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AN AMERICAN university study that claimed ‘fracking’ for gas deep beneath the Earth’s surface did not cause water contamination was led by a US professor with financial ties to the gas industry, a watchdog group claimed today.
Lead author Charles ‘Chip’ Groat, of the University of Texas, told reporters that the university had turned down all industry funds for the study, when the research on hydraulic fracturing was presented at a major science conference in Canada in February.
However, an investigation by the Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) found that Groat himself has been on the board of the Houston-based Plains Exploration and Production Company for several years.
Groat was paid more than $400,000 in cash and stock by the company in 2011, and holds a near $1.6 million stake in the company’s stock, it said.
Kevin Connor, the director of the nonprofit PAI, told AFP the report was presented as if it were an independent study on fracking, when it actually represented a “conflict of interest” that should have been disclosed.
A University of Texas spokeswoman told AFP that an investigation has been launched and an independent panel was being convened to review the study, with its findings expected in a few weeks.
She also sent AFP a statement by Steven Leslie, provost and executive vice president of the University of Texas at Austin, which said:
The most important asset we have as an institution is the public’s trust. If that is in question, then that is something we need to address.We believe that the research meets our standards, but it is important to let an outside group of experts take an independent look.
Dr. Groat has been reminded of his obligations to report all outside employment per university policy. If the university had known about Dr. Groat’s board involvement, the Energy Institute would have included that information in the report.
Groat also failed to disclose his gas industry ties to the peer-reviewers, the university, or the organisers of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which hosted the conference in Vancouver where it was released.
Groat did not respond to an AFP request for comment on the watchdog’s report.
In February, Groat said the report, called “Fact-based Regulation for Environmental Protection in Shale Gas Development,” aimed to “separate fact from fiction” and give policy makers a tool going forward as the US experiences a major natural gas boom.
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a process by which high-pressure injections of water, sand and chemicals are used to blast through rock to release oil and gas trapped inside.
The US Energy Information Administration has said natural gas reserves could supply US needs for 110 years. Ireland has agreed not to grant any licences for fracking until the Environmental Protection Agency completes a wider study into the subject.
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So much in common with Irish politics. Can’t wait to see a big bloody drill in the field behind me, my children fall ill and most of all, being able to light the gas coming out of my tap, party trick n all y’know.
its all propoganda including that gasland documentary , fracking is a much safer process than any of those lefty wishy washy documentaries and articles would have you believe.
fracking is a good thing for Ireland, as is the shell pipeline and the oil off cork, Its good for business and the economy, the enviromental impact has been overstated by propoganda sites like shell2sea or indymedia, theres no debate in the matter, those in opposition to Irelands energy projects are just wrong.
Is there any point in particular you would like to refute? Or maybe you could specify the “wishy washyness”? You don’t seem to be posing much debate yourself…
Well Alan, since you asked, some of the main reasons people are against fracking / the gaslands fans get a hardon for protesting about it :
“the fracturing fluid contains bad carcinogens ” – the ingredients of the fracturing fluid are different from well to well, in Irelands case the composition would not require half the agents to prevent evaporation. The EU also has stricter rules on what chemicals are used than the US , anything known to be harmful in the ground would not be allowed.
“it takes millions of litres of water to frack” – yes it does, but desalination plants are possible on site to use the abundant amount of seawater accessible to us, its not going to cause a drought.
“it ruins the scenery of an area” – once the drilling is complete and the well tapped there is only a very small valve and pressure release needed above ground, storage tanks can be submerged and there would be almost no impact on the scenery
“but what about aquafir’s and our water” – your water wont go on fire , all care will have to be taken to make sure the fracking does not interfere with water underground. In the gaslands documentary that so many people site, the affected residents all have their own , unfiltered, shallow drilled wells. We would not end up in the same situation as we have aquafirs and other streams of clean water accessible instead of just relying on ground water wells.
Stephen Church, ‘“it ruins the scenery of an area” – once the drilling is complete and the well tapped there is only a very small valve and pressure release needed above ground, storage tanks can be submerged and there would be almost no impact on the scenery’
Do you know what a fracked landscape even looks like? You seem to have a very superficial understanding of what the whole process involves. I suggest you do a bit more research before writing such nonsensical comments. Begin by listening to one of the world’s foremost experts on hydrofracking, Prof. Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell University who is not biased, but telling things are they are.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfBinck5tSYa
My view about fracking has always been… The gas is going nowhere, lets just leave it there for now and maybe in a10 years timewe can look at it again. We can look at places that had it done and see.
The tech will be better then as well and probably cheaper to mine. We can ask for a bigger cut as well…
What is the worse thing that could happen if I am wrong. Why do we need to drill now or even in the next 5 years?
Common sense such as yours dk and vested interests rarely if ever choose tje same path unfortunately
Fully agree lets not be the first to jump on the band wagon on this one, let’s take a ‘wait and see’ on this option.
Fracking Hell !
Big business has infiltrated American universities to such a huge extent that it can be difficult to have confidence in their academic publications. The oil industry has been funding tons of research into climate change recently. It comes as no surprise then when the academics who they fund produce studies which are favourable to their point of view.
What! An energy industry based study with vested interest. I’m truly shocked!
Fracking is disastrous for the environment. We are not just talking about wiping out a few obsure snail species, it f#@ks up our drinking water with flammable gas and poisons the land we grow our food on. But hey, if it makes a few bob…
Karl, you do realise that the “obscure” snail species you casually dismissed are also part of the environment and play a role in keeping the environment functioning? You casually dismiss a species yet make sweeping comments about poisoning the land, you do understand that the Irish as a nation are consistently poisoning our land and that your food is already likely to be seriously compromised due to the abuse of our environment? Yes Fracking sounds like an environmental disaster but nothing greater than the pollution of our waters, the loss of our wetlands, the overuse of chemicals in agriculture etc etc. So yeah wiping out a few obscure snails has the potential to be just as severe an impact but maybe just not as obviously !
