by Rita Mcconnell

Created on: September 10, 2009   Last Updated: September 12, 2009

While for many years it was believed that our ability to develop natural gas in the United States was decreasing, new technology has now allowed us to reach reservoirs once uneconomical to produce.

Developing these reserves could have great impact on the United States. First, it could decrease to some degree U.S. dependence on foreign fuel sources. Second, as the cleanest of the fossil fuels, converting power plants and vehicles to proven natural gas technologies could help the country to meet carbon reduction goals more quickly.

Finally, increased natural gas production in shale plays like the Haynesville in Louisiana and Texas and the Marcellus in Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia would deliver a true economic stimulus, delivering thousands of well-paying jobs to unemployed Americans.

Yet these benefits may never materialize. A great, one-in-a-lifetime opportunity could be missed due to the repetition of misinformation regarding the environmental impacts of natural gas drilling and the techniques used to extract it from tight shale formations.

The vast amount of natural gas trapped in shale formations is now available for use through the advent of horizontal drilling techniques. Using this method, companies drill wells vertically, then turn the bore approximately 90 degrees just above the targeted formation, allowing the well to run thousands of feet laterally through the shale.

Shale formations, while rich in natural gas, are also quite low in porosity, making it difficult to extract gas. The tight rock is stimulated through a process called hydraulic fracturing, during which large amounts of water are forced through perforations in the lateral arm of the well at high pressures to create fractures in the rock. Sand carried into the well with the water props the fractures open, allowing gas to travel through the well to the surface.

While fracing has been safely used to produce more than 1 million wells over a period of nearly 60 years, it has recently come under scrutiny for the chemical additives used in the process, and the possibility that such chemicals could contaminate groundwater and drinking water supplies. Yet the process is unnecessarily vilified by drilling opponents.

Perhaps that is in part because the industry has long viewed frac fluid recipes as proprietary, or as a potential competitive advantage. However, much like Coke and Pepsi, while the actual recipes are somewhat guarded, the additives themselves are known, and can easily be

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