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Shell and Exxon's €5bn problem: gas drilling that sets off earthquakes and wrecks homes
Groningen
has been one of Europe’s richest gas fields for 30 years, and thousands
of people say their homes have been damaged by the tremors that
drilling sets off. Now a class action may finally bring them
compensation – and force a rethink of European energy security
‘Nobody is taking this seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one’ …
Annemarie Heite, whose home in Groningen has been scheduled for
demolition after earthquakes caused by oil drilling. Photograph: Hans
Knikman/Demotix
Lucas Amin
Five
years ago, Annemarie Heite and her husband, Albert, bought their dream
home; a traditional 19th-century farmhouse in Groningen province in the
northern Netherlands.
The couple planned to raise their two young daughters in this charming
corner of the Dutch countryside. “Then, the living was still easy, and
affordable,” Annemarie says, her tone bittersweet and nostalgic. Today,
their house is scheduled for demolition.
Hundreds of earthquakes
have wrecked the foundations of the Heites’ home and made it unsafe to
live in. Annemarie’s biggest fear is the safety of her daughters. She
points to a room. “This is where my children sleep,” she says, “and
everyday I’m just picking up pieces of bricks and stuff from the
ceiling.”
Heite fears that her children may not be any safer at
school. Her daughter Zara goes to a local primary school that has not
been structurally reinforced to withstand strong earthquakes. “I feel
powerless. It feels like I can’t do anything,” Heite says. “It’s not
like I’m a frantic, hysterical person, but nobody is taking this
seriously, not the school or the mayor, no one.”
Next door,
Heite’s neighbour’s farmhouse is already a pile of rubble, which yellow
JCBs are clearing away. “It’s collapsed. It’s gone,” Heite says. “They
lived there for 30 years … and over there behind the trees, they
demolished another house.”
Farmhouses like Heite’s are
disappearing across the Groningen countryside as a peculiar, profound
environmental crisis grips the province. At the heart of it are two oil
companies, Shell and Exxon Mobil,
and a government that, for two decades, denied responsibility for its
actions and ignored the voices of citizens and scientists. The scandal
has already cost the oil companies €1.2bn [£880m], but last month a
landmark court ruling gave the victims fresh hope that their voices
could be ignored no longer. And if they are right, the consequences
could be profound: a compensation bill that could stretch to more than
€5bn in Holland, an energy security headache for Europe, and an
invocation for the world to think about the real cost of burning fossil
fuels.
About
250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea during the
transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy company Statoil
said. Statoil said the oil spill was discovered during the loaded of oil
from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea to oil tanker Hilda
Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about
250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea. "Further
assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the
spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement. Loading to
Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform
were proceeding as normal. Statoil said the relevant authorities were
notified, though there were no statements from the Norwegian Petroleum
Safety Authority. In January last year, the company shut down operations
at the Statfjord C platform after emergency systems detected an oil
leak. More than 250 crewmembers were evacuated to lifeboats but returned
to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were reported.
Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the Stratfjord C
incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing an average
80,000 barrels of oil per day.
Norwegian
energy company Statoil said about 250 barrels of oil spilled during
incident at North Sea platform. Photo courtesy of Statoil
STAVANGER, Norway, Oct. 9 (UPI) --
About 250 barrels of oil spilled from a platform in the North Sea
during the transfer of products to an oil tanker, Norwegian energy
company Statoil said.
Statoil said the oil spill was discovered
during the loaded of oil from the Statfjord A platform in the North Sea
to oil tanker Hilda Knutsen. The company said in its latest update on the spill that about 250 barrels in total were released into the North Sea.
"Further
assessment and investigations will uncover the scope and causes [of the
spill] in more detail," the company said in a statement.
Loading to Hilda Knutsen was halted, though operations at the Statfjord A platform were proceeding as normal.
Norwegian
energy company Statoil reported on oil leak Thursday near the Statfjord
oil field in the North Sea, though it's too early to guess on volumes.
