Earthquakes, water pollution and increased greenhouse gas emissions? Fracking - strike number three?

In the United States, such secrecy has been abetted by the 2005 'Halliburton loophole,' which exempts fracking from many of the nation's major federal environmental-protection laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act... Fracking extracts natural salts, heavy metals, hydrocarbons and radioactive materials from the shale, posing risks to ecosystems and public health when these return to the surface...

Because shale-gas development is so new, scientific information on the environmental costs is scarce. Only this year have studies begun to appear in peer-reviewed journals, and these give reason for pause."

Even worse, during the UN climate change conference in Durban last week, Dominic Frongillo, a town councillor from Caroline, New York, which is atop the Marcellus Shale seam, estimated to contain 489 trillion cubic feet of extractable natural gas noted that "Before I left for Durban, Professor Howarth told me that "preventing unconventional gas extraction could be the number one thing we could do in the short term to control growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions."

According to Professor Howarth, "Methane is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas... Our research indicates that methane makes up more than 40 percent of the entire greenhouse gas inventory for the U.S. ... We really need to get this methane leakage under control, if we are to seriously address global warming." His paper, "Methane and the greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations," written with Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea of Cornell concluded that shale gas is more polluting than oil and conventional natural gas, noting, "The footprint for shale gas is greater than that for conventional gas or oil when viewed on any time horizon, but particularly so over 20 years. Compared to coal, the footprint of shale gas is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon."

The pushback has already started, with a number of his Cornell colleagues questioning Dr. Howarth's research methodology. See Lawrence M Cathles III, Larry Brown, Milton Taam and Andrew Hunter, "A Commentary on "The Greenhouse gas footprint of natural gas in shale formations" by R.W. Howarth, R. Santoro, and Anthony Ingraffea" @ http://cce.cornell.edu/.

What is clear is that while Cornell's faculty is divided over the consequences of fracking, the industry has impacted the university's Board of Trustees, which among other things oversees the university's $5.28 billion endowment fund. According to the 16 February 2010 edition of the "Cornell Sun,"

Chairman of the Board of Trustees Peter Meinig '61 is one of the most powerful decision-makers at Cornell. But as the University begins a long process to consider whether it should lease its land in the Marcellus Shale to gas drilling companies, Meinig's former ties to the natural gas industry has raised some eyebrows in the Cornell community and beyond. From 1993 to 2001, Meinig served on the board of directors of Williams Companies, Inc, one of the nation's largest natural gas companies. A Fortune 200 company that generated $1.42 billion in profits in 2009, Williams transports about 12 percent of the natural gas consumed in America everyday and has interests in the Marcellus Shale basin, according to the company's website.

What is clear is that the impact of natural gas hydraulic fracturing at Cornell has turned into a mounting academic storm with passionate advocates on both sides of the fence. It is notable that Cathles', Brown's, Taam's and Hunter's critique features prominently on the website of America's Natural Gas Alliance," (ANGA) a pro-industry advocacy group.

Let the games begin!