President Obama traveled to the Midwest this week, highlighting non-fossil fuel energy projects along the way. He stopped Tuesday at the Siemens Wind Turbine Blade Manufacturing Plant in Fort Madison, Iowa. On Wednesday, he visited the POET Biorefining plant in Macon, Mo.

Great. The more energy and the more varied energy sources, the better.

In the President’s effort to highlight hotbeds of energy innovation and expansion, we hope the next place he heads to is the Williston Basin in North Dakota. The advances in seismic exploration, hydrofracturing and directional drilling have added billions of barrels of oil to America’s energy resources.

From AP, “New oil reservoir rivals rich Bakken formation; ND recoverable oil reserves nearly double“:

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) – An oil reservoir in western North Dakota holds nearly as much recoverable crude as the rich Bakken shale formation above it, a new state study shows.

The study released Thursday by North Dakota’s Industrial Commission said current technology could lead to the recovery of about 1.9 billion barrels in the Three Forks-Sanish formation.

Interest is running high. From The Bismarck Tribune, “Oil conference blows doors off previous numbers“:

Ron Ness, director of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, estimates there’ll be 2,500 people at the 18th annual Williston Basin Petroleum Conference and Expo, nearly twice as many as attended in 2008, the last year it was held in North Dakota.

The buzz is all about the Bakken formation — blowing the door off production records for North Dakota — and Ness said the conference has morphed into a business development opportunity for everything from gravel hauling companies from eastern North Dakota, to investment and banking representatives..

“People are looking for ways to enter into the Bakken and become part of the economic opportunity,” Ness said. “The conference is shaping up to be the biggest oil event north of Houston.”

The conference website is here. Good agenda, too. Bismarck can be beautiful the first week in May.

Northwestern North Dakota is the center of the Bakken formation work, the Williston Basin spreads far and wide. Speakers are also coming from Montana, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and South Dakota.

The Washington Examiner today takes note of the kneejerk reaction against development of the Marcellus Shale’s natural gas resources, made possible through hydrofracturing technology. From “Another enviro scare aimed at oil, gas“:

The Edmond Sun covered the speech Wednesday of John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, at the State Chamber of Oklahoma’s public affairs conference in Oklahoma City. It’s a clear recounting of Engler’s message on energy. From “Manufacturers CEO calls for more government support for energy“:

OKLAHOMA CITY — A long list of noes from the federal government has suppressed the energy industry’s ability to lessen the country’s dependence on foreign energy resources, said John Engler…

In a country where the last nuclear plant was completed in the 1980s, the last oil refinery plant was completed in the 1970s and lawsuits have stopped the construction of coal power plants, Engler said, the energy industry is in dire need of less regulation and more support from the federal government.

However, Oklahoma has a history of bipartisan support for energy development, Engler said, which is one reason why the state’s unemployment rate is 3 percentage point below the national rate.

In his speech to the State Chamber of Oklahoma on Thursday, National Association of Manufacturers’ President John Engler discussed jobs creation through energy, infrastructure and exports. On the energy front, he discussed the astonishing expansion of domestic natural gas production (and potential production), thanks to technological advances in hydrofracturing.

Following are his prepared remarks from that section:

In Oklahoma, a proud tradition of supporting energy has helped keep your unemployment 3 percentage points below the national average.

You’re one of the states benefiting from development of shale gas, in this case the Woodford Shale. In Texas, there’s the Barnett Shale; in Arkansas, the Fayetteville Shale; in Louisiana the Haynesville Shale. Since 2000, gas from shale has grown from less than 1 percent of the nation’s production to about 10 percent.

Perhaps the most promising development is the Marcellus Shale underneath Pennsylvania and New York and West Virginia. Analysts say the Marcellus alone has enough gas to meet the nation’s needs for at least 14 years.

These natural gas deposits are close to northeastern population and manufacturing centers – they could be a real boon to consumers and industry in the area. But environmental groups have stirred up opposition, for example, in New York State, where there’s a pitched battle going on over natural gas drilling.

