Like many others, I have focused my dislike of fracking on the process itself: the waste of water, the disruption and violation of earth's geologic structure when waste products are pumped into the ground, the potential degradation of drinking water and poisoning of land, and the perpetuation of the illusion that fossil fuels are a bottomless source for American's apparently endless need for more and more energy.
Radford's article pointed out another consideration that I had not thought of--namely, land use: what is not being produced on the land that is now employed by the whole enterprise of extraction by fracking. And what might be the implications of that?
The immediate success of fracking--dramatically increasing the production of oil and gas and reducing America's current dependence on imported petrochemicals--has postponed the inevitable. Rather than conserve and put our efforts into developing alternative energy sources, we're simply enjoying the largesse of an unexpected technological development and partying like there's no tomorrow.
Which political party is even addressing this issue? We are only deferring another national emergency.
Well Drilling Has Deep Impact on Health of Great Plains
Posted on Apr 27, 2015
By Tim Radford, Climate News Network
This Creative Commons-licensed piece first appeared at Climate News Network.
LONDON—Oil wells and natural gas may have made individual Americans rich, but they have impoverished the great plains of North America, according to new research.
Fossil fuel prospectors have sunk 50,000 new wells a year since 2000 in three Canadian provinces and 11 U.S. states, and have damaged the foundation of all economic growth: net primary production—otherwise known as biomass, or vegetation.
Brady Allred, assistant professor of rangeland ecology at the University of Montana’sCollege of Forestry and Conservation, and colleagues write in the journalScience that they combined years of high-resolution satellite data with information from industry and public records to track the impact of oil drilling on natural and crop growth.
They conclude that the vegetation lost or removed by the expansion of the oil and gas business between 2000 and 2012 added up to 10 million tonnes of dry vegetation, or 4.5 million tonnes of carbon that otherwise would have been removed from the atmosphere.
Net primary production—the biomass that plants make from photosynthesis every day, all over the world—is the basis of all wealth and food security. It underwrites all other human and animal activity.
Human wealth depends ultimately on what grows in the ground, or what can be dug from the ground, and most of the latter—such as coal, oil and peat—was once stuff that grew in the ground.
The same net primary production is the basis of what economists sometimes call ecosystem services on which all civilisation depends: the natural replenishment of the water supply, the pollination of crops, the provision of natural nitrogen fertilisers, and the renewal of natural habitat for wild things.
“This is not surprising because current reclamation practices vary by land ownership and governing body, target only limited portions of the energy landscape, require substantial funding and implementation commitments, and are often not initiated until the end life of a well.”
They say that the land actually taken up by wells, roads and storage facilities just between 2000 and 2012 is about 3 million hectares. This is the land area equivalent to three Yellowstone National Parks.
The hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” used to extract oil and gas is between 8,000 cubic metres and 50,000 cubic metres per well, which means that the total quantity of water squirted into the ground at high pressure during the 12 years to 2012 could exceed 33,900 million cubic metres. At least half of this was used in areas already defined as “water-stressed.”
Although there is legislation, it is limited to lands subject to federal jurisdiction, and 90% of all drilling infrastructure is now on privately owned land—at least, in the U.S.
Tim Evanson via Wikimedia Commons
The study’s authors want decision-makers to confront the challenges of this kind of ecological disruption. There are lessons from history in all this, they warn.
“In the early 20th century, rapid agricultural expansion and widespread displacement of native vegetation reduced the resilience of the region to drought, ultimately contributing to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s,” they write.
“It took catastrophic disruption of livelihoods and economies to trigger policy reforms that addressed environmental and social risks of land-use change.”
A farmer and his sons struggle through a dust storm in 1930s Oklahoma. (U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr)
LONDON—Oil wells and natural gas may have made individual Americans rich, but they have impoverished the great plains of North America, according to new research.
Fossil fuel prospectors have sunk 50,000 new wells a year since 2000 in three Canadian provinces and 11 U.S. states, and have damaged the foundation of all economic growth: net primary production—otherwise known as biomass, or vegetation.
Brady Allred, assistant professor of rangeland ecology at the University of Montana’sCollege of Forestry and Conservation, and colleagues write in the journalScience that they combined years of high-resolution satellite data with information from industry and public records to track the impact of oil drilling on natural and crop growth.
They conclude that the vegetation lost or removed by the expansion of the oil and gas business between 2000 and 2012 added up to 10 million tonnes of dry vegetation, or 4.5 million tonnes of carbon that otherwise would have been removed from the atmosphere.
Loss of fodder
Put another way, this loss amounted to the equivalent of fodder for five million cattle for one month from the rangelands, and 120 million bushels of wheat from the croplands. This wheat equivalent, they point out, adds up to the equivalent of 13% of the wheat exported by the U.S. in 2013.Net primary production—the biomass that plants make from photosynthesis every day, all over the world—is the basis of all wealth and food security. It underwrites all other human and animal activity.
Human wealth depends ultimately on what grows in the ground, or what can be dug from the ground, and most of the latter—such as coal, oil and peat—was once stuff that grew in the ground.
The same net primary production is the basis of what economists sometimes call ecosystem services on which all civilisation depends: the natural replenishment of the water supply, the pollination of crops, the provision of natural nitrogen fertilisers, and the renewal of natural habitat for wild things.
And what worries the conservation scientists is that this loss of net primary production is likely to be “long-lasting and potentially permanent, as recovery or reclamation of previously drilled land has not kept pace with accelerated drilling.”“It took catastrophic disruption of livelihoods and economies [in the 1930s] to trigger policy reforms that addressed environmental and social risks of land-use change.”
“This is not surprising because current reclamation practices vary by land ownership and governing body, target only limited portions of the energy landscape, require substantial funding and implementation commitments, and are often not initiated until the end life of a well.”
They say that the land actually taken up by wells, roads and storage facilities just between 2000 and 2012 is about 3 million hectares. This is the land area equivalent to three Yellowstone National Parks.
The hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” used to extract oil and gas is between 8,000 cubic metres and 50,000 cubic metres per well, which means that the total quantity of water squirted into the ground at high pressure during the 12 years to 2012 could exceed 33,900 million cubic metres. At least half of this was used in areas already defined as “water-stressed.”
New wells
The researchers considered the drilling of new wells in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, and in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming in the U.S.Although there is legislation, it is limited to lands subject to federal jurisdiction, and 90% of all drilling infrastructure is now on privately owned land—at least, in the U.S.
Tim Evanson via Wikimedia Commons
“In the early 20th century, rapid agricultural expansion and widespread displacement of native vegetation reduced the resilience of the region to drought, ultimately contributing to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s,” they write.
“It took catastrophic disruption of livelihoods and economies to trigger policy reforms that addressed environmental and social risks of land-use change.”
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