fracking operations in northeast B.C.

The Prince George Citizen reported on Wednesday that for the first time BC Hydro is considering Site C as a power source for its proposed Peace Region Electrical Supply project, a major transmission line project in northeast B.C.

If the Site C dam gets built (it’s currently facing several legal challenges) and BC Hydro moves forward with the proposed route for the transmission line, natural gas drillers between Dawson Creek and Chetwynd could plug directly into the grid.

The Citizen reports that Hydro expects the transmission project won’t be in service until 2022, making Site C — set for completion in 2025 — a viable option.

The subject of what Site C’s power is required for has spurred intense debate. Some have argued that the dam is needed to power B.C.’s proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. However, a DeSmog Canada investigation last year indicated that was unlikely to be the case due to timing and transmission constraints.

This week’s news, however, indicates Site C’s power could be used to produce the gas the province plans to export via LNG plants.

"It’d always been in the back of the mind that Site C was possible, but until it got approved it wasn't something we were looking into in a great amount of detail," BC Hydro spokesperson Lesley Wood told the Prince George Citizen.

With a price tag of $8.8 billion, the Site C dam is the most expensive public project in B.C. history. Because it's being proposed by a crown corporation, the costs will ultimately be borne by taxpayers and BC Hydro customers. If built, the dam will flood an 83-kilometre stretch of the fertile Peace Valley.

Work has already started to upgrade power lines in the Groundbirch area east of Dawson Creek, where the province has been experiencing the "most dramatic single-industry driven regional load growth BC Hydro has ever seen," Wood told the Citizen.

The natural gas is located in the Montney Play region, which contains unconventional tight gas and shale gas. The gas is accessed through a process called hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — which involves blasting a mixture of water and chemicals underground to fracture the rock formation and release the gas.

A fracking study released last week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found fracking puts drinking water supplies at risk of contamination. Further, exporting LNG will not help combat climate change, according to a report from the Pembina Institute last year. A report in Nature last year also found cheap abundant natural gas will delay efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Site C is facing growing opposition, despite BC Hydro hoping to start construction in July.

In May, a U.S. energy economist said the power from the dam is dramatically more costly than previously thought.

Earlier this year, the chair of the joint review panel that reviewed the Site C dam told DeSmog Canada that the province should have waited on making a decision to go ahead with the project. Chair Harry Swain also called the province’s failure to investigate alternatives a “dereliction of duty.”

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Two big blows to the natural gas industry have come in less than 24 hours, with both the province of Quebec and New York state effectively banning shale gas extraction over concerns with the process of hydraulic fracturing (a.k.a. "fracking"). 

Fracking allows for the cheap extraction of natural gas from shale deposits that were previously inaccessible, and it is responsible for both the boom in natural gas production as well as the correlate controversy. 

Citing public health and environmental concerns, Quebec Premier Phillipe Couillard announced yesterday that there would be no shale gas development in his province. The day prior Quebec's environmental review board released a report finding that there are "too many potential negative consequences to the environment and to society from extracting natural gas from shale rock deposits along the St. Lawrence River."

Today New York State made a similar move imposing an outright ban on fracking.

“I cannot support high volume hydraulic fracturing in the great state of New York,” said Howard Zucker, the acting commissioner of health.

Other jurisdictions in Canada have fully embraced fracking and natural gas extraction, most notably British Columbia, where Premier Christy Clark has put much of her political capital on the expansion of the natural gas industry in the province's northeastern region and the proposed expansion of LNG (liquified natural gas) export facilities along the coast.

There remain big questions about whether the expected natural gas boom will ever happen in British Columbia, and the Clark government is likely watching closely these latest moves by Quebec and New York.

In a province like British Columbia, where the populace has been very wary of new energy projects, Clark's natural gas boom might be a political bust.

Image Credit: USOGA via Twitter

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Chemicals released into the air and water during fracking operations may result in human health problems ranging from birth defects to decreased semen quality, a U.S study has found.

University of Missouri researcher Susan Nagel and colleagues from the Institute for Health and the Environment and the Center for Environmental Health conducted the most extensive review to date of research on fracking by-products and effects on human reproductive and environmental health. They concluded that exposure to chemicals used in fracking may be harmful to human health.

The paper, Reproductive and Developmental Effects of Chemicals Associated with Unconventional Oil and Natural Gas Operations, published in the peer-reviewed journal Reviews on Environmental Health recommends further study.

