What the fracking? Paul.Bruce@gw.govt.nz

        

What the fracking? Paul Bruce, Greater Wellington Regional Councillor

Fracking, the answer to peak conventional oil?

Our overheated planet

What needs to change

The Age of Smart

“ These oil companies are like legal party drugs. As soon as one shuts down another starts up and you’re left legislating

about things when the damage is already done.”

“ My mother sang for the Kapuni choir. Half the choir over the last few years have died of cancers. My mother was one of

those. They all drank in the area. Over the past 5/6 years they were just popping off.”

Fracking:The deeper you dig

the darker it getsMichael Selp

South Taranaki District Councillor

Opposition to Fracking Bans in many countries PAI expose

revealed widespread industry ties to pro-fracking reports in the US

Opposition from NZ Councils

PcE Dr Jan Wright “substantive case under the Environment Act”

GWRC plans to use Report for its Natural Resource Plan

Sensible answer to peak conventional oil?

Evidence of poor waste disposal and consents breached

Litany of incidents, accidents and pollution from lax processes

4 million hectares where fracking could occur

NZ situation

TRC reports 28 wells fracked but unable to identify chemicals used (LOGOIMA request – Sarah Roberts, award winning farmer)

Swift Energy 17 operations using diesel containing BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenesis)

1, possibly 3 blowouts, high by international standards (1:5200 Calif) (not acknowledged by Bernie Napp or David Robinson)

Waste not stored in metal tanks and inconsistent use of linings in pits

Waste fluids sprayed onto farmland (Sarah Roberts)

Shell Todd Oil Services indicates 10 contaminated sites at Kapuni not acknowledged by TRC (Annnual Report)

Fracking in Taranaki

Solid Energy fracking in 2007 in Waikato without consent

WRC gave permission to continue with no public notification

Southland Two fracking wells in Ohai, Southland 1995 for coal seam

gas Environment Southland unaware of fracking operation,

environmental monitoring ceased with project 11 million litres waste water including chemicals dumped in

stream Permit to dump waste was non-notified

Waikato

Gisborne

District Council granted earlier this year resource consents for site establishment works for drilling platform Te Karaka

Not publicly notified, and expects to approve related applications for exploratory drilling later this year

WairarapaNZEC completed 2 D seismic Castlepoint/Ranui

permits

4 core wells drilled, expect to drill exploration well at Castlepoint early 2013, possibly using fracking

Government has called for tenders:

25 oil and gas blocks offshore

14 offshore Wairarapa, two in Pegasus Basin south of Cape Palliser

Local Councils not informed

Deep sea oil and gas blocks

Rena cost taxpayers $50 million

Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill Gulf of Mexico

Coal Seam Gas Extraction

Permits covering 13,640 sq km

Further 9,049 sq km awaiting approval

Water extraction reduces water pressure to allow gas to be released

Direct pollution from water

Ground water table lowered

Leaks, blow outs and environmental pollution in Australia

•Massive water use

•Toxic chemicals

•Air pollution

•Climate change

•Waste disposal

•Health impacts

•Truck traffic

Health risks at every stage

US study on implications surface water/terrestrial ecosystems Wells close to surface water increases risk to aquatic ecosystems:

Water withdrawal Contamination Excess sediment

Integrity of complete well assembly vital Well casing, steel tubes set in cement, essential barrier between well

and aquifers Separate warnings from US Geological Survey & US Protection Agency

UK Royal Society study highlights Well construction is greatest risk of groundwater contamination Risks likely to scale up in a national shale gas industry Robust monitoring before, during and after based on entire lifecycle of

operations, through to abandonment of wells Identifies need for more research on carbon footprint created by shale

gas extraction

US/UK studies

US experienceNatural or man-made faults from hydraulic

fracturing or drilling can intersect and chemicals can migrate to the surface in as little as "a few years, or less.” www.propublica.org/documents/item/371276-myers-potential-pathways-from-hydraulic

2007 to 2010, one well integrity violation issued for every six deep injection wells

2 million abandoned, plugged gas wells

Seepage up structure and breakdown of concrete in wells sealed shut with concrete

60% of well casings fail within 20 years of construction

Last twelve months US’s hottest since record keeping began in 1895 (NOAA) - worst drought in 800 years

High temperature to cold temperature records in ratio 10 to 1 confirmation of climate change

Scientists warn it’s the ‘new norm

0.8 deg C rise causing far more damage than expected

Over heated earth?

