That fracking moving "Gasland" has been nominated for an Academy Award, and people in the natural gas business are not happy. America's Natural Gas Alliance, a trade group, is attacking the nominee for best documentary as a fraud -- a move destined to bring more attention to the movie.
How that plays out could be a good thing for the Gas Alliance, or a bad thing, and likewise for the long-awaited Alaska natural gas line. The latter promises to ship to the Lower 48 safe, clean, environmental gas, free of backyard environmental problems.
"Gasland" is a documentary that argues backyard environmental problems are inherent in the development of what is called "shale gas." Gas is freed from the shale by a process known as "hydraulic fracturing," or fracking for short. Simply put, fracking involves pumping fluids into an oil or gas well to increase underground pressure. The increased pressure opens cracks in rocks. Gas or oil can then flow freely.
Fracking, as natural gas-advocate T. Boone Pickens pointed out on the "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" this week, has been going on in gas and oil fields for more than 50 years with few problems. What he did not note is that for most of those years oil and gas wells were punched vertically into the ground. Now, they are punched vertically and horizontally -- parallel to the surface of the ground -- which exposes a lot more rock to fracking when fluid is pumped down the bore hole.
"Contrary to the film's claims, natural gas development can and does exist in harmony with our environment, and it can play a central role in improving our nation's air quality and solving our energy challenges," ANGA Executive Vice President Tom Amontree said in a statement.
And what exactly does this all have to do with construction of that gas line Alaskans have been talking about for decades?
Shale gas, which can only be gotten to with lots of fracking around, is considered a major competitor to Alaska natural gas from the North Slope. The U.S. Energy Information Administration late last year dropped the Alaska natural gas pipeline from its forecast of domestic energy production for the next 25 years. The reason given was that the agency expects shale gas production from the U.S. and Canada to drastically increase, holding gas prices low, and thus undermining the financial feasibility of an Alaska gas pipeline.
The agency couldn't predict whether shale gas would end forever the chances of the long-awaited Alaska gas pipeline, but said increased supplies of shale gas certainly appeared destined to delay any possible construction.
All of those predictions, however, could be altered if development of shale gas is slowed by public fears about cracking -- fears most certainly fed by "Gasland." The Academy Award nominee for best documentary features a flaming faucet it blames on gas getting into an aquifer
The natural gas alliance is clearly concerned that image and others could help anti-gas advocates gain traction in the public debate about future American energy development.
"The stakes are too high to allow our energy choices to be influenced by the gross and deliberate misrepresentations by this filmmaker who knew the facts and chose to ignore them. We hope that viewers will seek out the truth for themselves and cast a skeptical eye on this deeply flawed film," Amontree said in his statement.
The stakes are high in Alaska, too. The Legislature is talking about stopping the flow of tens of millions of state dollars into planning for construction of a pipeline former Gov. Sarah Palin told the Republican Convention was underway back in 2008. It wasn't, and it hasn't been. The Alaska Legislature is now talking about cutting off the flow of tens of millions of dollars to a Canadian company investigating whether the pipeline could be built. The thinking is that there is no sense spending that money if there is no hope for future construction because of market conditions.
But what if an Academy Award winning movie significantly altered market conditions? Stranger things have happened.
Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com