Questions About Duke University Study On Methane In Wells

Researchers from Duke University recently reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science on  methane found in drinking water located near fractured wells . The authors reportedly concluded that hydraulic fracturing is responsible for the methane.  However, correlation is not necessarily causation.  There certainly was no fracturing fluid or flowback that would indicate that the fracturing was causing the methane to end up in the drinking water.  As reported in Forbes,

We found no evidence for contamination of drinking-water samples with deep saline brines or fracturing fluids,” write the four scientists from Duke University in their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Energy in Depth has an initial  response to the study that is worth consideration. 

You wouldn’t have known it by looking at all those headlines this morning, but spend some time wading through the report and (admittedly limited) data set issued by researchers at Duke University over the weekend, and you’ll come across a number things that opponents of responsible natural gas development in the Marcellus aren’t likely to repeat. Or like. One bit.

For starters, the researchers basically admit that hydraulic fracturing itself is not responsible for methane migration into water wells, additionally conceding in their paper that neither brine nor fracturing fluids were detected in any of the water wells they sampled, even in areas where development operations are most active.

They were also forced to admit that methane is a natural, common constituent found in just about every water well across the entire region (85 percent of them, to be exact), with thermogenic methane – as opposed to the biogenic stuff – identified in the vast majority of those, even in areas where no development has taken place. How does thermogenic gas migrate upward in areas of zero Marcellus development? Geology, it turns out, has plenty of answers to offer on this question. But the authors of this report aren’t geologists, so they chose to ignore that question in its entirety.

Of course, neither a lack of expertise nor a frighteningly small data set had the effect of slowing down one bit the researchers’ aggressive campaign to generate as many hits as they could in the media – up to and including the placement of an op-ed by Duke’s Rob Jackson in this morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer.

In truth, it’s a campaign that started late last week, with a reporter in Quebec (of all places) sending us a media advisory from Mr. Jackson trumpeting the release of a new paper that “attributes contamination to gas extraction technologies.” As mentioned, the report itself doesn’t actually say that – in fact, Jackson says the exact opposite in an interview with Bloomberg TV today. But as it turns out, putting out a paper calling for updated state well-casing standards isn’t quite as sexy as putting out a paper calling for an EPA take-over of the fracturing process itself, is it?

Below, we take a closer look at the central “findings” of the Duke report, along the way identifying several errors, inconsistencies and problems that, taken together, raise serious doubts about the rigor, veracity and statistical significance of the project.

For the full response from Energy in Depth, go here