On the heels of yesterday’s announcement about the disgraced UT fracking study and subsequent resignations by the frackademics involved, Steve Everley, a top camel in the fracking Joe Camel network announces his plan to seek a new career.
“If you’re an activist who makes a living by denying both scientific consensus and public opinion, you’re naturally going to find yourself on the losing end of the debate,” said Steve Everley of the industry group Energy in Depth. “So, you really have two choices: Admit that your arguments don’t mesh with reality and find a new career, or create another meaningless organization that offers nothing new to the discussion.
Source: E&E Publishing, December 7, 2012, Mike Soraghan (subscription required)
The reality is your arguments have never meshed.
The NOAA study that Everley references in his tweet above – the 4% leakage – is the only study that actually took measurements. Industry has no peer reviewed studies that have taken measurements.
The so-called ‘debunking’ is based upon the recent MIT study that assumed away 30% of emissions by saying that 70% of all wells use green completions. There are problems with the MIT study in general and with the green completions part specifically.
Problem one: A significant oopsie.
The new EPA rules put off mandating green completions until 2015, because industry does not have enough green completion apparatus until then. Green completions will only affect capture of some gases from fracking flowback. The new MIT paper claims that 70% of shale gas wells were using green completions in 2010.
Choose one:
___ Have cake
___Eat cake
Problem two: MIT Joint Frackademia and MIT Frackademics. (See above regarding UT’s frackademic disgrace.)
Good luck on your job search.
UPDATE: Everley has demanded that I “correct” my post. He claims he was referencing this comment about the pilot study not the MIT study with the big oopsie. As defined by scientists, a pilot study is “soft research” and not a “full-blown study.”
Since Everley demanded a correction from me, I think it would be fair to demand a correction from him especially his claim that I was the orchestrator of the whole episode in Parker County. But we all know that will never happen. Corrections would leave EID with a blank website.
PS. I’m waiting for the EPA study. Also…There’s More to Come on Methane, early next year, baby!
Methane is potentially leaking from the entire natural gas supply chain — from wells, pipelines and storage facilities — and no one knows precisely how much is leaking and where the leaks are stemming from. Some reports estimate the total methane leakage rate occurring during natural gas production, transmission and distribution to range anywhere from 1 to 7.9 percent. At the same time, the data that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and everyone else rely on were collected 20 or more years ago.
Still, we all wish you good luck on your job search.
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About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Sharon,
Your post is confusing, to say the least.
Several days ago, you claimed a ThinkProgress blog post — centering on the NOAA study referenced above — undermined one of my arguments. As my tweet suggests, that same “study” suffered from considerable flaws. Many of those were cataloged in a peer-reviewed comment on the study by Michael Levi, which was what I was referencing when I said the NOAA paper had been debunked.
In this post, however, you claim the source was actually the MIT study, which it clearly is not. To be sure, the peer-reviewed MIT study is a very credible contribution in its own right on the issue of methane emissions, having been coauthored by one of the lead authors of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. But, again, I was referring to Levi’s work in response to NOAA.
While I appreciate your willingness to update your blog with a correction, your update unfortunately fails to characterize Levi’s response in an accurate manner. You describe “this comment about the pilot study,” without even mentioning that the pilot study is the NOAA study underpinning the ThinkProgress blog post that started this entire chain of events. And it is also the same NOAA study that you tacitly defend throughout your post as being the only credible source on the issue.
It’s puzzling, then, why you would then say the following: “As defined by scientists, a pilot study is ‘soft research’ and not a ‘full-blown study.'” With that statement, you are admitting that the NOAA study is “soft research” and not a real scientific study.
If that’s the case, then you just made my original point for me: The foundation of your original argument has been shredded by your own description of what a pilot study is.
I don’t happen to believe, as you do, that a study should be dismissed simply because it is a “pilot study.” I do, however, think the NOAA study in particular suffered from some significant flaws, and many of those same concerns were ultimately echoed in Levi’s comments, which were published in a peer-reviewed journal. Again, this was my argument from the very beginning.
I am sorry you think my willingness to engage in this discussion makes my work similar to that of the tobacco industry, and I do hope this particular post can be fixed with the information contained in this comment.