The company said sheen was observed during the loading of oil from the
Stratfjord onto the Hilda Knutsen tanker. Loading was halted, though
operations at the field are proceeding as normal. "It is also too early
to say how much oil has leaked," the company said in a statement.
Statoil said equipment was on hand to address the spill and relevant
authorities had been notified. There was no word on the spill from the
nation's Petroleum Safety Authority. Statoil shut down its Statfjord C
rig in January 2014 after emergency systems detected an oil leak. The
270 members of the Statfjord C crew were evacuated to lifeboats but
returned to their living quarters later in the day. No injuries were
reported. Statoil said the weather in the area at the time of the
Stratfjord C incident was "harsh." Statoil said the region is producing
an average 80,000 barrels of oil per day.
Fracking-linked earthquakes likely to worsen – seismologists
Published time: May 02, 2014 03:40
Ongoing
hydraulic fracking operations will only exacerbate seismic activity,
leading to heightened earthquakes in areas where wastewater is injected
deep underground, according to new research.
To unleash natural gas, hydraulic fracturing - or fracking
- requires large volumes of water, sand, and chemicals to be pumped
underground. Scientists attending the Seismological Society of America
(SSA) annual meeting said
Thursday that this storage of wastewater in wells deep below the
earth’s surface, in addition to fracking’s other processes, is changing
the stress on existing faults, which could mean more frequent and larger
quakes in the future.
Researchers previously believed quakes that
resulted from fracking could not exceed a magnitude of 5.0, though
stronger seismic events were recorded in 2011 around two heavily drilled
areas in Colorado and Oklahoma. “This demonstrates there is a significant hazard,” said Justin Rubinstein, a research geophysicist at the US Geological Survey (USGS), according to TIME magazine. “We need to address ongoing seismicity.”
Not all of the more than 30,000 fracking disposal wells are linked to quakes, but an accumulatingbody of evidenceassociates an uptick in seismic activity to fracking developments amid the current domestic energy boom.
The
amount of toxic wastewater injected into the ground seems to provide
some clarity as to what causes the earthquakes. A single fracking
operation uses two to five million gallons of water, according to reports, but much more wastewater ends up in a disposal well.
Published: 20:33 EST, 5 April 2014 | Updated: 21:05 EST, 5 April 2014
Earthquakes
rattled residents in Oklahoma on Saturday, the latest in a series that
have put the state on track for record quake activity this year, which
some seismologists say may be tied to oil and gas exploration.
One earthquake recorded at 3.8 magnitude by the U.S. Geological Survey
rocked houses in several communities around central Oklahoma at 7:42
a.m. local time.
Another about two hours earlier in the same part of the state, north of Oklahoma City, was recorded at 2.9 magnitude, USGS said.
Root issue: Seismologists believe the quakes may be tied to oil and gas exploration
Those two were preceded by two more, at 2.6 magnitude, and 2.5
magnitude, that also rolled the landscape in central Oklahoma early
Saturday morning.
A 3.0 magnitude tremor struck late Friday night in that area as well, following a 3.4 magnitude hit Friday afternoon.
The quakes have set record levels of seismic activity through the state
Austin Holland, a seismologist with the Oklahoma Geological Survey who
tracks earthquake activity for the USGS, said the earthquake activity in
the state is soaring.
'We have had almost as many magnitude 3 and greater already in 2014 than we did for all of 2013,' Holland said.
Last year's number of 'felt' earthquakes - those strong enough to
rattle items on a shelf - hit a record 222 in the state. This year, less
than four months into the year, the state has recorded 253 such
tremors, according to state seismic data.