“We examined more than 150 peer-reviewed studies reporting on the effects of chemicals used in unconventional oil and gas operations and found evidence to suggest there is cause for concern for human health,” Nagel said.

“Further, we found that previous studies suggest that adult and early life exposure to chemicals associated with unconventional oil and gas operations can result in adverse reproductive health and developmental defects in humans.”

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing by pressurized liquid, is used to release natural gas from underground rock. A high pressure fluid, usually made up of chemicals and sand suspended in water, is injected into deep rock formations to create cracks, making vast caches of natural gas, previously trapped in buried rock, accessible.

Over the last decade, as the practice has become more common in Canada and the U.S., concerns have grown about contamination of ground water, depletion of fresh water, air quality, gas blowouts and the possibility that fracking will trigger earthquakes.

In north eastern B.C., where there are vast reserves of shale gas, controversy has raged and the use of river and lake water for fracking has been challenged in the B.C. Supreme Court by a coalition of environmental groups.

The University of Missouri-led study looked at previous research on air and water near fracking operations and concluded that exposure to fracking-caused pollution may be linked to health problems in humans and animals, including infertility, miscarriage, impaired fetal growth, birth defects and reduced semen quality.

“There are far fewer human studies than animal studies, however, taken together, the studies did show that humans can be harmed by these chemicals released from fracking,” said Nagel, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women’s health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

“There is a striking need for continued research on unconventional oil and gas processes and chemicals and the health outcomes in people.”

Photo: Maryland Sierra Club via Flickr

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The B.C. government’s claim that LNG exports offer the “greatest single step British Columbia can take to fight climate change” is inaccurate in the absence of stronger global climate policies according to a new report released today by the Pembina Institute and the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Natural gas does have a role to play in a world that avoids two degrees Celsius in global warming, but only if strong emissions reduction policies are put in place in the jurisdictions that produce and consume the gas, says the report, LNG and Climate Change: The Global Context authored by Matt Horne and Josha MacNab.

“Natural gas is often described as a bridge fuel. The question is, how long should that bridge be?” says MacNab, B.C. regional director for the Pembina Institute, a national non-profit focused on transitioning Canada to a clean energy future.

“Our research suggests it must be very short if we’re going to be able to get off the bridge in time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

If strong climate policies were put in place to avoid reaching more than two degrees of warming, the burning of natural gas would peak by 2030 and drop below current levels by mid century, according to the report.

Under that scenario, energy efficiency, renewables and nuclear would increase significantly while the use of fossil fuels drops.

“It’s climate policy that will determine coal use, not the availability of natural gas,” MacNab says. “It’s not simply a question of LNG and coal swapping out for each other.”

The B.C. government’s claim, which was made during the February 2014 throne speech, is premised on two assumptions.

The first is that natural gas is cleaner than coal. On that point, MacNab said that in most cases natural gas is 10 to 40 per cent cleaner than coal assuming that methane is safely managed. However, the Pembina Institute report also notes that there “remains material uncertainty” about the life cycle emissions of natural gas that requires additional research.

The second assumption the B.C. government makes is that LNG will replace coal.

“In a world with weak climate policy, natural gas will not reduce coal use,” says Horne, B.C. associate regional director for the Pembina Institute. “Without a global push for low carbon energy sources and efficiency, LNG will likely worsen rather than ease global warming.”

The institute’s findings are in line with a report published last week in Nature, which found that cheap abundant natural gas will actually delay any efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

B.C. Needs to Put Emissions Reduction Policies Before LNG Strategy

To draw its conclusions, the Pembina Institute report compares the role of natural gas under two different scenarios: one in which global warming is limited to two degrees Celsius and one that stays on the business as usual path. The comparison yields two very different roles for natural gas — either as part of an energy mix that helps avoid dangerous climate change or as part of an energy mix that accelerates the world down the path to dangerous climate change.

“Instead of leading with LNG and natural gas strategies, jurisdictions — B.C. included — need to lead with emissions reduction policies,” the report says.

To avoid more than two degrees of warming and keep atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases below 450 parts per million, the International Energy Agency says policies need to include economy-wide carbon pricing, the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies, emissions standards on power plants and a renewable transportation fuel standard.

The Pembina Institute makes three recommendations to the B.C. government to increase the chances that B.C.’s LNG industry can be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem, including applying an evidence-based approach in assessing energy exports, strengthening domestic efforts to reduce emissions from natural gas and LNG development and playing a more proactive role on climate change and methane management globally.

