Gas Land

Oil and gas. I can’t seem to get away from the stuff. My mother once joked that it is in my blood. I was born in a land made obscenely rich by massive oil finds, started out wanting to be a doctor or architect but ended up seduced by rocks and working in the oil industry for a decade and now own property and live right on top of one of the most prolific American gas shales.

Last night, when I turned on HBO’s GASLAND, a documentary about the hydraulic fracturing of shales for oil and gas removal and its human and environmental impacts, imagine my surprise when it started with the Devonian Marcellus shale that sits about half a mile below this Ohio town and runs all the way east into Pennsylvania and southern New York and south into West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, Tennessee and northern Alabama.

First, a short primer on hydraulic fracturing: Conventional drilling is tapping into porous rock, sandstone for instance, and pumping out oil and gas. Hydraulic fracturing involves breaking non-porous rock, in this case shales, with a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and proprietary chemical mixes, which releases oil or gas into the well. The controversy here comes from two things: 1) Hydraulically fracturing rock impacts adjacent aquifer horizons by exposing them to oil, gas and chemicals through the fractures and 2) the Energy Policy Act of 2005 included the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act (recommended by a special task force on energy policy convened by Vice President Dick Cheney, FYI). Fracking of the Marcellus shale east of here has had documented negative effects on the health of humans, water sources and wildlife.

GASLAND takes director Jason Fox and his production crew from his home in Pennsylvania to various places in America where fracking is on the rise to tap these unconventional sources of energy, i.e. not regular crude oil or coal but oil and gas shales, as the quality of life of the people of these regions decreases. I am as wary of non-scientists “doing science” as it gets and am not partial to the Michael-Moore-And-Me “folksy” style of exposé, but Fox is on to something here.

***

It is the beginning of the third month of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. GASLAND‘s parallels with this disaster alone are startling.

- Area residents and fauna take ill as hydraulic fracturing intensifies and companies blame it on anything but the chemicals required for said fracturing. Even when no one got sick and water coming out of pipes wasn’t flammable until then.

- The well blowouts and pipe leaks. They are everywhere.

- Halliburton is everywhere.

- State regulatory agencies are mismanaged and underfunded bodies that seem to operate on behalf of energy companies and not the people they represent. “There is no one here to help you. Find a lawyer.”

- Legal and public relations arms of the energy companies expertly stonewall the media.

- Legislative hearings are dog-and-pony shows in which energy company executives state that they follow the law and that they have published the chemical composition of their raw materials but are unwilling to hand those documents over to lawmakers.

- One legislator uses the hearing to stump for his next campaign and apologizes to the energy companies for this hassle while thanking them for the jobs they have created in the region.

- Louisiana is always terminally screwed. Never mind its own production, refining and pipeline activity, which pollutes the coastline and has created Cancer Alley between Baton Rouge and Plaquemines Parish, the state receives one-third of the nation’s oil and gas drilling waste via the Mississippi and other streams in its drainage basin.

- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is as useless now as he was then. As Colorado senator, he voted for the 2005 Energy Policy Act with the hydraulic fracturing provision intact (then Senator Obama of Illinois, Senators Landrieu and Vitter of Louisiana, Senator Kohl of Wisconsin and both senators of Ohio and Pennsylvania respectively also voting Yea, surprise surprise).

***

The pros of offshore drilling, hydraulic fracturing and other conventional energy-extraction methods: Jobs, revenue and independence from foreign energy sources.

The cons: Shitting where you eat Water and land pollution; human and animal illness, chromosomal abnormalities and death; long-term environmental destruction.

Jobs and revenue are great, but we have to get past looking at energy in these terms. As D says, “When horses were replaced by automobiles, the guys clearing horseshit from roads and stables complained about lost jobs.” Times change and our resources are limited. Deal with it.

If we don’t take this opportunity to check our energy consumption and use oil, gas and coal but only to evolve into our next, more sustainable set of energy sources, we are going to be left with neither and will have polluted our soil and drinking water in the process. Given our growing rate of consumption, we will also have to return to importing fuel after having depleted ours.

Fast, easy and cheap. We get to pick two.

June 22, 2010 | Filed under: energy,environment,geology,government,health,louisiana | 7 Comments »

Women In Science … Again – Reading List

Continuing to think on my post on the recent New York Times article on women in science and responses to it by women scientists, I quickly emailed a tenured geoscience professor friend asking her opinions on the topic. A pioneer in her field of study, this professor is also very active in professional societies as well as encouraging women in the sciences.

She pointed me to the following articles for further reading:

American Association of University Women | Why So Few (2010)

American Geological Insititute | Participation of Women in Geoscience Occupations (May 14, 2010)

American Geological Insititute | Trends in Geoscience Degrees Conferred to Women (November 23, 2009)

and had this to say:

“Those of us hired in the 70s and 80s don’t seem to have provided a lot of examples of combining a successful academic career with children. And I think that despite spousal hiring policies, halting of the tenure track for childbirth, etc., it remains more difficult for women faculty in the tenure track to sustain or develop relationships, bear and raise children, and generally maintain some sense of balance in their lives.