Fossil fuel industry dumps waste carbon dioxide for free, rather than invest in zephyrs and sunbeams

Victoria in southern Australia 2009, temperatures of 40 C, and 166 deaths

Temperature anomaly distribution: The frequency of occurrence (vertical axis) of local temperature anomalies (relative to 1951-1980 mean) in units of local standard deviation

(horizontal axis).

July 20 - 27th 2010

Ice loss - IPCC projections

• third of summer sea ice in the Arctic is gone

• record Greenland ice melt

• oceans are 30 percent more acidic

The blue line and shading is what the ensemble of models used in the last IPCC report were suggesting might happen. The red line is the multi-model mean for the projections in the next IPCC report, and the pink shading covers the full range of individual model runs. The black line is what’s actually happened so far

NO ARCTIC SEA ICE AND OUR PLANET WITH A DIFFERENT

CLIMATE

Haumoana Hawkes Bay 17 March 2005

Present path sea level will reach Pliocene levels of 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was 50 feet higher than

now

(James Hansen)

Methane Emissions and climate change

Rate of venting and leakage of methane to the atmosphere is sufficient to give shale gas a larger greenhouse gas footprint than any other fuel (Howarth et al 2011)

Global warming potential of methane is 72 higher than carbon dioxide over first 20 years, and 25 times as potent in 100 year time frame

Shale gas is threatening investment in renewable energies Fatih Birol, chief economist IEA

•Clean energy technologies are available but they are not being deployed quickly enough to avert potentially disastrous consequences (Maria

van der Hoeven, executive director IEA)

•Fossil fuel consumption five times higher than max allowable to limit warming to 2 deg

•Present global rate of emissions increases imply a 6 degree temperature increase this century

•Each person on Earth has just 110 tonnes each of co2 to emit into the atmosphere before 2050

•At NZ’s current rates, we will use our quota by about 2023

What’s in store for our mokopuna?

Easy oil gone

The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan for a Sensible Energy Future

Nations shall aim to reduce their oil consumption by at least the world

depletion rate of conventional production

THE PROTOCOL

Sea level 200 years ago

Central Government Response Climate Change Response Act 2002

NZ Emissions Trading Scheme

Resource Management (Energy and Climate Change) Amendment Act 2004

NPS for Renewable Electricity Generation

New Zealand Energy Strategy

New Zealand Energy Efficiency & Conservation Strategy

NZ Transport Strategy

Climate denial Environment Court excluded climate change effects,

approval can be grated without consideration of contribution to climate change.

Further weakening of ETS

MoBIE Science& Investment Round to include $3.2m funding for gas hydrate exploration

Government’s Energy Strategy

Future energy security depends on risky deep sea oil and fracking

Soaring oil prices and plummeting real energy yields from liquid fuels have already left economic carnage in their wake, as a fragile global financial system perched on a Matterhorn of debt has been dealt blow after blow by the failure of the economy” Richard Heinberg

“Fracking is worth one job per million dollars GDP, farming 15 jobs per million $, and hospitality 33 jobs” MP Gareth Hughes

Net imports of oil comprise 60% of NZ total oil consumption

Draft GW Natural Resources Plan

Climate change is identified as an ‘overarching matter’

Climate change effects are taken into account in planning and decision making

Simpson & Grierson Consent authority is legally obliged to consider any consent application on its merits

Captured by section 15(1)(d) and possibly sections 15(1)(a) and (b) of the RMA. The fracking activity needs a resource consent, unless it is expressly allowed by a rule in a regional plan.

Without evidence of adverse effects, it may be difficult to justify notification based on special circumstances

The power of deferral contained in section 91 of the RMA is discretionary rather than mandatory

Future stages will also need to (should) be considered on their merits

A frack-free declaration by a regional council would be effective if the declaration coincided with the introduction of prohibited activity status for the relevant activities in the council's regional plan

Alternatively, a council might be able to argue around the lack of reassuring evidence, in terms of "the risk of acting or not acting if there is uncertain or insufficient information about the subject matter of the policies, rules, or other methods" (RMA section 32(4)(b)).

It is difficult to imagine how a fracking might be consented under the RMA, when the information required for making an accurate assessment of environmental effects is simply unknown before the project starts

GW Regional Policy Statement Objective 18

Risks and consequences to people, communities, their businesses, property and infrastructure from natural hazards and climate change effects are reduced

Objective 20 Communities are more resilient to natural hazards, including

the impacts of climate change, and people are better prepared for the consequences of natural hazard events

Objective 9 The region’s energy needs are met in ways that:

Improve energy efficiency and conservation Diversify the type and scale of renewable energy

development Maximise the use of renewable energy resources Reduce dependency on fossil fuels…………

Economic dividends

TAG Oil thinks NZ Government is very friendly

National reviewing Crown Minerals Act to make even more friendly

Little Government support for transition to renewables

Fracking is high cost compared to renewables and conventional oil

Investment

Investment in fossil fuels is removing capital from projects that might still allow a return to a stable climate and sustainability

Some $2.4 trillion in oil industry capital expenditures from 1994 to 2004 increased the worldwide rate of oil production by 12 million barrels per day.

