The documentary film, “Gasland,” won a Special Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film festival. The film opposes the hydraulic drilling for natural gas in shale deposits which has essentially doubled U.S. natural gas reserves. The film is now showing on PBS and in theatres around the country.
This is a movie with flames emerging from household faucets, but not much science. “Gasland” features wells from three Weld County, Colorado, landowners, Mike Markham, Renee McClure, and Aimee Ellsworth. A thorough investigation by the Colorado Department of Natural Resources showed that the Markham and McClure wells had biogenic gas which had nothing to do with oil and gas drilling. There is biogenic gas everywhere in the air and in the earth. Cows belch it; swamps emit it; and it forms all over in the earth’s crust. If your well hits some, and there is very much, you have to start over. If you have a lot of natural gas in the well, you could do the flaming trick.
There is also thermogenic gas which comes from all forms of oil and gas drilling, including the new hydraulic process. Ms Ellsworth’s well had some of both kinds, and she reached a financial settlement with the driller.
The film also deals with a wetland owned by a Lisa Bracken. Tests from 2004 to 2010 determined that all of the Bracken property gas is biogenic unrelated to drilling. There were instances in the film of thermogenic seepage from gas drilling, resulting in penalties assessed against the operators.
A Colorado DNR director, Dave Neslin, offered to speak with “Gasland’’’s producer, Josh Fox, on camera during the filming of the movie with DNR technical information. The offer was declined by Mr. Fox.
This is a film for the heart, not the head.
Rolf Westgard
Deerwood
Comments (6)
Add commentWhat is the chemical
What is the chemical difference between methane produced by bacteria in the rumen of a cow and methane produced in the ground? I thought both were CH4.
CH4
They are. CH4 is CH4. It's the lightest compound in petroleum which is that crude oil we find in the ground. The oil is composed of numerous molecules containing carbon and hydrogen. The light ones with one to four C atoms are gases at the surface - methane, ethane, propane, and butane. The natural gas in your stove or furnace is usually about 80-85% methane.
So is difference between the
So is difference between the two the percentage of actual methane in the gas?
CH4
I think the cow stuff is nearly all methane, but I haven't seen any numbers. About 90% of it comes out the front of the animal, not the rear as some Senators seem to think.
A billion animals put out quite a lot of it and methane is a potent green house gas(GHG).
But methane gets eliminated by some atmospheric chemistry, and the total in the atmosphere has been pretty stable for several years.
I think the real GHG problem is going to be nitrous oxide, not methane or carbon dioxide.
Rolf
Correction
"About 90% of it comes out the front of the animal, not the rear as some Senators seem to think"
That should read "About 90% of it comes out of both ends of the Senators as most voters suspect."
Rolf regrets the error.
Correction
Well put!