If strong climate change policy was enacted on a global level, natural gas use would peak by 2030 — just 15 years from now. What does that mean in terms of B.C.’s plans to build an LNG industry?

“We would encourage the B.C. government to be thinking about that in terms of the long-term sustainability of the industry,” MacNab says. “B.C. ought to be careful in hitching its economic wagon to a resource that will decline in a carbon-constrained world."

Photo: Christy Clark at LNG Canada announcement via Province of British Columbia on Flickr

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Chevron made waves in the business world when it announced its October 6 sale of 30-percent of its holdings in the Alberta-based Duvernay Shale basin to Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) for $1.5 billion.

It marked the first North American purchase for the Kuwaiti state-owned oil company and yields KUFPEC 330,000 acres of Duvernay shale gas. Company CEO and the country's Crown Prince, Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, called it an "anchor project" that could spawn Kuwait's expansion into North America at-large. 

Kuwait's investment in the Duvernay, at face-value buying into Canada's hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") revolution, was actually also an all-in bet on Alberta's tar sands. As explained in an October 7 article in Platts, the Duvernay serves as a key feedstock for condensate, a petroleum product made from gas used to dilute tar sands, allowing the product to move through pipelines. 

And while Kuwait — the small Gulf state sandwiched between Iraq and Saudi Arabia — has made a wager on Alberta's shale and tar sands, Big Oil may also soon make a big bet on Kuwait's homegrown tar sands resources.

"Kuwait has invited Britain’s BP, France’s Total, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil and Chevron, to bid for a so-called enhanced technical service agreement for the northern Ratqa heavy oilfield," explained an October 2 article in Reuters. "It is the first time KOC will develop such a big heavy oil reservoir and the plan is to produce 60,000 bpd from Ratqa, which lies close to the Iraqi border [in northern Kuwait]…and then ramp it up to 120,000 bpd by 2025."

In the past, Kuwait has said it hopes to learn how to extract tar sands from Alberta's petroleum engineers.

Canadian Tutelage

Back in 2007, Kuwait had much more ambitious plans for the Ratqa oil field.

Though the current goal is to suck 120,000 barrels per day of heavy oil out of the field, back in 2007 the goal was 900,000 barrels per day by 2020. And Alberta's petroleum engineers would lend their expertise to the cause, or at least that was the plan for Kuwait Oil Company at the time. 

"Unless we seek the experience of the industry here, we will not be able to reach our target," Ali al-Shammari, at the time the deputy managing director for finance for the Kuwait Oil Company, told the Calgary Herald. "We will need [international oil companies'] help in developing the reservoirs and may also consider the options of signing enhanced technical services agreements."

Kuwait's entrance into Canada depicts how important Alberta's tar sands have become for the global geopolitical landscape. And Kuwait opening its doors to the oil majors depicts the country as an emerging player in the global oil market.

Geopolitics At Play 

The Islamic State — formerly known as the Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL)— has established what it calls a Caliphate in both northern Iraq and large swaths of Syria.

Fueled by $25 to $60 per barrel oil sold on the black market, Kuwait has largely escaped from the day-to-day newscycle. But as the famous Mark Twain quip goes, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

The Ratqa oil field is the same geological formation as the Rumaila oil field, which sits in southern Iraq. Iraq and Kuwait fought a war over the field in early-1990s, in which the United States led the call to arms against former President Saddam Hussein: Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War. 

In 2010, Iraq and Kuwait signed an agreement — an armistice really — to share the border oilfield. 

Further, Wikileaks U.S. Department of State diplomatic cables made public by whistleblower Chelsea Manning show that the U.S. government has kept a close eye on the Ratqa oil field, as well as on which U.S.-based oil companies stood to win and lose if developed. 

Though almost two and a half decades have gone by since Operation Desert Storm and Saddam Hussein is no longer even alive, one thing remains constant: oil still runs the show in the Persian Gulf region. And this time around, it's tar sands oil — the same oil running the show in Alberta.

Photo Credit: esfera | ShutterStock

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Although city officials from Dawson’s Creek won’t disclose the names of the companies involved, they are confirming that fracking waste has been illegally dumped into the city’s water treatment system on at least two occasions.

Jim Chute, administrative officer for the city, told DeSmog Canada, that illegal dumping has occurred at least three times, but twice the waste was “clearly” related to fracking.