However, the $2.4 trillion in capital expenditures spent from 2005 to 2010 resulted in a decrease in the rate of oil production of 200,000 barrels per day

Comparison of estimates of energy return on investment (EROI) at wellhead for conventional crude oil, or for

crude product for oil shaleCutler J. Cleveland and Peter O’Connor

Typical Bakken well production

High spend on capex compared to cash flow makes it a Ponzi scheme

Annual decline rates 53%, only offset by increasing number of wells – USA is now like a pin-cushion!

Increase in “tight” oil US production only accounts for 5% of consumption

Tar sands have an EROEI of 5:1 and oil shale of 1.5:1 to 4:1

Not a renaissance or revolution, but a retirement party!

What is unfolding is deeply threatening to human life and the failure to address it adequately at the political level raises

disturbing questions about our capacity to act ethically as societies.

For climate change is at base now an ethical question.

It is to do with the way our actions impact on the lives of others both now and in generations to

come.

Jim Renwick

Ethics

Mauri – essence of life

What needs to change?Energy efficiency

Renewable Energy

Urban form (transit-orientated development)

Transport patterns

Farming practices

Forest carbon sinks

Store carbon in biomass including char

Percentage of driver travel by destination type

Driver travel data page 6 . Social and recreational destinations 25%

Over a third trip legs for shopping and personal business

Work related is about one third of driving time and distance

Accompany someone about ten per cent

The driver was the sole vehicle occupant in two-thirds of trip legs (66 percent) in cars, vans and utes (see Figure 9).

In one fifth (22 percent) of trip legs, one passenger was carried (in addition to the driver). One in eight trip legs (12 percent) involved two or more passengers.

There was a slight tendency to carry more passengers on longer journeys. The driver was the only vehicle occupant for 61 percent of the total distance driven and, for 14 percent of total distance, two or more passengers were carried.

Mean vehicle occupancy was 1.54 people per trip leg, or 1.63 people per distance driven

Motorised road Transport

Contribute

2600 deaths a year from physical inactivity

16% of NZ green house emissions (deaths mostly other countries at present!)

300 - 500 premature deaths from air pollutants

400 deaths from accidents (10.7 per 100,000 population)

Contamination of waterways through run-off from roads, wastes such as used oil, batteries and tyres have an impact on our environment

Vehicle fatalities - Road toll NZTA

FatalitiesVehicles PopulatnVKT(bill)

2000 462 2.61 3.86

2001 455 2.66 3.89 35

2002 405 2.73 3.95 36.4

2003 461 2.84 4.03 37.7

2004 435 2.95 4.09 38.9

2005 405 3.06 4.14 39.4

2006 393 3.12 4.19 39.4

2007 421 3.19 4.23 40.2

2008 366 3.21 4.27 39.7

2009 384 3.2 4.32 39.8

2010! 375 3.23 4.37 40

2011 284 3.24 4.41

Avoid, shift and improve

Shift to more sustainable modes with investments rapid transit, walking, cycling traffic management

limiting and pricing parking applying polluter-pays incentives offering better traveller information

Avoid unnecessary trips smarter planning pricing telecommunications

Improve vehicle efficiency cleaner fuels better-operated networks efficient vehicle technology adapted to local conditions and

requirements

Avoid Car-Induced Obesity

Great Harbour Way

First Class Public Transport

High quality High capacity Electric rail spine Extend “golden mile” Low running cost Oil free, eco-friendly

Tram-train schematic

Internet shopping Video conferencing Telecommuting Flexcar Green bikes Ride-sharing Free weekend

buses Fuel tax

Innovation

Make homes and buildings more

energy efficient!

Warmer drier houses are healthier for young & elderly

Greater Wellington rating finance

Reduce energy bills!

Fun - liveable cities!

house photos 2007 002.J PG

The Age of Smart

Transition offers a different story, one that is about living more within our means, connecting to place, returning power to people and communities, building resilience at the local level (Rob Hopkins)

Renewable energy and conservation produce more long term jobs at lower cost than investment in fossil fuels

Our fair share means halving our current emissions by 2020

If climate change is “the greatest market failure”, let’s make sure our response is New Zealand’s greatest success – for our environment and for our economy