Trader in this game you need to be very careful of those false prophets.
The study from Robert Jackson from the Nicholas School of Environment at Duke University is their second attempt at trying to prove damage from fracking. Their original 2011 study was quite comprehensively debunked.
Again this study is only potentially relevant to shale gas extraction which is not yet established in Australia on any widespread basis and has little or no relevance to CSG extraction as it is practised here.
The Nicholas School of Environment and its researchers receive extensive funding from the Park Foundation which is not renowned for it unbiased funding of research. There are a string of issues associated with this latest attempt from Robert Jackson, but the most serious are summarised below.
The study is an attempt to link fracking with damage to shallower drinking water aquifers. But the researchers were forced to admit that they could not find any direct link; i.e. “Based on our data (Table 2), we found no evidence for contamination of the shallow wells near active drilling sites from deep brines and/or fracturing fluids.”
Instead they have then tried to rely on a rather tenuous link through methane.
While methane was found in 82% of the water wells (total of 141 homes sampled), more than fifty of those wells, were nowhere near natural gas wells. So it was almost equally likely for measurable methane to be found in wells both close to and those away from a natural gas well. Hardly convincing.
While not saying directly, the researchers attempt to imply that since the methane in wells close to gas wells is thermogenic in origin, as opposed to biogenic; it is likely to come from the shale due to the fracking. It’s an interesting theory, but one that is directly contradicted by a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey. Conducting a baseline survey in the same county, the USGS reported that not only was methane found in water wells (prior to any drilling being undertaken), but that the “The isotopic ratio values fell in the range for a thermogenic (natural gas) source.” Expressly contradicting the conclusion that the Duke researchers would like you to reach.
However the most serious criticism of the study is that the sampled wells were not randomly selected. This severely undermines any argument that the study is “independent” or “scientific”.
The motto here is to make sure you check and double check any source of information that seems to confirm your beliefs before you bet money on it.
