Tycoon Says North Dakota Oil Field Will Yield 24 Billion Barrels, Among World’s Biggest - Christopher Helman - Fuel. Natural gas: doubts on EIA's U.S. supply outlook. The United States does not have a decades-long supply of inexpensive, locally sourced natural gas, according to a new report commissioned by the Post Carbon Institute, a nonprofit think tank that examines issues related to the economy, energy and the environment.
The report, titled "Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century? ," is a challenge to the commonly cited projection that domestic natural gas can meet U.S. demand for more than 100 years. It comes on the heels of the U.S. Energy Information Agency's 2011 Energy Outlook released last month that projected an almost fourfold increase in domestic shale gas production by 2035 and growing use of natural gas to generate electricity. "The question is what would it take in order to do that? " Hughes estimates there is only a 12-year supply of easily accessible, domestic natural gas. "More and more infrastructure will be necessary to maintain productivity," Hughes said. Fracking shame - m.NYPOST.com. Not since the Civil War has a border skirmish created such furor — and this battle even has its own carpetbaggers.
With more than a trillion dollars worth of natural gas estimated to be lying underneath western New York State and Pennsylvania, the stakes are huge for drilling companies, landowners and Albany politicians looking to plug budget shortfalls. At issue is “hydrofracking,” a controversial method of extracting gas from the ground. It’s legal in Pennsylvania, which means major gas drillers — including giants like Chesapeake Energy, Range Resources and Andarko Petroleum — are paying top dollar for land there. In New York, it’s banned through at least July, but speculators are buying up real estate anyway, betting that Albany won’t be able to resist the windfall of drilling. Inflections CEO Mark S. In December of last year, the state legislature and Senate voted to ban all gas drilling in New York. The debate has even reached Hollywood.
Fracking: The Great Shale Gas Rush. The Pennsylvania homes of Karl Wasner and Arline LaTourette both sit atop the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from Tennessee to New York and holds vast deposits of natural gas.
They also sit on opposite sides of a national debate over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That's the process that makes it economical for energy companies to tunnel 5,000 feet below ground and remove the gas—but also poses environmental risks. Wasner settled 14 years ago in Milanville, in the state's northeast corner, and will leave if drilling companies set up derricks nearby. He already moved away for six weeks last year while an exploratory well was drilled nearby. The noise, muddy water pouring from his taps, and chemicals that turned up in a neighbor's well drove him off, he says. LaTourette, whose roots in the area go back five generations, is banking on the drilling. The White House has sent mixed signals. Even if the EPA stepped in, its authority would be limited. Hydrofracked? One Man’s Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural Gas Drilling. Louis Meeks’ well water contains methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper, according to the EPA’s test results.
When he drilled a new water well, it also showed contaminants. The drilling company EnCana is supplying Meeks with drinking water. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica) The drill bit spun, whining against the alluvial mud and rock that folds beneath the Wind River Range foothills. It ploughed to 160 feet, but the water that spurted to the surface smelled foul, like a parking lot puddle drenched in motor oil. Meeks used to have abundant water on his small alfalfa ranch, a 40-acre plot speckled with apple and plum trees northeast of the Wind River Mountains and about five miles outside the town of Pavillion. But in the spring of 2005, Meeks’ water had turned fetid. Meeks suspected that environmental factors were to blame. As a result, drilling was about to happen in states not typically known for oil and gas exploration, including Michigan, New York and even Maryland.
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