{"id":363304,"date":"2010-02-25T17:49:43","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T22:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=38843"},"modified":"2010-02-25T17:49:43","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T22:49:43","slug":"new-source-of-natural-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/363304","title":{"rendered":"New source of natural gas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Natural gas discoveries over the past five years have raised the projections for gas as a major energy source and led to a dramatic expansion in domestic supplies comparable to Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil reserves, a leading industry official said Wednesday (Feb. 24).<\/p>\n

Aubrey McClendon, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Chesapeake Energy<\/a>, the nation\u2019s second-largest natural gas producer, said that new supplies coupled with existing infrastructure improvements make the gas industry ready for a larger role in the nation\u2019s energy picture. McClendon touted natural gas as cleaner than either oil or coal, since it emits fewer pollutants and lower levels of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas largely responsible for human-induced climate change.<\/p>\n

McClendon spoke at the Science Center as part of the Harvard University Center for the Environment<\/a>\u2019s (HUCE) “Future of Energy<\/a>” lecture series, which has brought an array of voices to Harvard to address energy concerns, from government officials to oil industry executives to clean-energy advocates.<\/p>\n

McClendon, who was introduced by HUCE Director Daniel Schrag<\/a>, Hooper Professor of Geology and professor of environmental science and engineering, said natural gas has long been considered a good fuel, but has not been thought of as abundant. In recent years, the use of a technique called \u201chydraulic fracturing\u201d in unconventional yet abundant shale rock has opened new sources for extraction.<\/p>\n

\u201cHydraulic fracturing\u201d is a process in which a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is injected into a bore hole drilled into shale beds deep underground. The mixture increases the pressure in the rock around the hole until it fractures, releasing natural gas bound up in the rock for extraction.<\/p>\n

Such extraction techniques are not without controversy, however. Several protesters decrying hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania attended the event, saying the technique is responsible for polluting drinking water and marring the rural countryside with wellheads.<\/p>\n

In a sometimes contentious question-and-answer session, McClendon defended the process, saying that although he couldn\u2019t speak to every company\u2019s industrial practices, Chesapeake Energy has employed hydraulic fracturing more than 25,000 times since the company started in 1989, including 1,000 wells drilled inside Fort Worth\u2019s city limits, with no ill effects on groundwater. Further, he said, natural gas extraction is so common \u2014 more than a million Americans have signed leases with gas companies \u2014 that it is unlikely that widespread problems would be hidden.<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the wells themselves affect local areas, but said officials are working to reduce that impact, cutting the land needed per well from five acres five years ago to three acres now. He said there are always choices to be made in picking energy sources, and natural gas\u2019 footprint compares favorably with that of the pit mines and mountaintop-removal techniques used in coal extraction.<\/p>\n

Natural gas\u2019 new abundance, McClendon said, can change the U.S. energy outlook. In addition to being cleaner than either coal or oil, the gas is cheaper than oil, and its new abundance is likely to push prices down further. An expansion of the industry can provide both economic and security benefits for the nation, he said, by generating jobs and replacing imported oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe natural gas is a game-changer,\u201d McClendon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Natural gas discoveries over the past five years have raised the projections for gas as a major energy source and led to a dramatic expansion in domestic supplies comparable to Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil reserves, a leading industry official said Wednesday (Feb. 24). Aubrey McClendon, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of Chesapeake Energy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}