Thank you.
Everley was referencing this, Comment on “Hydrocarbon Emissions Characterization in the Colorado Front Range: A Pilot Study” by Gabrielle Pétron et al.
Michael A. Levi is one of the authors. He has also said, “Keystone opponents are short-sighted in how they are attempting to address global warming.”
He thinks we should export gas because it will bring jobs. This ignores the significant impacts from extracting the gas. It also ignores the jobs a clean energy economy would bring.
In this article, he argues against exporting gas, “As I explained in a Foreign Policy essay earlier this year, achieving energy independence through expanded supplies is a pipe dream. So long as the United States is part of a global market, domestic crude prices will rise in the face of turmoil overseas, putting the U.S. economy at risk and constraining U.S. freedom of action. The only way to break that link without clashing U.S. oil consumption is to bar energy exports from the United States altogether.” http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/23/pipe_dream
Here he argues for exporting gas. http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2012/12/05/thoughts-on-a-long-awaited-natural-gas-exports-study/#more-3682
He also says we can drill our way out of high prices.
Everley has submitted a comment but I think it might have gone to the same place all the comments I submitted to EID’s website went.
It’s kind of balsy of him to be so demanding when I did correct my post but my requests for a quid pro quo correction (see link) from Everley went unanswered. http://www.earthworksaction.org/earthblog/detail/fracking_season_is_upon_us_have_you_been_inoculated#.UMKg3uOe97g
Originally I thought Everley was referencing the MIT study in his tweet (see screen shot above). But he claims he was referencing the comment (see link above) that was critical of the NOAA study. So I updated my post (which is more than any EID fracking Joe Camel has EVER done) and noted that the [NOAA] study was not a full-blown study. STILL it is the only study with measurements and it is peer-reviewed. Industry has no such study has I noted above. As always, you have to click on the links to connect the dots.
Simply because there are journal comments about a preliminary study does not mean the study is without merit and I never made such a claim. Again, it is the only current study with actual measurements. The purpose of a preliminary study is to see if a full-blown study is warranted.
Also please note that we have other peer reviewed studies that show huge problems with emission.
Emissions from Natural Gas Production in the Barnett Shale Area and Opportunities for Cost-Effective Improvements. http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/9235_Barnett_Shale_Report.pdf
Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/greeninc/Howarth2011.pdf
I think if his comment had not been lost in the same file where my comments to his blog reside, it might go something like this: I’m going to make some huge assumptions about what your post means, twist things around, imply that you are stupid and whine some.
Even if my post, which was intended as satire and a way to work in the information about the MIT study, is confusing, I did make a good faith attempt to correct my misquote of Everley when he requested it. His website still has incorrect about me that has gone uncorrected (not that I really care–badge of honor) and that to quote Everley “speaks volumes.”
Everley sits behind a desk in Washington, DC where he gets paid to mislead the public and create doubt about the dangers of fracking in the same way the tobacco industry did about cigarettes. If he has ever visited the gas patch, it was certainly not for a reality based tour where he spent time sitting at people’s kitchen tables and getting dosed with toxic emissions. It was more likely a squeaky clean industry tour.
If he wants to write something further about this matter, he has his own blog.
I don’t know if this fits better here, or in Frackademia:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/onearth/keystone-conflict-nebrask_b_2259241.html
Keystone Conflict: Nebraska Firm Reviewing Tar Sands Project Has Ties to Pipeline Builder
It will be interesting to see the spin on this one.
It fits. More influencing of the process and science is revealed everyday. Create as much confusion and doubt as possible with paid off science, politicians and fracking Joe Camels.
In acronym-speak, what you are described above is known as “FUD”, which stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. What is different between Joe Camel’s days of yesterday and Frack Camel’s days of the present is the influence of the Internet. Nowadays, it is possible to fact-check articles at near the “speed of light”. In addition, various groups are putting together relationship maps detailing those academics, politicians, and policy makers that have been bought off. It is getting harder and harder and more expensive in the form of stock, options, speaker’s fees, and perhaps even outright bribes to practice deception. At this point, I’d have to say that the fracking industry is likely experiencing the effects of having reach the point of diminishing returns.