Fracking: its potential cannot be ignored

There has been a flurry of articles and letters in the media recently decrying the consequences of fracking in South Africa.

They have generally had the following themes:

• Any financial benefits will be kept by the filthy rich and nothing will filter down to the population.
• The principle of capital development in a country has been the subject of controversy and debate over the years, from Marx to Smith to Hayek and, particularly applicable, Keynesian stimulus. A simplistic approach is asinine.
• Rogue fracking organisations in the US have caused huge pollution. Ditto rogue mining companies in South Africa.
• Why this behaviour, which occurred anything from 50 to 150 years ago, should apply to today’s fracking companies is not clear. The industry today is development in progress.
• Fracking fluid is now non-pollutant, backwater is recycled, modern acoustic methods pick up leaks and blockages immediately as well as identifying dolomitic sills, which can then be dealt with.
• Horizontal drilling is the norm, which means that only small surface areas are occupied, and so on.
• The gas deposit in SA is only 40tcf and not financially worth developing.
• In fact, the estimates range from 480tcf downwards. At 50tcf, the economic benefit to South Africa is estimated at R80-billion.

At the top end of the scale, the estimates are in the trillions of rands. (The Mossgas project was based on 1tcf.) What is not mentioned are the job opportunities which, even at the lower end of the scale, will provide many hundreds of thousands of jobs through all facets of the process. Nor what fracking will bring to increasing the production of electricity in the country.

Gas turbines will be financially efficient, not to talk of the reduction in atmospheric pollution relative to coal-powered stations. Regulation and control is well developed in the US and EU.

Even with the defective civil administration we currently enjoy in this country, it should not have a problem with setting up a regulatory system that will at the very least protect underground water in the Karoo, most of which is contained in a shallow aquifer zone of 300m deep.

If negative, short-sighted objections had been heeded in the past, we would now still have people with red flags walking in front of our motor cars.

Peter Erasmus, Plett

These letters were received in response to the above:

Whilst we agree with the title of the letter by Peter Erasmus, we cannot agree with his sentiment that the potential is for good.

In our opinion, only someone clinging to the antiquated belief that the world has an endless supply of resources just waiting to be plundered could hold such a destructive opinion.
In response to a few of the issues raised, we would like to point out the following:
According to the corporate websites of major energy companies, such as Halliburton, there are up to 600 chemicals used in the fracking process. Many of these are highly toxic and – in some cases – known carcinogens. Once these chemicals are introduced into the earth’s crust, there is no efficient means of retracting them. This inevitably leads to ground water contamination.

A 2012 Environment America Research and Policy Center report contained a quote from toxicologist David Brown that summarises the reality of the potential impact of this pollution: “At health clinics, we’re seeing nearby residents experiencing nausea, headaches and other symptoms linked to fracking pollution.

“With billions of gallons of toxic waste coming each year, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of health risks.”

According to a recent report published in Environmental Science and Technology, less than 5% of all water used is recycled, the rest is mostly disposed in injection wells.
This is most concerning in the context of the Karoo where water is scarce and current meteorological models predict it will become more so.

The idea that the industry can be effectively regulated is highly contentious, given the enormous complexity involved, the logistical challenges of monitoring compliance, and the obvious temptation on the part of both industry and the regulatory bodies to circumvent procedure with kickbacks.
The idea of fracking creating jobs is an emotive card that needs to be considered realistically.
Firstly, the estimates are inevitably wildly inflated. In the oft-quoted case of Pennsylvania USA there was a 170,000-job gap between the local publicity campaign (200,000 jobs) and the state agency calculation (30,000 jobs).

Agency officials openly admit that figures used to estimate jobs supported by shale amount to little more than a guess. In any case, the carrying capacity of the Karoo won’t sustain a huge influx of workers. We could go on for pages. There is plenty of scientifically validated information available in the public domain for all who choose to research it, as well as a growing body of (in some cases frightening) anecdotal evidence from affected parties.

We live in a beautiful and relatively pristine environment. From the safety of that bubble it is easy to forget just how fragile our life-sustaining eco-systems really are. They are beyond monetary value. There are emerging energy technologies that are quickly becoming efficient enough to compete with the old model. By supporting fracking, we detract from the development of these sustainable alternatives.

Martin and Kayla Wolfaardt, Plett

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The letter by Peter Erasmus cannot be ignored for the simple reason that his arguments, although welcome, are in some respects based on insufficient evidence and hearsay.

Take the vexed question of macro-economic policy, for instance. It is no secret that the ruling party is made up of a centre-left, Tripartite Alliance consisting of the ANC, the SACP, and COSATU.

It follows, therefore, that their macro-economic policy will tend to follow the idea of a “developmental state”, where the commanding heights of the economy will be owned by the State and managed on behalf of the majority, NOT the wealthy minority.

Whether they do this job properly and efficiently is neither here nor there. The masses of the people have recently cast their vote in favour of the ruling party, so that takes care of that.
The question that immediately follows on relates to national energy policy. How precisely should we employ our State-owned capital and what proportion should we submit to private enterprise for developing new and well-defined solutions to our energy requirements?

Other than Medupi, Kusile, and other existing coal-fired stations, the competing technologies are nuclear, gas (including the potential from fracking), wind and solar, with wave energy a forgotten Cinderella.

Apart from the huge potential represented by energy-efficiency and energy-saving (as much as 20MW, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute), we are also blessed with a massive off-shore gas field in East Africa; the potential of run-of-river hydro in the DRC; and highest solar radiation in the world for 24/7 Concentrated Solar Power (combined with sodium salt storage) in the Northern Cape.
So why bother about fracking when there are so many easier, cleaner, cheaper, and more labour-intensive solutions?

The technical and economic arguments are by no means guaranteed just because qualified “experts” say so. We were promised the earth by the ill-fated Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor, but had to waste R16-billion to find out it was just another radioactive bubble.

They said that nuclear power stations would never fail, and then we had Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima.

The oil and gas industry has also had its litany of woes, including the Exxon Valdez and the Mexican Gulf fiasco, but our obsession with liquid fuels has continued, despite the obvious impact of global warming from vehicle emissions, cancers and birth deformities from inhaling all the additives, and the massive toll in human lives on the roads.

The most offensive part of Mr Erasmus’ letter, however, is the perennial appeal to “jobs” – a most pernicious PR stunt in a land where underemployment and the rich-poor gap is mind-numbing.

Let him therefore please indicate the source of his claim that “even at the lower end of the scale, [fracking] will provide many hundreds of thousands of jobs”. I presume that “many” means “greater than one”?

I like walking myself, but this time I’m hanging out a red flag in front of simplistic and asinine arguments.

Mike Kantey, Plett

Source: CXpress