“It has actually been on three occasions in the last 18 months where we’ve caught inappropriate materials being dumped,” he said. “One of those was a load of contaminated diesel. It’s not clear to us exactly how that diesel got contaminated so we don’t know if that was frack-related or not.”

“The other two were a mix of compounds that were clearly flowback waste from a frack operation.”

Chute said the chemicals used in the fracking process can damage the city’s water and sewage treatment facilities which are unable to handle industrial waste. Chute told the Alaska Highway News the waste could cause irreversible damage to living organisms that play a crucial role in the city’s water reclamation system.

Fracking in northeastern B.C.

Fracking, otherwise known as high-volume slickwater hydraulic fracturing, is a controversial extraction process used to free oil and gas from tight rock formations using extremely high pressures and large amounts of toxic chemicals.

The incidents in Dawson Creek involved subcontractors of the gas companies, Chute told DeSmog Canada, saying “virtually all jobs are outsourced to subtrades.”

“If you’re Encana Corporation, you probably don’t drill that well yourself, it’s probably contracted out to a subcontractor like Precision Drilling. And then Precision Drilling themselves don’t build the lease roads, they contract that out to a subcontractor…and they don’t do their own waste disposal, they contract that out.”

“It’s so busy up here,” Chute said.

“The situations we’ve encountered in every case has been an independent contractor to a company who signs on to a company [saying] they will dispose of the waste in an appropriate manner…and then behave badly, try to save themselves some money by coming to our dump instead of going to the proper spot.”

Chute told the Alaska Highway News the contractors were fined and responsible for cleaning the contaminated holding tanks.

Toxic wastewater a problem for industry

The B.C. Oil and Gas Commission, the provincial oil and gas regulator, is responsible for monitoring the activity of fracking companies, including the disposal of wastewater. B.C. has several private wastewater facilities where recyclable water is separated from toxic waste, which is then disposed of in underground injection wells.

In an emailed statement, B.C. Oil and Gas Commission communications coordinator Hardy Friedrich said, “B.C. has strict regulations related to the disposal of oil and gas waste in the Oil and Gas Waste Regulation and the Hazardous Waste Regulation.”

He added: “Fluids used in hydraulic fracturing must be disposed in a deep underground formation via a service well. Most other waste must be disposed at an approved disposal facility. There are currently 106 operating deep well disposal sites in northeast B.C.”

The difficulty of disposing of wastewater from fracking operations is a problem that has plagued the industry across North America. Flowback fluid from a fracking well includes toxic chemicals and oftentimes radioactive elements from extremely deep wells.

Most municipal wastewater systems are not equipped with the technology to handle such toxic waste in such high volumes.

Dawson Creek, located in the shale gas-rich Montney Basin, has seen a major increase in gas companies in recent years. The Montney Basin, along with the Horn River Basin also in northeastern B.C., could potentially account for 22 per cent of all North American shale gas production by 2020 according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

In the early years of B.C.'s shale gas boom, Grant Shomody, president of Grantech Engineering International, warned of the potential problems producers would face when it comes to wastewater disposal in the Montney:

“If this play develops as producers hope, the number of wells being drilled would severely tax local water resources. In that case, we can expect a lot of ecologically related criticism. There’s also the problem of disposing of the frac water or treating it for reuse. It’s expensive, and Montney producers have not installed water treatment capabilities at their plants.”

A challenge and liability for Dawson Creek

Chute expressed concern with illegal dumping of fracking wastewater, especially in light of new Environment Canada rules, which could hold city officials accountable for negligence.

“Previously there had been less onerous regulations, around how anyone who is a sewage treatment operator or handler of sewage…in order to prevent unauthorized discharge into watercourses,” Chute explained.

These new federal regulations are more strenuous and more robust than any that had been in place in the past, Chute said.

“The onus was put on us to ensure we had the safeguards in place that nothing escaped into the environment. Part and parcel because of that, and [how] thinking changed around Enron and evidence of bad corporate behaviour, part of the regulations imposed personal liability on the people responsible.”

“In Dawson Creek, that would be me,” he said.

Dawson Creek is moving to a new system, said Chute, where a failsafe dump station will monitor regularly for harmful compounds. If those compounds are found, the waste will be prevented from entering the regular treatment system.

Chute says the new facility, which will cost nearly $4 million to build, will be continuously monitored during open hours, 12 hours a day, six days a week.

“All of this is to make sure unauthorized industrial waste doesn’t go into our system.”

