"Gasland": Will Natural Gas Save America ... or Destroy It?

Updated from June 21

Update:"Gasland" contains "multiple inaccurate accusations and impressions and does not provide a fair and balanced story," Chesapeake Energy's investor relations department declared Tuesday in a memo to investors and analysts. "As a result, we are working with several industry associations and advocacy groups to provide information that fairly and accurately represents our industry to the public, the investment community, elected officials, and regulators."

Chesapeake recommends those interested in more information go to EnergyInDepth.org, an industry-sponsored Web site.

As noted below, the editors invite proponents of natural gas drilling to come Tech Ticker to debate Fox and tell their side of the story.

Earlier:The horrific oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is reviving interest in natural gas, which advocates such as T. Boone Pickens say is a cheaper, cleaner burning fuel and the key to America's energy independence.

"Natural gas is...a bridge fuel to slash our oil dependence while buying us time to develop new technologies that will ultimately replace fossil transportation fuels," PickensPlan.com declares. "Natural gas...has the advantage of being cheap and significantly cleaner than coal."

But "that's a PR campaign," says Josh Fox, director of the award-winning documentary "Gasland", which premiers June 21 on HBO. "Natural gas, when you burn it, is cleaner than coal. What they're not looking at is the entire lifecycle of natural gas."

In "Gasland," Fox investigates the lifecycle of natural gas production and finds widespread evidence of some very "costly" side-effects, including:

• -- Cancer, brain damage and other illnesses: Although the energy industry denies any connection, Fox found a variety of serious health problems among humans and animals in several states where there's active natural gas exploration and production. Because the 2005 Energy Act exempted hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund Act and other environmental regulations, the government has yet to do a comprehensive study on potential side effects. In March, the EPA announced plans to study "the potential adverse impact...on water quality and public health.
• -- Contaminated water supplies: Much of today's natural gas production is being done through hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. This relatively new process entails pumping millions of gallons of highly pressurized water and nearly 600 chemicals into wells in order to break up the rock formations and release the natural gas trapped inside. Fox and other opponents say the chemicals used in fracking, including many known carcinogens, put water supplies at risk. "The main thing here is: once you contaminated an aquifer you can't clean it. You can't go back," he says.
• -- Toxic emissions: "It's misleading to say [natural gas] is a cleaner burning fuel," Fox says. "They release so much of the methane into the atmosphere trough the pipelines, the condensate tanks, compressing stations and the rigs themselves...they're on a par with coal in terms of their emissions."  In "Gasland", Fox cites a study by a SMU engineering professor Al Armendariz that showed natural gas drilling in Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex emits more air pollution than all the motor vehicles in the region; after first rejecting those findings, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality later accepted them.

Presently, there are about 450,000 active natural gas wells in 34 states. The next great frontier for the industry is the Marcellus Shale Field, which covers huge swaths of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Fox's family owns land in Pennsylvania near the New York border. An offer to lease that land for natural gas drilling spurred his interest in the subject, which became an obsession that turned into "Gasland".

The filmmaker's prime concern is the Marcellus Field sits atop one of the world's largest unfiltered water supplies, which serves about 15 million Americans, including residents of New York City, Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

"There's no question in my mind this would radically alter New York State and Pennsylvania," he says. In addition to the potential health threat, two huge industries, agriculture and tourism, "would be smashed by this," Fox warns. "You don't want to go recreate in an industrial zone."

As noted above, "Gasland" premiers June 21 on HBO. Meanwhile, the Senate is debating whether to continue exempting hydraulic fracturing from environmental regulation. Energy & Environment Daily reports BP America is leading the industry's lobbying effort to maintain the exemption. 

Editor's Note: Tech Ticker invites T. Boone Pickens and other proponents of natural gas drilling to debate Fox and give their side of the story. Click here for more information about "Gasland".