Large parts of South Africa’s beautiful, but water-poor and ecologically sensitive Karoo region are under threat of being devastated by mining operations to extract natural gas using a controversial technique called hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’.
During fracking millions of litres of water, sand and numerous chemicals most of which are toxic, carcinogic as well as teratogenic (they include benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene, ethylene glycol (antifreeze), diesel fuel, naphthalene (moth ball) compounds, boric acid, arsenic, poly nuclear organic hydrocarbons, only to name a few of 500-odd chemicals used), are pumped into boreholes at high pressure to release natural gas (called shale gas) trapped in layers of underground rock.
In the USA, where fracking has been used extensively, there have been hundreds of documented cases of this process resulting in:
– catastrophic drinking water pollution;
– air pollution;
– health concerns for humans and animals; and
– general environmental degradation.
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[divider]The story so far…
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is targeting potential untapped shale gas reserves in coal-hungry South Africa where landowners – including a Dutch princess – are readying for a showdown.
Shell applied in December to explore 90 000 square kilometres — twice the size of Denmark — for gas deposits in the clay-like shale rock of the arid central Karoo.
“The shale gas potential is quite high, because there is a high volume of shale and therefore the potential for gas development is very big,” said Jenny Marot of the state’s Petroleum Agency SA (PASA).
But more than 200 people want the application dropped, including landowner Dutch Princess Irene, due to environmental concerns and the use of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” to release viable deposits if discovered.
The Anglo-Dutch giant, whose 2010 net profits nearly doubled to $18.6 billion, is one of several companies interested in the Karoo where gas finds in the 1960s were technologically and economically unviable to exploit.
South Africa’s petro-chemical heavyweight Sasol is in early studies in a joint venture, while American firm Falcon Oil&Gas, and Bundu Gas and Oil are also eyeing additional chunks of the Karoo.
“We have always known that there was gas trapped in shale but it was a whole lot more expensive to extract when you had potential reserves elsewhere of conventional gas,” said Shell Africa communications vice president Phaldie Kalam.
“We’re now moving from easy to tight gas. It’s effectively a sign of the times; as it becomes more economically viable, and the prices are a whole lot better for the commodity, its worth actually using the different techniques and going further and deeper.”
But locals fear “fracking”, in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground to force rock cracks and free the trapped gas, will pollute underground water which the barren Karoo is almost entirely dependent upon.
The process is also water intense, a scarce commodity in the inland region.
[divider]Energy supply
“The mineral resources of this country must be exploited for the benefit of our people and at the same token, you need foreign investment. But all we see at the moment is a threat to our people.”
With shale gas tipped to make up a fifth of the US gas supply by 2020, potential harmful effects of fracking on drinking water is subject to a study by the country’s Environmental Protection Agency.
Shell, which will submit an environmental management plan to PASA in April, says its track record shows safe use of the technology and that opposing views will be taken into future thinking.
The area’s potential will only be known once exploration starts but, if viable, the Karoo will have a major impact on energy supply with early conservative estimates above five trillion cubic feet of gas, said PASA chief executive Mthozami Xiphu.
“It is potentially much higher than that. If you compare with Mossgas, that’s more than five times what is being produced at Mossgas” gas fields off the southern Cape coast.
South Africa relies heavily on coal for 95 percent of its electricity and the government plans to increase gas consumption from three percent to 10 percent within a decade.
But WWF South Africa head Morne du Plessis questioned the pursuit of more fossil fuels.
“We’re sitting with massive opportunities for renewable energy production above the ground,” he said.
“Our biggest concern is water and the risk of contamination of that water,” said Derek Light, a Karoo attorney who represents 200 people including farmers against Shell and smaller groups against Falcon and Bundu.
Source: www.fin24.com
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And here is a great article by Andreas Späth, sourced from News24.com
Fracking up the Karoo
Shale gas is trapped in countless tiny bubbles in certain layers of the sedimentary rock shale. It was previously considered to be too expensive to exploit commercially, but advances in horizontal drilling techniques and a controversial process called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” have led to a worldwide rush to identify shale gas reserves. Fracking involves injecting pressurised water mixed with sand and a cocktail of chemicals into boreholes to crack open the impermeable shale and allow the gas to escape to the surface.
I have raised concerns about shale gas exploration and fracking in South Africa previously. Now things are hotting up. Government has granted permits to five major companies and consortia to evaluate the country’s shale gas reserves, which are unproven but potentially substantial. Between them, Royal Dutch Shell, Falcon Oil & Gas, Anglo American, Bundu Gas and Oil and a joint venture between Sasol, Statoil of Norway and Chesapeake Energy of the USA are assessing a huge area extending from Worchester to Port Elizabeth and from the Free State to KwaZulu-Natal. While their permits do not allow drilling, if they are successful, widespread fracking is sure to follow.
Supporters of the industry say it will create jobs and alleviate energy shortages, but the Karoo farmers are particularly worried about the large quantities of water – as much as 20 million litres for a single well – required for the fracking process. They should also be apprehensive about possible contamination of their groundwater by methane gas and the chemicals used during fracking, among them several known carcinogens and endocrine disrupters.
Environmental organisations have collected extensive evidence for fracking-related groundwater contamination in several US states. A 2008 study conducted in Colorado, for instance, found that methane contamination of drinking water wells rose in tandem with increased gas shale drilling.
In June, a shale gas well blowout in Pennsylvania spewed toxic fracking water and gas for nearly 16 hours. Regulators in the state have repeatedly penalized shale gas companies for contaminating private drinking water wells and recently quarantined 28 cows that came into contact with fracking wastewater.
Scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency have identified methane, 2-butoxyethanol phosphate, benzene and other toxic chemicals known to be used in fracking in private boreholes located near shale gas wells and the US Congress has recently instructed the agency to investigate the potential impact of fracking on drinking water quality, human health and the environment. The New York State Senate has already instituted a moratorium on shale gas development to protect New York City’s drinking water supply in the Catskill Mountains and the Delaware River adjacent to a major shale gas area.
Disposal of the toxic wastewater which returns to the surface presents another headache. A damning Vanity Fair article reports that “in Avella, Pennsylvania, a wastewater impoundment caught fire and exploded on George Zimmerman’s 480-acre property, producing a 200-foot-high conflagration that burned for six hours”.
Shale gas supporters claim that it could provide a low-carbon bridge to a renewable energy future, but while gas-fired power stations emit only about half the greenhouse gasses produced by coal-fired equivalents, shale gas may be no more climate friendly than other fossil fuels. Taking into account leakages of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, during drilling, storage and transportation, a preliminary study by Professor Robert Howarth of Cornell University in the USA suggests that shale gas is likely to be “far less attractive than oil and not significantly better than coal in terms of the consequences for global warming.”
Instead of being a clean power panacea, shale gas is just another fossil fuel dead end. Rather than wasting precious time, money and opportunities by handing out exploration permits that threaten our scarce water resources and increase our already oversized carbon footprint, government should use our taxes to move us towards truly eco-friendly, renewable energy solutions.
– Andreas manages Lobby Books, the independent book shop at Idasa’s Cape Town Democracy Centre. Follow him on Twitter: @Andreas_Spath
You can read more here:
Shell vows not to pollute Karoo water
Find our more about the movie Gasland here.
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