Fracking fluids dumped into the ocean Environmentalists
are trying to convince the EPA to ban the dumping of fracking fluids,
in federal waters off the California coast. The Center for Biological
Diversity claims that at least a dozen off shore rigs in Southern
California are dumping wastewater right into the Pacific. RT's Ramon
Galindo has the story. Find RT America in your area: http://rt.com/where-to-watch/ Or watch us online: http://rt.com/on-air/rt-america-air/
RT's
Ramon Galindo talks about a recent legal petition by environmental
groups in California calling for the Federal government to force an end
to the practice of offshore fracking, and the dumping of hundreds of
millions of gallons of fracking waste in the ocean every year.
Abby
Martin calls out Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for his blatant hypocrisy
after filing a lawsuit against a fracking water tower being built near
his property.
Fracking
for oil and gas will not be happening in Los Angeles any time soon
after City Council members unanimously voted to ban the practice within
city limits today. The vote passes the motion to the City
Attorney's office where it will be rewritten as a zoning ordinance
before returning to City Council for a final vote. L.A.
is now the largest city in the U.S. to refuse the dangerous extraction
process. Local bans have become an effective protective measure against
fracking, and are in place in numerous jurisdictions worldwide including
Vermont, Hawaii, areas of New York State, Quebec, and France among many others. The Los Angeles ordinance prevents the use of fracking until effective governmental oversight and regulation is in place at the local, state and federal levels. “I think we can all agree unregulated fracking is crazy,” said Councilman Paul Koretz, co-author of the motion. California
is in the midst of a devastating drought, raising concerns over access
to fresh water supplies. Fracking uses approximately 5 million gallons
of water per frack job.
Image from Gizmodo shows Folsom lake near Sacramento in July 2011 and again in January 2014.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity,
there are still 9 Californian counties where fracking is in use,
including Colusa, Glenn, Kern, Monterey, Sacramento, Santa Barbara,
Sutter, Kings and Ventura. The Center also notes
Almost
half (47%) of all U.S. wells are being developed in regions with high
to extremely high water stress. This means that more than 80 percent of
the annual available water is already allocated to municipal, industrial
and agricultural users in these regions. (Source: Ceres)The
irony of fracking: It destroys the natural resource it needs most. The
tragedy for those living nearby fracking operations: That natural
resource is the fresh—and increasingly scarce—water supply on which
they, too, depend.
And not only does fracking—or hydraulic
fracturing—demand enormous amounts of fresh water no matter where it
takes places, a troubling new study released Wednesday found that a
majority of places where the controversial drilling technique is most
prevalent are the same regions where less and less water is available.
Overlay
the regions where most of the fracking is being done in North American
with the places experiencing the most troubling and persistent water
resource problems and the resulting picture becomes an alarm bell as
politicians and the fossil fuel industry continue to push fracking
expansion as the savior for the U.S. and Canada's energy woes.
According to the report, Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers
(pdf), produced by the non-profit Ceres investor network, much of the
oil and gas fracking activity in both the U.S. and Canada is happening
in "arid, water stressed regions, creating significant long-term water
sourcing risks" that will strongly and negatively impact the local
ecosystem, communities, and people living nearby.
“Hydraulic
fracturing is increasing competitive pressures for water in some of the
country’s most water-stressed and drought-ridden regions,” said Ceres
President Mindy Lubber, in announcing Hydraulic Fracturing and Water
Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers. “Barring stiffer water-use
regulations and improved on-the-ground practices, the industry’s water
needs in many regions are on a collision course with other water users,
especially agriculture and municipal water use."
Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the California-based Post Carbon Institute and author of a recent book
on the "false promise" of the fracking industry, says the irony of the
study's findings "would be delicious if it weren't so terrifying."
"Nationally,"
according to Heinberg, "only about 50 percent of fracking wastewater is
recycled. Billions of gallons of freshwater are still taken from
rivers, streams, and wells annually for this purpose, and—after being
irremediably polluted—this water usually ends up being injected into
deep disposal wells. That means it is no longer available to the
hydrological cycle that sustains all terrestrial life."
Click here to look at Ceres' interactive map on fracking and water use.