“… I also think there are still significant “cultural” aspects of physical science and engineering departments that make them feel less comfortable to some women students (competitiveness, “macho” displays, few women faculty, male faculty who consciously or unconsciously put women down). The enrollment numbers from AGI suggest that the geosciences have made some significant improvements in the last decade, but the total numbers of students in geoscience are much lower than in life science, so there may be some significant noise in the observed trends.”

If you know of any other must-read studies and articles on women in science and engineering or the current state of science and technology education in general, please alert me in the comments.

June 17, 2010 | Filed under: culture-society-history,education,geology,science & technology | 1 Comment »

Roundup

Which I used on the large prickly weeds last evening because I was so sick of having to dig the replicating f**kers out every single day and almost hosed my foot down with the stuff and worried that my kids will be born with their livers outside their bodies and …

Anyway, on with the links.

Earth Magazine | Geologists to be charged for not predicting earthquake? Italy, slow on the science uptake since the early 17th century.

BP To Create $20 Billion Fund For Claims On Day 59 of the still-gushing oil volcano, how can this, a partial repayment by a private company to the United States for the horrible damage wreaked on the Gulf Coast’s waters, land, people, jobs and pysche, in any way be referred to as a “bailout” or “redistribution of wealth?” How in the world is Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) “ashamed” of granting the money to victims? I thought one of the most basic tenets of capitalism is You Break It, You Bought It. As Stinque says, “Anyone responsible, civilly or criminally, should be bankrupted and banished from polite society.”

“The Douche Doesn’t Fall Far From The Bag” The starred comments on this Gawker post about Griffith Rutherford Harsh V, son of Meg Whitman and Exhibit A for supporters of the estate tax, are comedy gold.

Heehaw Marketing | The Cultural Tour Bus “Even with a Budweiser sized budget, it’s just not possible to immerse a team in someone else’s world enough. A single insight doesn’t really give us much understanding at all. And really, with the surface level nonsense most are doing, we’re usually just pecking at observational scraps rather than reaching for some perceptive nirvana.” The article references an interview with David Simon about the Average Reader.

McSweeney | I’m Comic Sans, A**hole “We don’t all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can’t all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun.”

| Filed under: energy,funny,geology,movies/tv,science & technology | No Comments »

Earth Day: Rigs, Mines, Volcanoes & Earthquakes

I’d say Happy Earth Day, but man is she pissed.

My thoughts today are with GulfSails and his family. His uncle is one of the 11 missing and presumed dead since Tuesday’s explosion of the Transocean semi-submersible drilling off the coast of Louisiana.Transocean and others suspect a blowout, usually associated with shallow gas pockets. To which NolaDishu and I immediately asked, “What was up with the preventers?” The rig sank today, but not before a NASA satellite captured an image of the explosion’s smoke plume.

GulfSails comments, “Coal mine losses are big news. Eleven men who fought to save a rig and 116 other lives – well, guess that’s crap.” Even so, the world knows little of the working conditions of our coal miners. A Massey Energy miner, who was recently interviewed under the pledge of anonymity said, “Production was the name of the game … At all costs we’ve got to get X amount of footage outside at the end of every shift … For me, I felt like that lump of coal was important than a human being’s life.”  Massey, as you know, owns Performance Coal Co., now sadly famous for the Upper Big Branch mine explosion. Read Jeff Biggers for more.

As a customer of and former worker for the energy industry, I’m not so hypocritical as to call for the wholesale cessation of oil, gas and coal production, although I do question current expansion plans. All I ask is that we keep in mind exactly what and whom we are willing to sacrifice to extract it. “Drill, baby, drill” and “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it” are shitty, self-centered things to say when you don’t have to do the dirty work and in your backyard. Have some awareness and respect.

***

Will the airline industry please quit being WATBs about the EU closing airspace in the wake of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption? Maybe you guys and your insurers should pay attention to most-assured future eruptions and work around it, not it around you. How many times do we geologists have to tell you that the earth doesn’t work at your bidding? The Eruptions blog nails it:

A lot of what I read has an attitude of “How dare you inconvenience me and hurt the airlines with this foolish ban!”

… Close the airspace: too cautious. Don’t close the airspace: too reckless. This is a classic “no win” situation for the EU, meteorologists and anyone involved in the (in my opinion) right decision to play it safe – the trap of disaster mitigation is that if you get it right, and no one is hurt, then people fall into a sense of complacency. Suddenly, the loss of money has become as big a problem as the loss of life.

Well, since the eruption is an Act Of God in the parlance of the insurance industry, I humbly suggest that we sacrifice a few airline industry officials to appease The Big Woo. Let’s also push in all the reporters who can’t get the name of the volcano down, never mind that IT’S THEIR JOB.