“We are going to make sure that we catch anybody that tries to circumvent the system by coming to us because we’re a shorter haul than they’d have to go to the proper spot.”

Image Credit: Fracking water storage near Hudson's Hope in B.C. Image from the CCPA report: Fracking Up B.C.

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The Ontario Energy Board’s approval of three natural gas projects last week puts the province’s plans to significantly reduce Ontario’s carbon footprint in jeopardy.

The ruling also gives Ontario the green light to import controversial shale gas from the U.S. This type of gas is trapped in rock-like shale and is extracted using a process called hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, which involves pumping a chemical mix underground at high temperatures to break apart the rock and free the gas. The practice has caused controversy worldwide due to fracking chemicals and methane contaminating drinking water.

“So often we see approvals given to pipeline and fossil fuel projects without a real understanding of the broader and long-term impacts on climate, water and public health,” says Emma Lui, a water campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

The interdependent projects — two by Union Gas and one from Enbridge Gas — will expand the natural gas supply and delivery network in southern Ontario. Consuming more natural gas, particularly a more polluting form of natural gas, are direct contradictions with the province’s strong greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets.

“Energy conservation is the lowest cost method to keep our homes warm. It creates jobs and reduces our greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills,” Jack Gibbons, director of the Ontario Clear Air Alliance, told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

Burning natural gas to heat homes and produce electricity accounts for 35 per cent of Ontario’s energy-related carbon footprint. Ontario plans to achieve a 15 per cent reduction in the province’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and a reduction of 80 per cent by 2050 (based on 1990 levels).

“Buildings are the third largest source of greenhouse gas pollution in the province, making it important to save as much energy in heating them as possible,” Gillian McEachern, campaigns director of Environmental Defence, told DeSmog Canada. “Conservation needs to be a requirement before companies are given approval to expand infrastructure."

Environmental Defence, Council of Canadians and the Ontario Clean Air Alliance all found the Ontario Energy Boards’s decision a “disappointment.” They also disputed the need for the project because the alternatives were not properly considered.

The energy board criticized Enbridge Gas for only taking a “cursory” look at energy conservation as an alternative to its project, known as the GTA project. In the future, the board “expects applicants to provide a more rigorous examination of demand side alternatives, including rate options, in all gas leave to construct applications.”

Ontario Clean Air Alliance estimates Ontario could save $1.4 billion over 10 years if spending on energy conservation is increased. Installing more insulation and high-efficiency windows in homes, replacing aging furnaces with new models and switching to geothermal energy for space and water heating are just some of the ways of achieving these savings.

Ontario Needs To Increase Incentives For Energy Conservation

Ontario provides financial incentives for Enbridge Gas and Union Gas — Ontario’s main natural gas distributors — to invest in energy conservation, but only to a point.

The Ontario Energy Board has put a cap on gas companies surpassing their energy conservation targets — meaning the financial rewards stop once a company exceeds its conservation targets by more than 50 per cent.

The caps on financial rewards for energy conservation are “penny wise and pound foolish” and do not benefit Ontario according to Ontario Clean Air Alliance. The organization recommends the energy board remove the caps “subject to the constraint that this must not lead to undue rate increases” for Ontarians.

Pinning Ontario’s Energy Future on Fracked Gas Is Precarious At Best

During the public hearings on the gas projects, the Council of Canadians, one of Canada’s leading water advocacy groups, argued pinning Ontario’s energy future on U.S. shale gas was precarious at best.

Three reports from U.S. experts provided by the Council of Canadians indicated upcoming bans and moratoriums on fracking and gas wells nearing the end of their lives will make importing fracked gas less economical for Ontario in the future. This could increase energy costs for Ontarians in the end.

“While the image of tap water on fire has become iconic about the risks of fracking shale gas, the climate impacts are less understood,” says Andrea Harden-Donahue, a climate and energy campaigner with the Council of Canadians.

Fracking wells leak methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. The world’s leading scientific body on climate issues, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, estimates methane has 84 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

The Ontario Energy Board appeared unmoved by the argument against using fracked shale gas:

“There are currently no regulations in Ontario or at the Canadian federal level which prohibit shale gas production or transportation.”

Quebec, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia have all placed moratoriums on fracking.

Ontario Energy Board Decision Clears A Hurdle for Energy East Oil Pipeline

TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline proposal could benefit from Ontario’s decision to import large quantities of U.S. shale gas.