The
study drew on industry data detailing water usage from from 39,294 oil
and gas wells from January 2011 through May 2013 and compared that
information with "water stress indicator maps" developed by the World
Resources Institute (WRI).
What it found:
Over
55 percent of the wells hydraulically fractured were in areas
experiencing drought and 36 percent overlay regions with significant
groundwater depletion – key among those, California which is in the
midst of a historic drought and Texas, which has the highest
concentration of shale energy development and hydraulic fracturing
activity in the U.S.
Specifically:
In
Texas, which includes the rapidly developing Eagle Ford and Permian
Basin shale plays, more than half (52 percent) of the wells were in high
or extreme high water stress areas. In Colorado and California, 97 and
96 percent of the wells, respectively, were in regions with high or
extremely high water stress. Nearly comparable trends were also shown in
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Among hundreds of hydraulic
fracturing companies whose water use was evaluated, those with the
highest exposure to water sourcing risk are Anadarako (APC), Encana
(ECA), Pioneer (PXD) and Apache (APA). Most of the wells being developed
by each of these companies are in regions of high or extreme water
stress. The top three service providers, Halliburton, (HAL) Schlumberger
(SLB) and Baker Hughes (BHI), handled about half of the water used for
hydraulic fracturing nationally and also face water sourcing risks.
Although
water use for hydraulic fracturing is often less than two percent of
state water demands, the impacts can be large at the local level,
sometimes exceeding the water used by all of the residents in a county.
"It's a wake-up call," Professor James Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine, told the Guardian.
"We understand as a country that we need more energy but it is time to
have a conversation about what impacts there are, and do our best to try
to minimise any damage."
The irony of the latest findings, explained Heinberg in an email to Common Dreams,
is based on the fact that "much of the fracking boom is centered in the
western United States—Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and California—which
just happens to be drying up, likely as a result of climate change. And
that climate change, in turn, is happening because we're burning fossil
fuels like oil and natural gas."
Heinberg observed that the Ceres
report is largely written from the standpoint of the oil and gas
companies—using much of their data—and directed at those who may be
invested or would like to invest in the continuation or proliferation of
the industry. However, he indicated, detailing the increasing
difficulties the industry and its investors are likely to experience in
sourcing water for their operations is still valuable for those opposed
to fracking.
"In California, where I live," he said, "we're
experiencing a 500-year drought. The grape-wine industry here in Sonoma
County is facing disaster. Farmers in the Central Valley are weighing
whether to plant at all this year. The fact that California's Democratic
governor [Jerry Brown] wants to spend what little water we have on
fracking—which will only make our climate problems worse—makes the
report frighteningly relevant."
_____________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on February 6, 2014
Nearly
half of the wells hydraulically fractured (indicated by black dots) in
the United States are located in areas of high or extremely high water
stress (shown in red and dark red). Graphic courtesy of Ceres
Even as concerns arise about the threats hydraulic fracturing poses to water quality and human health,
a new study released yesterday finds that the water demands of the
“fracking” process are adding considerably to localized water depletion,
especially in parts of Texas, Colorado, and California.
Nearly half of the fracking wells in operation since 2011 are located
in regions with high or extremely high water stress, according to the report by Ceres, a non-profit organization that works with investors and businesses to promote more sustainable practices.
Competition for water between cities, farms, and industries is
already tight in those water-stressed areas, posing risks of supply
disruptions during times of drought. Rivers and wetlands often suffer
from insufficient flows in such areas, and depletion of groundwater is
common.
While agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of water in the
western states, “fracking is the latest party to come to the table,”
said Monika Freyman, author of the report and senior manager in Ceres’s
water program, during a teleconference. In some ways it’s “the straw
that’s breaking the camel’s back.”
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of blasting water mixed with sand
and chemicals deep underground at high pressure so as to fracture shale
rock and release the oil and gas it holds. Combined with the technique
of horizontal drilling, it has made previously inaccessible fossil fuel
reserves economical to tap, and fracking operations have spread rapidly
across the country and in many parts of the world.