Opponents play on people’s fears of a technology that’s actually been in use for decades –- hydrofracturing. Thanks to massive R&D by energy companies, the technology has been improved, made even safer, and combined with horizontal drilling to open these shale deposits.

Oklahoma’s unemployment rate in October was 7 percent.

NBC Nightly News on Sunday ran a segment on the thousands available jobs in Bismarck and the rest of North Dakota, attracting out-of-state residents for jobs in health care, IT, energy, manufacturing and construction.

Energy has driven economic growth in the state, thanks to coal and, since earlier this decade, oil and gas development from the Bakken formation. An e-mailer — not me — expounded on NBC’s misdirected coverage today at National Review’s The Corner blog:

I think it would be important to point out to everyone, that ND’s job growth is fueled by the oil boom in that state from the Bakken shale formation. The video ignores that fact because it doesn’t fit the MSM’s sense of justice to grow our economy by doing something evil like developing our natural resources.

A hundred-year supply of natural gas has just been discovered in the last couple of years in the Marcellus Shale which underlies much of PA, NY and to a lesser extent other eastern states. If these states are open to the development of the natural gas like ND has been to the oil, they could enjoy the same economic situation. Unfortunately for the laid-off blue collar workers from those industrial states, the elitist environmental-minded politicians and ngo’s will likely block the potential economic boom.

To drill and produce the natural gas you need, drill rig hands, welders, electricians, road builders, general construction crews, engineers, petroleum geologists, environmental scientists (to do it cleanly), regulators (to make sure it is done cleanly), truck drivers, accountants, bankers and more. In addition to all those directly employed by an oil and gas boom, add all the support services those new people to an area need. Oil or gas booms can literally be like gold rushes of Western lore.

We don’t think the anti-energy forces will win in the end, but they’re definitely trying with the usual fear and falsehoods.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette covered the Marcellus Shale’s potential in a major Sunday business piece, “Natural gas locked in the Marcellus Shale has companies rushing to cash in on possibilities“:

According to a report released in July by Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Marcellus Shale helped create more than 29,000 new jobs in Pennsylvania in 2008. Of those, about 14,000 were directly related to Marcellus development. The remainder were created by what the study calls “indirect and induced impacts,” such as a restaurant near a drilling site hiring more staff because it is serving a larger lunchtime crowd.

The study predicts more than a decade of dramatic growth, with more than 48,000 new jobs this year, then another 98,000 in 2010.

By 2020, the study says, Marcellus development could add $13.5 billion to the state’s economy and create more than 176,000 new jobs in a single year.

NAM President John Engler is expected to talk about new natural gas developments in remarks tomorrow at the State Chamber of Oklahoma’s public affairs conference. Oklahoma is home to the Woodford Shale deposit.

The natural gas industry group, Energy in Depth, has lots more information on shale gas at its website, www.energyindepth.org.

UPDATE (2:45 p.m.): Now that you’re considering a move to Bismarck, take a look at Bismarck Tribune’s excellent website. Most popular stories:

It’s about 0 degrees there at the moment, but the big Midwestern storm passed it by.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and a sponsor of the House-passed cap-and-trade legislation, participated in a good public discussion yesterday at the Capitol sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute and Newsweek magazine.

Given the astonishing expansion of natural gas  in the United States thanks to hydrofracturing and directional drilling making shale deposits accessible, it was encouraging to hear Chairman Markey’s comments in support of its development.

Rep. Ed Markey: Ninety percent of all new electrical capacity in America since 1990 has been natural gas, and it’s going to continue on that way as a base load with the new mandates for renewable electricity in the states having a higher percentage increasingly coming from that source. But natural gas is going to do very well in the future, and the discoveries from the Marcellus Shale all the way through Barnett, that is all the way from New York down to Texas, are going to be big source of new electrical generation.

Howard Fineman, Newsweek: As a native of Pittsburgh, I’m really excited about the Marcellus Shale. I’m hoping maybe there’s some under my relative’s land. (laughter)

Here’s the sound clip.