EMD read the story about Twitter joke!
Ah Eoin I have but this whole Fracking hype makes me lose my sense of humour altogether when there is so much existing stuff being ignored. Shall have to go have a beer before I lose the will to live altogether!
Beer; the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s little problems ;) H. Simpson
Well he can go frack off..
apart from all that , it F****s up the visual impact of our countryside. While we still have a tourist industry surely digging up beautiful mountains and fields and raising towers is not beneficial. No fracking way should this country allow their land to be raped
It isn’t being raped at the moment? Do you think that the countryside needs to be protected from anything else other than fracking? I can’t understand the hype around fracking yet the casual acceptance of so many other environmentally damaging activities occurring on a daily basis.
EMD, we ain’t seen nothing yet. ;-) What shale gas extraction involves is INTENSE SPATIAL DEVELOPMENT. As Professor Ingraffea, Sandra Steingraber and many others have stressed, this is not conventional gas extraction and it cannot be done on a small scale. The gas is trapped in tiny pockets in the shale layer so in order to make any extraction economically viable, development has to take place over a large surface area. What is being proposed in the initial project area, according to Tamboran’s own figures, is the following: 24 wells on a pad,(each well requiring 20 million litres of water), each pad 7 acres, 60 pads, one every 2 miles throughout the target area. This amounts to intensive industrialisation of 100,000 acres. And that’s just the north west of Ireland. Enegi Oil has hopes to apply for an exploration licence before year’s end. Their licence area includes parts of Clare, Limerick, Kerry and Cork. Does everyone realise the scale of what is being proposed? Is everyone aware of the ancillary infrastrcuture that comes with this sort of unconventional gas extraction? Is everyone aware of the impact intensive industrialisation of Ireland’s rural landscape will have on three of our most sustainable industries, ie. agriculture, agri-food and tourism? Is everyone aware of the boom-and-bust cycle associated with shale gas development? There are very strong arguments – economic, social and environmental – for not allowing any shale gas development to proceed in Ireland, or anywhere else for that matter. Other countries such as France and Bulgaria have seen through the shale gas hype and understood all the arguments, and thanks to pressure from their citizens for the most part, their governments have enacted bans. There is also massive opposition in Germany, with a moratorium in place in North-Rhine Westphaia and bans in many Bavarian localities. A moratorium is also in place in Romania. The Czech Republic is about to introduce a ban any day now. It’s the responsability of every responsible citizen to inform themselves and pressurise our government to do the same. Without mass mobilisation from citizens, we cannot rely on our government to do anything in our best interests – but we know that by now, don’t we?! :-)
EMD just because it’s already been damaged doesn’t make taking a stand against fracking any less valid
Absolutely but why is the hype only about Fracking? I just don’t understand why so many can get incensed about Fracking and yet very few will bother about all the other just as damaging and serious problems. I’m concerned about fracking too but I don’t see it as nearly as a great a threat as so many other things ongoing currently. Stopping fracking may be right but it seems wrong to concentrate on the potential impacts of this activity when the same impacts are already happening. Surely it should be a wider campaign to ensure envronmental legislation is upheld fully, protected habitats are protected, planning is appropriate etc.
If anyone is interested in reading the full investigative report by the Public Accountability Initiative, check it out here: http://public-accountability.org/2012/07/contaminated-inquiry/
“PAI’s report also dissects the UT report’s industry-friendly message, showing that its central claim– that fracking does not cause groundwater contamination – relies on a highly-specific and misleading definition of fracking, that the report was released as a rough draft and not ready for public release, and that the university’s press push around the report significantly mischaracterizes and oversimplifies its findings.”
the public accountability initiative is funded by the schmidt family foundation and the 11th hour project, both of whome are partly enviromental groups linked with both the wind energy industry and a lot of eco-terrorist groups.
its also funded by the sociological initiatives foundation who have funded occipy wallstreet, the feminist movement and other left wing anti-capitalist groups.
they are hardly a source of non biased information.
If you are anti fracking try not to reference Gaslands to back up your arguement, Its biased. Does anyone know where I can find an unbiased report on fracking?
not really , any of the anti-fracking reports are all done by people with no experience in the industry or the science behind it, any of the pro fracking reports all get called biased because the person who did it had an internship at haliburton or some other baseless claim the nutjobs use to discredit the report.
I find the same Sluazcanal, I’m waiting on some decent scientific research to provide info and would be grateful if anyone could provide links to same.
Of course Gaslands is biased, why does it make it less valid or worthy of discussion? I think you’re biased against Gaslands and therefore you shouldn’t be listened to…
Oh seriously. The Public Accountability Initiative is a not-for-profit body, unlike the oil and gas industry. Now, I think most educated and well-informed citizens would know which to trust more. And as for ‘eco-terrorists’, I presume you are referring to those whose only vested interests are having access to clean air and clean water, both of which are seriously compromised with hydraulic fracturing for shale gas. Good luck with your research. Seems you have a lot to learn.
EMD, yes I understand ecology, I was being cynical. Apologies. Of course every single species is vital.
Yerra Karl Im just a bit upset that no one seems to give a crap unless it is a “sexy” environmental campaign and I got on my high horse because so many people are outraged by fracking but will fight to the death for their right *rolls eyes* to continue doing X damaging activity which has similar, albeit on a lesser scale, impacts! So I’m sorry for jumping on your comment, thanks for clarifying :-)
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