Ingraffea on Fracking

If you weren't at the Foohills production center on Thursday night to listen to Dr. Anthony Ingraffea talk about methane gas, you were, apparently, the only one. Everyone else was there – the house was packed, standing room only. It was a fact-dense, but user-friendly presentation with slides that lasted a little over an hour, followed by Q&A. He began with data and pictures describing what kind of well density is necessary to profitably exploit the Marcellus or Utica shales (very dense, with sprawling well-head infrastructure); then he laid out the data regarding pipe leakage in wells, and gas leakage during drilling and transport (about 5%-8%), thus putting to rest the 'clean energy' myth, especially considering that methane is dozens of times more effective in trapping heat in the earth's atmosphere than carbon dioxide. He ended with a proposal, which his team will present to Governor Cuomo whenever the Governor has a moment, setting forth a plan to move energy production in New York State away from hydrocarbons and toward renewables, perhaps reaching 100% clean energy production in 30 years.


Sound crazy, this last bit? As crazy as the billions-of-dollars infrastructure explosion and large-scale exploitation of the environment and the political process necessary to get only 20% of the methane out of the Marcellus in a profitable manner? The more I learn what it takes to do the latter, the more I think the former is the rational choice.


Anyway, if you did miss the event, it was recorded, and I'm working on getting a link up here on the blog. Until then, you can watch Dr. Ingraffea's presentations on YouTube: just type 'Dr. Anthony Ingraffea' in the YouTube search bar, and take your pick.  Here's one I've watched to get you started.



By the way, I'd love to includ a link to the Daily Star's article about the presentation... but there wasn't one (online, at least). Where were you guys?