That was just one exchange in a solid 90-minute program. API’s Jack Gerard was especially effective in detailing the many problems with the cap-and-trade legislation, starting with its destruction of jobs. He said it was time for “a reset” in Congress on climate legislation, a sound sentiment.

A letter refuting the fact-challenged New York Times editorial that attacked the hydrofracturing technology used to develop natural gas.

To the Editor:

“The Halliburton Loophole” (editorial, Nov. 3), about hydraulic fracturing, dismisses a 60-year record of safety with the utterance of a single word: Halliburton.

Regulation of fracturing, a natural gas drilling process in use since the 1940s, has always been left to the states, not the Environmental Protection Agency. The Times endorses legislation that it says will “restore” E.P.A. authority over the process. But how can you restore something to the E.P.A. that it never had in the first place?

The campaign to empower the E.P.A. with authority over fracturing is an effort to shut down the process in its entirety.

That’s why The Times supports it, and why the rest of New York shouldn’t.

Lee Fuller
Washington, Nov. 3, 2009

The writer is senior policy adviser for Energy in Depth, a coalition of oil and natural gas producers.

So the thesis upon which the Times editorial was built was wrong. Seems like it should warrant an actual correction.

On November 2, The New York Times ran an editorial denouncing the lack of federal regulation of the use of hydrofracturing technology to develop shale natural gas, “The Halliburton Loophole.” Waving around the Halliburton and Dick Cheney boogie-men is what passes for argument for the Times these days, and apparently the Times mistakes state regulation with no regulation.

In any case, the editorial was just wrong. EnergyInDepth, an alliance of natural gas producers, rebutted the opinion piece with facts.

One-part revisionist history, one-part direct advocacy on behalf of the FRAC Act, the piece adopts a familiar tactic among opponents of responsible energy development: Break off legitimate debate, scurry off to the closest, safest corner, and commence launch of ad hominem attacks upon those with whom you disagree. This section is typical of the piece:

Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney … It stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate … hydraulic fracturing.

Quite a story to tell: Unfortunately, not a single bit of it is true. Hydraulic fracturing has never been regulated nationally by EPA – not today, not before the bipartisan 2005 energy bill passed (supported by then-Sen. Barack Obama), not at any point during the 35-year run of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA).

That’s just the start.

We wait for the correction.

When Daniel Yergin writes about historic development in energy production, one pays attention. In today’s Wall Street Journal, joined by his colleague Robert Ineson, Yergin examines the rise of natural gas production in the United States made possible by technological advances that open up vast shale deposits to exploitation. From “America’s Natural Gas Revolution“:

The biggest energy innovation of the decade is natural gas—more specifically what is called “unconventional” natural gas. Some call it a revolution.

Yet the natural gas revolution has unfolded with no great fanfare, no grand opening ceremony, no ribbon cutting. It just crept up. In 1990, unconventional gas—from shales, coal-bed methane and so-called “tight” formations—was about 10% of total U.S. production. Today it is around 40%, and growing fast, with shale gas by far the biggest part.

The potential of this “shale gale” only really became clear around 2007. In Washington, D.C., the discovery has come later—only in the last few months.

Making this development possible has been hydrofracturing, or fraccing, the technique of injecting pressurized liquids into the strata to fracture the shale and free the gas. (See Shopfloor.org’s previous posts on the topic.) The potential of this gas development is especially important economically to northeastern states — and industry — because the Marcellus Shale is close to markets in New York, Pennsylvania and other heavy energy consuming areas.

Earlier in the decade, natural gas prices soared as demand grew, spiking as Hurricane Katrina disrupted supplies. Price and price volatility were big factors in driving natural-gas consuming industries like fertilizer and chemical manufacturing overseas, but now…well, there’s reason for optimism.

Except, as the authors note:

[Industrial] users and the utilities with their long investment horizons—both of which have been whipsawed by recurrent cycles of shortage and surplus in natural gas over several decades—are inherently skeptical and will require further confirmation of a sustained shale gale before committing.

