U.S. proponents of fracking took a major hit today. As reported in the L.A. Times: “Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California’s vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national “black gold mine” of petroleum.”
Monterey Shale, alongside other U.S. deposits such as Marcellus and Utica have been promoted as opportunities for the U.S. to become more energy independent.
Today’s announcement undercuts this position and gives further clout to the anti-fracking movement opposing the myriad of consequences of fracking, from consuming and polluting huge amounts of water to its huge carbon footprint.
In the same L.A. Times article; “J. David Hughes, a geoscientist and spokesman for the nonprofit Post Carbon Institute, said the Monterey formation “was always mythical mother lode puffed up by the oil industry — it never existed.”
Dr. Hughes recently submitted expert testimony to the Ontario Energy Board on our behalf.
We approached Dr. Hughes because the proposal from Enbridge and Union Gas under consideration would see Ontario more reliant on imports of fracked gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale.
In his evidence, Hughes argues the U.S. supply growth assumptions made by the companies for natural gas prices are overly optimistic. Put simply, Ontario is to become more reliant on gas that is going to be less available, and increasingly costly.
This evidence was paired with submissions from Environmental Consultant Lisa Sumi and Dr. Anthony R. Ingraffea, a Professor of Engineering at Cornell University. Sumi provides summary of the regulations in play to address the significant environmental footprint of fracked gas. She argues these regulations will make the gas less available and more costly. Dr. Ingraffea submitted research indicating that the “…footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil and for coal used for electricity generation when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years.”
Unfortunately the OEB did not heed this warning and has since approved Enbridge and Union Gas’s request for additional natural gas infrastructure.
TransCanada’s Energy East proposal to convert an existing natural gas pipeline supplying gas to Ontario to carry crude oil to ports in the St Lawrence and Bay of Fundy, will lead Ontario even further down the road of relying on fracked gas imports.
Find out more about our campaign to stop Energy East
Find out more about our campaign to stop fracking
