The news is crude. The oil industry eye is on California and the gas rich Monterey Shale. Advertisements on local TV channels here on the Central Coast extol the benefits of embracing oil exploration in the state. Stay independent of foreign oil, they say. Bring jobs to the area.And with no clear alternative energy plan at any administrative level there is little to say in opposition. Yes, we all want to continue to drive our cars without restriction. Yes, we all want to enjoy the many products that oil makes possible. And no, we don't want to be slave to prices set by foreign nations that don't particularly like us.
We are uneasy with the oil industry. We are concerned about the environment. We are worried about climate change. We are keeping a skeptical eye on things.
But the Monterrey Shale draws derricks like a magnet. Not more than five years ago the Cat Canyon Oil Field to the east of Los Alamos was for all intents and purposes dormant. A few pumping wells, an oil rig leasing company, that was about it. No longer. The area at the intersection of Palmer Road and Cat Canyon road has the appearance of a small industrial city. Pumping wells are everywhere, drilling rigs poke their heads up over the hills, trucks roll in and out constantly. Are they fracking?
Oil drilling is an expensive proposition. And a huge gamble. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent in the hope that a well will meet production expectations. If it doesn't, that money is often lost. And so it comes down to efficiency. And that is where fracking shines.
A study led by Dr. Brian Lutz, an assistant professor of biogeochemistry at Kent State university, concluded that one horizontal shale well produces the same amount of gas as 30 conventional wells. Now that's efficiency. If you owned an oil exploration company, would you be content to drill conventionally, knowing this?
I'm certain that the greatest concern about fracking in the Los Alamos Valley, particularly among the growers, is water. Without water, specifically non-contaminated water with which to irrigate crops, there would be no agriculture. End of story.
And fracking is not as efficient with water. A shale well produces 10 times as much waste water as a conventional well. That's bad news for the growers. But not the concern of oilmen. Their concern is the gas to waste water ratio. And here again, fracking shines.
In the Marcellus Shale area that Dr. Lutz studied, the overall increase of waste water from conventional drilling to fracking was phenomenal - a whopping 570%. The overdrawn aquifers of Los Alamos Valley would be hard pressed to sustain such an increase for very long.
And so the line in the shale has been drawn. Some eight bills are moving toward the floor for California legislators concerning regulating fracking. There is awareness; there is concern. But is there transparency?
To the south of Los Alamos in Drum canyon a solitary well is being vigorously resuscitated. They've been drilling there for more than three weeks now. Truckload after truckload of equipment and materials have rumbled past me on my runs up the canyon. Large tanker trucks have squeezed past me going to and fro. Baker Hughes, the fracking giant, is involved. (Baker Hughes produces the fracking fluid used by Venoco in earlier fracking in the valley.)
But Doug Anthony, the county deputy director who handles energy issues in Santa Barbara county "did confirm that since the [December 2011] regulations were adopted not a single application for fracking has come across his desk"*. Does this mean all of the companies currently drilling in Cat Canyon and Drum Canyon are content to drill old fashion inefficient wells?
There are new break-throughs in fracking technology almost daily, with Halliburton and Baker Hughes leading the way. Using fiber to keep frack cracks open longer, disintegrating "frack balls" to drop down the well, "super cracks" to frack deeper into dense rock formations.
But on the horizon, something new. Might water actually be eliminated from future fracking? Halliburton's new "fastfrac" idea would use half the water. A new, if controversial technique using LPG with a bit of butane mixed in has been used successfully.
That's not to say these new techniques will protect against earthquake or spillage or any of the other environmental problems. They only reduce water use. But that may well end up becoming the compromise of the future.
*Wine Spectator; January 7, 2013.
