Dutch Shales: Unknown, Unloved
"Drilling for shale gas is safe and does not have to negatively impact the environment", said Frank de Boer of Cuadrilla Resources, which is set to start test drilling in the Netherlands.
After much frustration, de Boer asserted, "the dangers surrounding shale gas are grossly over-exaggerated. Drilling for gas in difficult to reach areas is no more dangerous than drilling for regular gas and we have a tremendous amount of experience with the latter." said de Boer, director of Cuadrilla Resources Nederland, a subsidiary of the British Company of the same name.
Cuadrilla is scheduled to carry out two test drillings in Noord Brabant (a province in the southern part of the Netherlands) shortly.
In recent months reports have surfaced about the dangers surrounding shale gas. An added perceived danger is that the chemicals used to extract the shale gas would contaminate the soil. The reports have resulted in a moratorium on the drilling of shale gas by authorities in some European countries, including a law in France prohibiting the hydraulic fracturing process involved in extracting shale gas.
The provincial authorities in Noord Brabant have also resisted the planned test drillings at Boxtel and Haaren however Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch minister responsible, has allowed the drilling to continue for the time being. He is sensitive to the criticism and concerns though and in a letter to the Dutch House of Commons he recently stated that all and any risks should be eliminated and that additional research is necessary.
That statement came after two earthquakes in the vicinity of drilling wells by Cuadrilla in England. "The extraction of gas whereby underground rock is being cracked has been stopped for the time being until the cause of these earthquakes has been determined. Please note that the work was stopped by Cuadrilla voluntarily", said de Boer, who also stated that a connection has not yet been determined between the first earthquake and the drilling and that the cause of the second earthquake is still under investigation.
De Boer admits that gas drilling may bring about earthquakes. "That is a known fact". In Groningen (a province in the northern part of the Netherlands), there were many earthquakes, most of them heavier than those in England. In Bergen, where the gas will be stored underground, these kinds of small earthquakes may also occur. The authorities have determined that quakes may not be stronger than 3.5 on the Richter Scale, considerably stronger than those felt in England.
Lack of knowledge plays an important part in the resistance to shale gas exploration. But what about the environmental problems in the U.S., where shale gas drilling has been around for a long time? "The U.S. cannot be compared to the Netherlands for three reasons", says de Boer.
"Firstly, the U.S. is using a different, less reliable technology. In the Netherlands we use three tubes that are drilled deep into the ground, at least 3 kilometers below groundwater levels. In the U.S. drilling is less deep. That is why there are complaints about water contamination. On top of that the drilling wells in the U.S. are not adequately shielded as is done in the Netherlands. Here we have to blacktop the surface where drilling takes place. Furthermore we use large containers to collect the contaminated water. The second difference is that laws and regulations concerning gas drilling are a lot stricter in the Netherlands that in the U.S.
In the Netherlands we have an authority called Staats Toezicht of de Mijnen (State Control on Mining), which controls everything including the CV's of the drilling staff. Thirdly, the bottom composition is the U.S. is different. In the Netherlands the layers of shale rock, which contains the gas, are located deeper. This makes it less hazardous because the groundwater is not affected".
De Boer: "One of them may be compared to a lubricant which makes it easier for the sand to get into these hair cracks. The other product keeps the production water free of bacteria. All kinds of horror stories are being circulated about these chemicals too. We use them in very low concentrations".
The fracking technology is also used in geothermal energy by which heat is extracted from deep aquifers, which contain water of 55 to 80 degrees Celsius at depths of 1.5 to 3 kilometres. This technology is already being used to heat houses and hothouses and, according to experts, will also be suitable to generate electricity within the foreseeable future.
"With geothermal energy you require chemicals too because the sand has to keep the cracks open, which contain the water. As far as that is concerned, the test drillings serve a double purpose. We will also learn more about geothermal energy. This will help bring a greener form of energy closer to realization", says de Boer.
The Dutch Energy Council recently re-adjusted their assessment regarding the gas reserves in the Netherlands. The reason for this was the discovery of shale gas. The estimates of the quantity of gas in the underground rock layers vary from one to a few times the gas reserves at Slochteren in eastern Netherlands. In nearly all European countries this hard to recover gas is available with the first test drillings started in England and Poland.. Drilling in the U.S is widespread and has resulted in a sharp drop in gas imports. In 2005 the EIA predicted that the U.S. would have to import around 60 billion cubic meters of gas in the year 2010, but last year the country needed only 10 to 13 billion cubic meters of gas from abroad.
Source: Trouw.nl
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