Shale Gas: Pennsylvania's House Drops the Ball

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There is a large geological formation that angles up from central Pennsylvania through upstate New York.  It is called the Marcellus Shale, and is a layer of shale deep beneath the surface (roughly 100 - 250 feet), from which it is now possible to extract trapped natural gas.  Large portions of this shale is under rural farms and homes in Pennsylvania.  The gas can be extracted by drilling wells, and forcing steam under high pressure into the drill hole (the well), which releases the trapped gas.  There seem to be enormous profits to be made, and the higher the price of oil on the world market, the more eager big oil companies are to come into Pennsylvania, and negotiate the right to drill on the property of the landowners.

If energy is available for so little cost, why not encourage it?

There are many problems with this business.

(1) the process requires large volumes of water, which must be piped in from freshwater sources.  Once the water is forced down the wells, dirty water and gas shoots out of the well, and the contaminated water must be stored in surface lakes.  Already leaky lakes of contaminated water are suspected of having ruined farms across the country (shale gas is being exploited all over, including in Texas), and there are many horror stories on the Internet.

(2) the influx of heavy equipment into the rural "Shale" areas is ruining highways and infrastructure.

The Pennsylvania house of representatives studied the problem (in a hurry, evidently; John Quigley, the former head of the Pennsylvania Environmental Resources has been reported as saying that they "were not ready" to deal with the problem) and the special legislation that had been proposed to provide some insurance for dealing with environmental and infrastructure problems that might have been caused or aggravated by shale exploitation was not passed.  Big Oil was given essentially a free pass to exploit the shale all they wanted.

This leaves the state of PA with the responsibility for cleaning up the polluted water, and repairing the ruined roads, and ---who knows?--- cleaning up the ruined air.  None of this is new to the brave House of Representatives.  Pennsylvania has successfully avoided cleaning up the the environment behind abandoned coal and iron mines, and is confident that it can turn a deaf ear to ruined farmland and rivers.  What the House is concerned with most is how to reduce unemployment.

As small farms continue to fail and produce prices continue to be controlled by Big Agriculture, Pennsylvania has steadily leaked employment at the lower levels.  In the wake of Big Oil comes Big Hospitality (hotels, restaurants,) and Big Entertainment (bars, brothels, gambling), all sources for the voters to get jobs.  Very few of Pennsylvania's members of the house have any prospect of representing their constituents in the long run; voters want quick fixes for everything, and a career politician must make his money quickly, over a couple of years, and then find something else to do.  So being reelected once is a good objective.  Keeping the rivers and streams clean is something that they're unlikely to be thanked for in this next election, with the jobs dwindling.

But if Pennsylvania continues to grow anything at all, and a beleaguered Agriculture office approves slightly contaminated corn, for instance, we could all be eating Shale Shit in the near future.  The only way to fix the problem is to say: Pennsylvanian Gas, Yes; Pennsylvanian Food, heck no!  And be prepared for a gradual migration away from the blighted lands of the Marcellus Shale.

The descendants of Pennsylvanian coal mine workers are, some of them, still left behind in the Coal Region of Northumberland County and surrounding areas.  There is great poverty but fierce pride.  They enabled many 19th century entrepreneurs make their huge profits by working the mines, but got relatively little for their pains.  These days, a large number of workers are not needed to support the Shale operations; most of it is automated.  Most of the profits, though, will be sent to other states (e.g. Texas), and the Pennsylvanian contribution to the effort will be minimal.  The people who sold the mineral rights to their land will retire in the South [the Sun Belt; but almost everybody does this, right?], leaving Pennsylvania with little to show for the exercise except a temporary spurt of employment.

[Added later: An (unintended?) consequence of exploiting the Shale Gas is that development of low-energy-intensive technology, alternative renewable energy sources, low-energy-consumption skills and habits will be delayed.  And delaying energy dieting means escalation of energy demand.  At one time, many earnest teachers taught the evils of energy consumption across the US.  Many of my friends not only taught energy moderation in their classrooms, but showed their students how one maintains as small an energy footprint as possible.  But the incentive to continue to do this is gradually being eroded; except for the isolated spikes in gas prices, fuel remains cheaper than bottled water to the consumer, though a large part of the National Debt has been expended in keeping the energy sources free for our consumption.  If that cost were to be passed on to the energy consumer, the economy would take another dive--not because cheap energy is necessary; it certainly is convenient to have cheap energy for marginal business operations to continue to be profitable-- but because the Media will ensure that the economy responds negatively to increased energy prices.]

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