Still, I found these links funny: How To Name A Volcano and the Volcano Airlines game (Use mouse to fly. Avoid the dark ash clouds.)

***

Bringing a whole new meaning to “Love A Geologist And Feel The Bedrock,” an Iranian ayatollah suggests that feminine immodesty in dress is the cause of earthquakes. To be totally fair to right-wing cleric Sedighi, what he actually said was that “women and girls who don’t dress appropriately spread promiscuity in society” and THEN “when promiscuity spreads, earthquakes increase.” Never mind the second leap of logic, the first one is troubling in itself because that’s what many pillars of polite society elsewhere in the world, including in America, choose to believe.

In full (frontal) scientific response, Jen McCreight aka the Blag Hag wishes to test Sedighi’s claim with a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

Jen invites you to join the Facebook event and use the hashtag #boobquake when tweeting about it.

While rummaging in your closet for that perfect ho-ter top, don’t forget about our very own American ayatollahs. We do crazy quite well right here. I mean, Jesus Monkey Lords, do we ever.

April 22, 2010 | Filed under: energy,geology | 1 Comment »

Volcanic Behavior

@vicchi says AY-uh-fyat-luh-YOE-kuutl. I say AY-yuh-fyalla-YO-kel. Let’s call the whole thing off. Then again, I call this a row-ter, while he refers to it as a roo-ter. Hmph.

The media and public are all OMG ICELAND VOLCANO ASH CLOUD MEESA SAY PEOPLE GONNA DIE, like it’s never happened before. We geologists were introduced to the term jökulhlaup (yokel-laup) early in our undergraduate days because it has, just not in the Modern Attention Span era. By the way, jökul is Icelandic for any mountain covered by ice and snow, so you can drop it and refer to our currently erupting wonder simply as Eyjafjalla. Phew.

I’ve been asked why Eyjafjalla isn’t playing nice like Hawaiian volcanoes that just ooze all over the place and don’t ground flights (unless your runway is burned off the face of the earth).  One of the reasons is the presence of rhyolite in the magma. In other words, Hawaii’s volcanoes produce basalt, which has an extremely low silica (SiO2) content in comparison with Icelandic volcanoes, which extrude rhyolite with 70+% silica content and water. The presence of silica increases the viscosity of the melt, hence generating explosions and ash. Those of you in the Basin & Range of the United States, take note.

There are other contributors such as where Iceland is located, i.e. on the mid-Atlantic ridge (and apparently a mantle hotspot) and under a giant pile of snow and ice. Ars Technica’s Understanding The Split Personality Of Iceland’s Volcanoes offers a simple and short geologic roundup of all the factors in play here.

Check out the awesome pictures of volcano and ash action at Boston.com’s Big Picture.

NYTimes | A Tale Of Two Volcanoes: Simon Winchester compares and contrasts Krakatoa and Eyjafjalla. In Krakatoa, Winchester explains the geologic and socio-political story surrounding that famous Indonesian volcano and argues that that volcanic activity (along with something about being under the thumbs of imperialist bastards) contributed to the region’s eventual and fierce Islamic revolution.

All of this is to say that active geology can have very sudden, profound and long-lasting effects on human behavior. Just something to keep in mind as volcanologists warn that “ Iceland is entering its next active phase and estimate it will last for 60 years or so, peaking between 2030 and 2040,” hence disrupting North Atlantic air travel.

April 20, 2010 | Filed under: geology,music | 1 Comment »

Wisconsin In The News

1. Finally, Wisconsin is recognized for something we’re really, really good at. Thanks to Nathan at Flowing Data for posting this FloatingSheep gem.

Flowing Data | Where Bars Trump Grocery Stores: “Red dots represent locations where there are more bars than grocery stores, based on results from the Google Maps API. The Midwest takes their drinking seriously.” Actually, it’s just Wisconsin that does. Central Minnesota, Chicago and southeast Illinois lightweights need not apply.

2. USA Today Science Fair | Tectonic Plate Model Lets Users Play With 3D Planetary Puzzle

Dubbed MORVEL, for Mid-Ocean Ridge VELocity (because much of the data comes from the mid-ocean ridges) it was created by University of Wisconsin-Madison geophysicist Chuck DeMets and collaborators Richard Gordon of Rice University and Donald Argus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

MORVEL lets allows users model the relative movements of 25 interlocking tectonic plates that account for 97 percent of the Earth’s surface. It’s being presented in the April issue of Geophysical Journal International and is based on work the scientists have been doing for the past 20 years.

A dynamic three-dimensional puzzle of planetary proportions! Chuck was on my MS thesis committee and we used older versions of MORVEL in our graduate geophysics classes. Glad to see this great research and teaching aid get the attention it deserves.

March 25, 2010 | Filed under: food & drink,geology,mapping,science & technology,visualization,wisconsin | 4 Comments »
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »