Fracking and climate change: solution or cause?

Hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking,” has reshaped energy in North America in the last decade - making it possible to extract oil and natural gas from traditionally hard areas to drill. Whether the emergence of this technique is for better or worse is still a hotly debated topic.

Proponents argue that along with more affordable and domestic energy, fracking decreases greenhouse gas emissions, therefore slowing climate change.  A recent model by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory shows this claim to be untrue, and that more likely, fracking will increase greenhouse gas emissions in the long run.

What is Fracking?

Fracking is a technique developed in 1947 to extract natural gas trapped in rocks. Pumping a pressurized liquid into the ground cracks (or fractures - where the name “fracking” originates) the rock, allowing natural gas to be released. Fracking liquid typically consists of sand and chemicals suspended in water, which holds the fracture open once the rock is cracked.  Fracking offers another option for extracting fossil fuels that are more abundant in North America, so proponents advocate that it will reduce dependence on Middle East countries for energy.

How fracking works. Image credit USA Today

Fracking is a controversial technique because of its potential environmental impact. Concerns have grown over ground water contamination (people's faucet water actually lighting on fire) from the undisclosed chemicals in fracking liquid and water shortages due to the high volume fracking demands. In addition, researchers have shown that fracking might be responsible for causing small-scale earthquakes that could lead to more serious long-term consequences.

Faucet water near some fracking sites has become flammable.

Will fracking change greenhouse gas emissions?

Some reports have suggested that because natural gas can replace coal as an electricity source it will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and so can be thought of as a climate change solution. But that claim assumes that natural gas only replaces coal and that energy consumption remains at current levels. Depending on the energy policy of the country, this is a generous assumption. 

The PNNL study showed that in the likely event of an increase in energy consumption, fracking for natural gas will not decrease carbon dioxide emissions and is not a plausible solution to climate change.

Instead, they found that having more affordable access to natural gas would increase climate forcing (human-imposed disruption to the climate) between 0.3 percent decrease and a 7 percent increase, which is far less than the 80 percent decrease climate experts are recommending.

Integrating energy, economy and climate systems, the researchers predicted long-term changes in carbon dioxide emissions. In the study, five separate models were used to demonstrate how greenhouse gas emissions would change based on several scenarios of natural gas production and use. Although the exact amounts vary, every model showed that increasing natural gas supply through unconventional extraction methods (fracking) does not reduce carbon dioxide emissions because of two effects: natural gas replacing alternative forms of energy, and the increase in energy use as a result of the decrease in price.

In the most realistic case, natural gas would substitute for 18 percent of coal and 17 percent of other lower carbon energy, such as solar and wind power. Substituting coal for natural gas will decrease carbon dioxide emissions. However natural gas also costs less than wind, solar, fuel cell, hydropower, or nuclear power, so energy consumption will shift from these technologies to natural gas. Using natural gas in place of renewable sources will significantly increase atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Furthermore, when energy (natural gas in this case) is available at a low cost, more people will use it. The more natural gas people use, the more carbon dioxide is emitted. Even when the PNNL model predicted that energy policy effectively banned coal so that natural gas replaced only coal, the carbon dioxide emissions are only reduced by 6 percent; the best case scenario.

Carbon dioxide isn’t the only climate-warming gas (greenhouse gas) that natural gas releases. Greenhouse gas is most commonly thought of as carbon dioxide; however, natural gas itself (methane) is actually has over 20 times more climate warming potential than carbon dioxide_. Another environmental concern is that fracking will result in more gas leaks during drilling, extraction, and transportation (known as fugitive methane emissions). When modeling for the likely increase in fugitive methane, greenhouse gas emissions increase between 7 percent and 20 percent.

Carbon dioxide isn't the only greenhouse gas.

The authors of the study conclude that: ”Abundant gas does not discernibly reduce climate forcing … and, under high fugitive emission assumptions, three models reported increased climate forcing of more than 5%.” Evidence reported in this study shows yet another environmental concern posed by fracking. Proponents and oil companies cannot claim that natural gas is a sufficient solution to reducing the impacts of climate change.

Will Fracking Help Us Become Energy Independent?

You have probably noticed the recent drop in prices at the pump. OPEC has declared a war on fracking by dropping oil prices to a level that deems North American companies unprofitable. The type of oil that is extracted from fracking is more expensive to produce than oil produced by OPEC. The United States is currently producing more oil than any OPEC country, so in order for them to drive North American countries out of business, oil prices will need to be low for a very long time.

The environmental consequence of this is consumers will continue to increase their energy consumption because of the lower cost, which in turn will continue producing more greenhouse gas emissions. Not only is the U.S. still suffering the consequences of OPEC controlling the U.S.’s energy production, but we are now contributing more to climate change than before.

Fracking is an innovative technology, but is not a solution to our climate and energy problems. A real solution will be found after continuing to invest our efforts and research into renewable sources of energy that can be produced in the United States. We can use the type of innovation to come up with a longer term solution to energy independence and climate change. That seems easier than exploring for a new colder planet to live on.

Scene from Interstellar. Image credit: Giphy.

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