Posted on June 28, 2017 by Kinnan Golemon
A report, Environmental and Community Impacts of Shale Development in Texas was released by The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) to the public on June 19, 2017 (1). TAMEST is a nonprofit and brain trust for Texas composed of Texas-based members of the National Academics of Sciences, Engineering and Medicines and the state’s Nobel Laureates. This entity was the original idea of my law school classmate and friend, Honorable Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, in 2004. The recently released report is the product of the TAMEST Board decision in 2015 to organize a task force charged with writing a report to “collect the best science available and summarize what we do and do not know” about environmental and community impacts that are posed by new technologies for the extraction of hydrocarbons from shale and other tight rock formations.
Texas, although oil had already been produced at various locations within its boundaries, became a dominant entity in oil and gas production on January 10, 1901, when the Lucas Gusher at the Spindletop salt dome in Jefferson County, roared to the surface: soon producing 100,000 barrels of oil per day, more than all U.S. wells combined (2). Oil and Gas production for the next 100 years was driven by “conventional” vertical well technology seeking resources from porous formations. However, commencing in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, a company founded by an affable, brilliant, tenacious and innovative son of immigrant Greek parents, George Mitchell, undertook an extended effort to access organic resources trapped in shale and very tight rock formations. After many years of limited or no success, Mitchell Energy, by century end, had demonstrated that certain hydraulic fracturing strategies [i.e. well completion techniques similar to those used since the late 1940s] (3) could be deployed in organic rich formations to produce natural gas economically.
Mitchell Energy’s acquisition by Devon Energy in 2002 resulted in another known technology, horizontal well drilling, being deployed along with hydraulic fracturing to produce the basic technological template that is utilized for shale development of oil and gas throughout the U.S., and currently being deployed elsewhere in the world today (4). The production from shale has also resulted in the largest transformation of the U.S. petrochemical industry in a generation, with $185 billion in new U.S. petrochemical projects either under construction or in planning (5).
Those interested in current and future energy policy, as well as the economic, social and environmental impacts associated with modern-day fossil fuel extraction and production, will find this authoritative, comprehensive and well-written report, see http://www.tamest.org, to be far more enlightening than one gains from other current information sources.
Interestingly, a portion of the funding for the report was provided by the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, a mission-driven grantmaking foundation that seeks innovative sustainable solutions for human and environmental problems that was established prior to his death (6).
- The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas, 2017, Environmental and Community Impacts of Shale Development in Texas. Austin, TX: The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas. Doi: 10.25238/TAMEST stf.6.2017
- www.history.com/topics/spindletop
- Society of Professional Engineers (SPE) CD ROM https://www.store.com/spe.org/Legend of-Hydraulic Fracturing-P.433.aspx
- https://assets.kpmg.com/content/dam/kpmg/pdf/2014/03/shale-development-global-update-v2.pdf
- Christopher M. Mathews. “Shale Boom’s Impact in One Word: Plastics”. Wall Street Journal, June 26, 2017, A1.
- http://cgmf.org/p/founders.html
Tags: States, Infrastructure, Environmental and Community Impacts