Skepticism also arises because of the growing environmentalist/NIMBY alliance dedicated to regulating hydrofraccing into submission, with the activist journalism outfit, ProPublica.org, serving as the movement’s house organ. States now regulate this aspect of drilling, and the regulators stand by the quality and safety of their oversight. (See the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission for details.)

But federal regulation is always superior to state regulation, right? That at least is the theory of sponsors of bills – H.R. 2766 and S.1215 — to bring hydrofraccing under the Clean Water Act authority, even though as Yergin and Ineson note, shale strata lie much, much deeper than watersheds. Today, the predictable New York Times adds its support for the bills in an editorial, “The Halliburton Loophole.”

State regulation is not a “loophole,” and even invoking the bugaboo of Halliburton does not make it one.

History tells us the real goal, at least for the environmentalists, behind legislation to impose a Clean Water Act regime over hydrofracturing is project-halting litigation. So you can understand industry’s skepticism.

More…

• Houston Chronicle, “Louisiana shale could change fate of U.S. energy supply“
• Houston Chronicle, “Shale gas is producing jobs, stimulating the economy“
• Natural gas producers group, EnergyInDepth

Reading the blog from the makers of the anti-Chevron film, “Crude,” we see this entry from Michael Bonfiglio, second unit director and producer, “CRUDE In Our Own Backyard?”

Many of us on the Crude filmmaking team are based in New York City, where the tap water is some of the cleanest in the country, and a debate is currently raging over drilling for natural gas that could threaten our drinking water.

Our friends at Riverkeeper oppose the drilling plan. Those who support the drilling maintain that with today’s technology, nothing bad could happen.  While the plaintiffs in Ecuador charge that Texaco used practices that were outdated even in the 1960s when drilling there began, are we really so arrogant to think that there will be no errors that could contaminate our reservoirs? And is a resource as vital as clean drinking water really something that we are willing to gamble on?

Bonfiglio is referring to hydrofracturing, the technology of injecting pressurized fluids into shale formations to fracture them and release natural gas. The natural gas producers group, Energy in Depth, has lots of information about this well-proven and safe technology, which is under attack from the usual activists who let the perfect be the enemy of good jobs. Start here.

Reading Bonfligio’s comments made us wonder when the next outrage-imbued “documentary” was going to come out, this time with natural gas companies as the evil corporate exploiters. There’s “Crude,” another one in the works about Eskimos and global warming, “The Kivalina Project.” You’ve got a cause, somebody has a movie and with cable television, a place to show it, so why not a flick accusing the natural gas industry of rampage and pollution? Maybe “Gas Attack.”

Well, of course there IS a movie. “Split Estate“ attacks natural gas drilling in western states, starting with the premise that mineral rights are somehow outrageous.

The Grand Junction (Colo.) Sentinel identifies the basic problem with “Split Estate” in an editorial, “Gas documentary offers anecdotes, not evidence“:

Many of the people featured in the documentary, “Split Estates,” have heart-breaking stories about health problems they have suffered.

What they don’t have, and what is absent from the documentary itself, is actual evidence that connects those health problems to the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas wells. Without this causal link between the fracturing substances and disease, the claim of wrongdoing — like the documentary itself — falls flat, at least with respect to hydraulic fracturing.

The same criticism applies to other environmental films we’ve seen. Of course human suffering elicits sympathy, but emotion does not equal “X is to blame.” In fact, when manipulated, emotion can lead one to think “X is to blame,” when in reality “Y is to blame.”

There’s probably a better movie to be made about energy, natural gas, hydrofracturing and the environment. Hope the directors talk to W. Neil Barto of Hughsville, Penn., where development of the Marcellus Shale is going great guns.

In July, four days before Barto’s 67th birthday, he received the first check from Chief Oil & Gas L.L.C., the Dallas company that last year drilled the wells on this hardscrabble farm, 21 miles east of Williamsport.

Barto’s monthly royalty checks now come in at about $7,000. It’s just the beginning. He and 14 neighbors get royalty checks from the sale of the gas, but the wells capture only a fraction of the gas trapped in the rock. Chief plans to drill many more wells on Barto’s land and surrounding properties.