Is Fracking Worse for the Environment Than Burning Coal?

Fracking is heralded by many (including US President Barack Obama and the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne) as the solution to our energy problems. Although, it has also met with equal resistance from those groups worried about its effect on local communities’ water supplies, as well as the environment of the wider world as a whole. Now, the energy dubbed by President Obama as the “bridge fuel” between fossil fuels and clean, renewable sources, has come under fresh attack due to its emission of a potentially deadlier enemy than carbon dioxide: methane.

The President must have thanked his lucky stars when his occupation of the White House coincided nicely with the boom in the natural shale gas industry. With fracking reviving a flagging US economy and taking responsibility for impressive reductions in CO2 emissions, it looked like a godsend for the Obama administration. Indeed, at the outset of his second term, Obama threw his entire weight behind the industry - which is when he made his famous comment regarding it being a bridge to carbon-free energy sources. However, there has been increasing concern that it’s a bridge which leads nowhere.

Bridge or “Exit Ramp”?

The President of the Environmental Defense Fund, Fred Krupp, dubbed the industry not a bridge, but an exit ramp – meaning that there is considerable danger that pursuing natural gas won’t help the transition to carbon-free energy, but instead delay it indefinitely. Furthermore, the fear of reliance upon fracking isn’t the only concern with the practice - recent studies show that it might not even be an improvement on the former method of producing energy through the combustion of coal.

Whilst fracking has undoubtedly produced smaller amounts of carbon dioxide (a prominent catalyst for climate change) than coal burning, it entails the leakage of another element – methane. The gas, variously known as CH4 or natural gas, is unearthed during the fracking process, and is also responsible for climate change. In fact, it appears that methane is more adept at trapping heat – which in turn causes global warming – than CO2, making it perhaps even a weightier concern. It had been hoped that the amount of methane leaking into the atmosphere was less than the amount of CO2 produced through coal combustion, making it a safer bet, but new figures cast aspersions on this idea.

Fracking also reportedly causes earthquakes, which you can read about here: Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?  

“Activists” or Scientists?

Back in 2011, biogeothermist Bob Howarth – a prominent Cornell scientist – teamed up with colleague Anthony Ingraffea to investigate the topic. That year, the pair published a paper which concluded that between 3.6% and 7.9% of natural gas was escaping into the atmosphere during the fracking process and the subsequent transportation. This occurred, most commonly, through unavoidable leakages in piping and wells. Being a gaseous substance, methane is incredibly hard to control completely, and the figures, small though they may seem, actually spell dire news for the proponents of fracking.

Of course, such proponents (with heavily vested interests in the practice) attempted to debunk Howarth and Ingraffea’s work, though subsequent studies have appeared to confirm their findings. As a result, it appears that rather than a cure-all “bridge” fuel, fracking – and the methane it extracts – may be an even more expedient method of destroying our fragile environment. Bad news for fracking – and bad news for Mr President.

For more information on this topic, read: The Pros & Cons of Fracking or Is Fracking the Way Forward? An Interview with Chris Faulkner.