Thanks Joseph – I've heard of that technique. Any idea how commonly it's used on fracking jobs? How close does the adjacent well have to be for this technique to work?

Thanks – those charts do seem to vindicate fracking, at least for the data they represent. Some of the induced fractures reached almost 2000' above the perforated interval in the well – shouldn't be a problem if you're at least a few thousand feet below the aquifer.

For our readers' benefit (and mine) – what's your experience with the industry? You must have been around a bit to know that most publicly traded companies routinely use microseismic monitoring.

Thanks again Joseph for this perspective, and the link to those violations in Pennsylvania. I agree that the "normal" pollution incidents related to drilling don't get much attention and cumulatively are the bigger pollution story. But even if the drinking water contamination incidents are relatively rare, they are of much higher consequence – especially if it's your drinking water at stake.

Thanks for participating!

Thanks Adam (were you actually at the SouthWings fly-in?). The issue of climate impact of natural gas is critical: many are promoting greatly expanded use of natural gas to generate electricity and run our cars and trucks, as an energy "bridge" to a future of climate-friendly renewable power (biofuel, wind, solar, tidal, etc.). But there's not much data on the accidental and incidental "fugitive emissions" of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — during exploration, drilling, completion, production,transmission, storage and distribution of natural gas. There are leaks at every point in this system (and plenty of lost product that would otherwise be sold for good hard $$).

The recent, controversial Cornell study in your blog indicates that the climate impact of natural gas produced from shale (Marcellus, Barnett, and other hot "shale-gas" plays around the country) could be as bad as, or even worse than, burning coal, mostly due to these fugitive emissions.

Even industry, in attacking this study, admits we need better data on the fugitive-emissions problem. Before we commit as a nation to decades of accelerated drilling and natural-gas consumption as a way to ease our climate problem, we'd better do our homework.

Thanks Marge, and thanks for that link. Carl is a good writer and always brings some interesting perspectives, and he does so in this piece.

Thanks DG, glad you stopped by – your blog looks like a good source of info, both pro and con. I also like The Oil Drum for a broad range of good technical info and commentary – mostly very civilized and thoughtful – on energy and drilling (http://www.theoildrum.com/.

Dennis – I'll encourage folks who want to get the pro-drilling perspective to visit your blog as well.

My position is we're definitely going to be drilling a whole lot of new wells in coming years for gas and oil, but we could be and should be doing a much better job protecting other property rights, minimizing the risks, and avoiding or repairing the inevitable environmental degradation. We have the know-how and technology to do drilling a lot better, but it usually costs more money in the short term, and if for-profit businesses aren't required to spend that money then we can't really expect them to.

A good example of this is the Jonah Field gas development in western Wyoming, on public land. When drilling began in the mid-1990s industry had well-established directional drilling technology that would have allowed multiple wells to be drilled from a single wellpad. But directionally drilled wells cost more (10-15%) than vertical wells,and the BLM didn't require industry to minimize their surface "footprint", so Jonah drillout happened with mostly vertical wells, very closely spaced. This resulted in about 10 times more surface landscape destruction than was necessary, in a climate where landscape restoration has proven extremely challenging. I blame the state and federal government for allowing that to happen, not industry. The heartbreaker is that an industry analyst told me that in the long run, over the productive life of the field, directional drilling is often more profitable than vertical drilling because so much less infrastructure needs to be built, maintained, and ultimately reclaimed.

This industry provides good jobs, much-needed economic activity in hard-hit places, and a product that still powers our nation. The industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars per year ($200 million last year alone) getting that message out the public and to policymakers in every way imaginable: sponsoring community and sporting events, lobbying and contributing to election campaigns, continually advertising in print, on TV, on the radio.

This is money that could be spent investing in improvements to drilling safety, land and water restoration, pollution minimization, fugitive emissions capture, alternative energy development, because this industry also causes significant damage to air and water quality and wildlife habitat, and routinely infringes on the rights of citizens to enjoy their property and to make a living by ranching, fishing, tourism and recreation. And, when used as directed, oil and gas are measurably altering our climate and acidifying our oceans, with tremendous uncertainty in how it all will play out. The folks who work to get that information out to policymakers and the public are overwhelmingly outspent by industry.

Dennis – I appreciate that! Looking forward to more discussions on these important issues.