This is a response to the May 24 commentary by Katie Ferrari (“Battling oil”). She states that “once the groundwater is mixed with the chemicals used in steam injection (of oil wells), it becomes toxic.” However, she fails to provide proof that the groundwater actually is mixing with the chemicals used in steam injection. She is making a claim with no scientific study showing that the ground water is mixing with the chemicals. It sounds logical, but is it?
Further confusing the issue, she states, “In addition to the above-ground destruction, such an earthquake could allow wastewater to migrate and further contaminate [water] wells. Even without an earthquake, injected toxic waste could be migrating into the Santa Maria basin, which provides water for more than 46,000 people in the Five Cities region.”
Sounds good, but “could allow” is speculation with no scientific basis.
Her article is just another attack on fossil fuels based on the belief that burning fossil fuels is causing manmade climate change by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
But not all gases in the atmosphere absorb outgoing Infrared Radiation (IR). The gases that absorb the IR radiation and create the greenhouse effect are mainly water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. Water vapor and water in clouds absorbs nearly 90 percent of the IR radiation, whereas CO2, CH4, and the other minor greenhouse gases together absorb little more than 10 percent of the radiation (“A Guide To Global Warming;” George C. Marshall Institute: Washington, DC, 2000).
So global warming is mostly caused by water vapor, which we can do nothing about, yet the blame today for global warming is CO2, which is a very minor greenhouse gas.
Peter Byrne
Paso Robles
This article appears in Food and Drink.
The “belief” that burning fossil fuels plays a significant role in global climate change is a FACT based on historical data and scientific facts, not a “belief” (Sources: NOAA, NASA, IPCC, etc, etc). Earth as flat is a belief; earth as round is a fact. Earth as center of the solar system is a belief; Sun as center of the solar system is a fact.
You haven’t explained why water vapor levels have been rising over the last several decades. Climate scientists have a very good explanation of why and they can model it very closely. Do you know why?
The George C. Marshall Institute is funded by the fossil fuel industry and it isn’t surprising they would run the cause-and-effect relationship backwards in order to arrive at a result convenient to their bottom line.
You are correct and NOAA concurs, in stating that water vapor is indeed the most abundant GHG in the atmosphere. But you are wrong about saying there is nothing we can do about it. In fact water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing along with CO2 levels, as a result of the positive feedback loop created by global warming. If we reduce CO2 levels, we reduce global warming and stabilize water vapor concentrations in the atmosphere. Read more at:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-refer…
There have been a lot of oil spills, leaks and accidents. One well-document list is at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills. Many of these spills were in the US and some big. Why all these spills? Two possible reasons come to mind: (1) safely extracting, transporting and processing oil is difficult and accidents happened, and (2) the oil companies were not as careful as they could have been. Either way, drilling new wells or starting fracking in SLO County puts at risk our water, air economy and jobs. I dont want these risks forced on me.
So you don’t like Katie stating something that “could allow” contamination in her analysis then maybe you should write a letter to DOGGR the Division of Oil, Gas, Geothermal Resources about their wording when submitting an application to exempt a protected aquifer in SLO County from the Safe Drinking Water Act. As you can read below in quotes DOGGR states “the injected fluid is expected to remain in the area that would be exempted and is not expected to affect the quality of water……” Seems a bit unscientific coming from the state agency whose job it is to protect our groundwater supplies in the state of California.
“Based on consultation as required under Public Resources Code section 3131, the Division and the
Water Boards preliminarily concur that the proposed aquifer exemption area meets the criteria for
exemption under the Code of Federal Regulations, title 40, section 146.4 because it does not currently
serve as a source of drinking water, and it will not serve as a source of drinking water in the future
because the area is currently hydrocarbon producing or is capable of hydrocarbon production. The
Division and the Water Boards also preliminarily concur that the injected fluid is expected to remain in
the area that would be exempted and is not expected to affect the quality of water that is, or may
reasonably be, used for any beneficial use, due to geologic conditions and hydraulic controls.”
ftp://ftp.consrv.ca.gov/pub/oil/Aquifer_Exemptions/County/San_Luis_Obispo/Arroyo_Grande_Oilfield/Dollie_Sands_Pismo_Formation/Notices%20and%20Documents/Arroyo%20Grande%20AE%20Hearing%20Notice.pdf
Mr. Bryne…
Your point of “could allow” really has no value. You pay for home and auto insurance, I presume, to mitigate risk? The risk to our water supply is not insurable and has to be regulated for the safety of the public. The Arroyo Grande Oil Field currently has ten or more active waste injection wells pumping 180,000 gallons (every day) of oil field waste-water (under very high pressure) into a drinking water aquifer; and they operate those injection wells WITHOUT A PERMIT FROM THE EPA and in violation of the Safe Water Drinking Act. That daily waste disposal will easily increase to more than 1.2 million gallons EVERY DAY with oil field expansion.
Peter, to help you keep that in perspective, the climate impact barrel for barrel, from production in the Arroyo Grande oil field is worse than that of oil from the Alberta Tar Sands in Canada (by as much as 32% worse), which is often referred to as among the most carbon-intensive petroleum in the world. The California Air Resources Board assigns a carbon intensity score to different production areas. But you probably know this already.
https://www.arb.ca.gov/fuels/lcfs/crude-oi…
This report lists the carbon intensity score of the Arroyo Grande Oil Field (AGOF) crude is 27.81 while the score of crude from the tar sands ranges from 21.02 to 24.49. The AGOF oil is very heavy and high gravity, and thus requires thermally enhanced oil recovery (steam injection) to produce it. Steam injection in the AGOF requires HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF WATER to be heated into steam every year, primarily through the combustion of natural gas. Obviously, the expansion of the AGOF would increase CO2 output as the result of burning more gas to make more steam. Right!
Over the next 5 years (using the DOGGR reported CURRENT running rate), the Arroyo Grande Oil Field will convert more than ONE BILLION gallons of water into steam (and up to TEN TIMES THAT IF EXPANSION ALLOWED). Yes, that’s Billion with a B over five years (over 1,000,000,000 gallons of water heated to steam). Imagine the amount of gas burned and CO2 that’s generated and spit into our local air supply.
If the AGOF expansion is allowed – the math, just for the fun of it says – over the next 10 years (based on operator estimates of oil production of 10k barrels per day of oil and current ratios of water extraction at 19:1), the Arroyo Grande Oil Filed would extract over 29,000,000,000 (29 Billion) gallons of water or 88,957 ACRE FEET of water from the Arroyo Grande aquifer. Further, 13,000,000,000 gallons of that water would be heated with gas to become steam and CO2.
Where is all that water going to come from??
How important is our air quality to the residents of our county??
The Arroyo Grande oil fields CO2 emissions in 2015 is reported to be 78,000 metric TONS of CO2 and that number would grow exponentially if expansion is allowed. This makes the Arroyo Grande oil field one of the highest single contributors of CO2 in our County.
To recap, the Arroyo Grande oil field added value is the generation of all that unwanted CO2, wasting Billions of gallons of water, and injecting their oil waste into a water aquifer while putting at risk the drinking water of Edna Valley and the Five Cities.
Just my 2 cents…