Part of the pipeline project to ship western Canadian oil to New Brunswick involves converting a natural gas pipeline running from Alberta to Ontario. Ontario receives almost half its natural gas through this particular pipeline system at the moment.

The prospect of Ontario losing a source of natural gas prompted the Ontario government to announce an assessment of the Energy East project on its costs and benefits for Ontarians. 

Now that Ontario will be able to tap into the booming shale gas industry of the U.S. the provincial government’s scrutiny of Energy East may not be that severe.

“The OEB decision helps lay the groundwork for Energy East,” Harden-Donahue told DeSmog Canada. “This is bad news all around for the region which could have the biggest tarsands pipeline snacking through it and be increasingly reliant on socially and environmentally damaging fracked gas imports."

Image Credit: Allen York, OCAA, OEB, Fracking Resources

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The New Brunswick government is downplaying the fallout of Louis LaPierre's resignation from the province's Energy Institute after his admission that he had misrepresented some of his academic credentials.

CBC News reports that Energy Minister Craig Leonard "contends the ongoing controversy does not taint the work the former University of Moncton professor did for the government on the possible development of a shale gas industry in the province." LaPierre wrote a report called The Path Forward for the Energy Institute, which outlines the challenges faced by the province in establishing a foothold for the shale gas industry.

Despite New Brunswick Premier David Alward's statement from January 31 that LaPierre was "the right man" to be working on the shale gas industry because "Dr. LaPierre is an internationally-recognized scientist," Leonard is now asserting that science was never a part of LaPierre's job.

Leonard said that the situation is "incredibly unfortunate" but that "the reality is that the work that [LaPierre] did for the Energy Institute was based on his ability to bring these individuals who have this scientific knowledge together to deal with the issues we have in New Brunswick to address concerns."  

According to his report, The Path Forward, LaPierre was asked by the Office of the Premier and the Minister of Natural Resources to "solicit feedback on government's proposed regulations for the shale gas industry."

"The proposed regulations are critically important to building confidence among the public that Government is committed to developing the industry on a safe and sustainable basis," LaPierre wrote.

LaPierre announced that he was resigning on Thursday, two weeks after questions were raised about his credentials in a report by Radio-Canada. For years, LaPierre's biography has claimed he holds a PhD in ecology from the University of Maine.

Biographical notes issued by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency in August 2011, when the review panel for the proposed Marathon mine was announced, also listed a PhD in ecology from the University of Maine among his credentials.

The University of Maine confirmed that LaPierre has a master's degree in science education from them, but not a master's in ecology, nor a doctorate from the institution.

Spokeswoman Tamara Chumley told CBC that LaPierre does have a PhD from Walden University, in education, not science. LaPierre reportedly attributed the erroneous information to a "mixup" in his academic biography.

"Needless to say I was taken aback by the controversy, but I have now accepted that I played a role in bringing it about," LaPierre said in a statement to the Moncton Times & Transcript.

"Regardless, during the years, in documents and among various bios, I have misrepresented my academic credentials and have admitted the same to the Université de Moncton. I take full responsibility for my actions and offer a full apology for the embarrassment this situation has caused to so many that placed their trust in me."

LaPierre's statement said that he would be focusing on family and his health "in the wake of these revelations."

"To that end, I have tendered my resignation to the Minister of Energy and Mines as chair of the New Brunswick Energy Institute to ensure that the distraction of my credentials does not take away from the important work the institute has to do to move our province forward," he said.

LaPierre also reportedly resigned from a federal environmental review panel on Wednesday, for "medical reasons."

During a CBC political panel on Thursday, all four opposition parties commented on LaPierre's work on the controversial shale gas industry as problematic for the Alward government, in light of his resignation.

"The fact that he now acknowledges that he's misrepresented his academic credentials really does blow the confidence the public would have in anything the government has used Dr. LaPierre for," said Green Party Leader David Coon.

"The institute's credibility is definitely on the line," said Rick Doucet, Liberal critic for energy and mines.

"Anything that's been on shale gas that he has prepared must be peer reviewed before it can be used going forward," said NDP candidate Brian Duplessis.  

"It does undermine the whole process," said People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin. "How could it not?"

Energy Minister Craig Leonard said that the next step for the energy institute is to find a replacement for LaPierre. He accepted LaPierre's resignation in a statement issued on Thursday, and thanked him "for the work he has done in assisting the provincial government in establishing the institute."

Image Credit: Radio-Canada

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