GLOBAL CLIMATE DEBATE

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Hello and welcome to  Clean Skies Sunday, a weekly half-hour look at energy issues facing Washington and America.  I am Susan McGinnis.

This week Solar Panels once heated water for the White House then they didn't, and now a possible come back, how Solar is reenergizing a debate at the White House.

Then we talk with the history and a member of the Carter Administration, Jay Hakes, on the history behind those Solar Panels and using renewable energy to heat the home of the President.  Plus the U.S. could be sitting on an energy gold mine and the world is taking notice.  We show you how experts from abroad are coming here to learn the technologies to get natural gas trapped in shale.

But first in Energy News this past week, BP takes partial blame for the failures leading to the explosion on the deep water horizon and the oil leak.  And the report on its own investigation, BP spreads the blame among BP, Rig Owner Transocean, cement contractor Halliburton and blowout preventer maker Cameron.  It does say BP workers, along with the Transocean employees misinterpreted a test on the well integrity and fail to respond to science the well was going to blow out.  Government investigators are looking into the explosion as well.

The First Federal Loan Guarantee for a renewable energy project was completed this week.  Nevada geothermal power is building a 49 Ω megawatt Blue Mountain project in North West Nevada with DOE guaranteeing 80% of the nearly $100 Million construction cost.  The project is to pump water deep into the earth where it heats to steam and can run electric turbans.  

And a new report out from Deutsche Bank is trying to address skeptics' arguments about climate change.  The bank's DB Climate change Advisors group asks scientist from Columbia University's Earth Institute to look at skeptics' claims and it concludes the primary claims of the skeptics do not undermine the assertion that human made climate changes already happening and there's a serious long-term threat.

It says the most negative impacts of climate change will occur in nations already vulnerable to other stressors like rapid population growth and extreme poverty.  It says humans have survived climate changes of the past but not with the current global population which is nearing 7 billion.

Well, they were once the symbol of a nation in an energy crisis. During the Carter Administration, solar panels went up on the White House.  During the Reagan years, they were taken down.  Well now, a group of college students has made a trip from Maine to D.C to try to bring solar back to the White House.  Clean Skies Lee Patrick Sullivan reports.

[JIMMY CARTER] In the year 2000, this solar water heater behind me, which is being dedicated today, will still be here supplying cheap, efficient energy.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] But those Carter aero solar panels didn't make it to the year 2000.  They were removed for renovations to the White House roof during the Regan presidency, put in a warehouse and forgotten.  The 36 panels were rescued by a professor at Unity College in Main, 16 of them were put on top of the school's cafeteria, providing students with hot water.

Now, in conjunction with the environmental movement, 350.org, the students at Unity College want the remaining panels to be returned and installed at the White House.  One of those panels made the 650-mile journey to Washington, signed as a petition to convince President Obama to have these 31-year-old panels, once again heat water at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

[JEAN ALTOMARE] It's kind of like the largest petition ever delivered to Washington.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] And what does this petition say Jean?

[JEAN ALTOMARE] This petition says that we absolutely need to start moving towards solar energy.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] Well first things first, after three decades, do these things still work?  We had the students at Unity fill them up with cold tap water.  Ten minutes later, we put them to the test.

[JEAN ALTOMARE] And so just a little stream for you.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] Holy hell, that is hot.

[JEAN ALTOMARE] And you can feel the heat from that, right?

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] That is really hot.  I can't keep my hand there.

[JEAN ALTOMARE] Correct.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] I mean its not boiling but I definitely can't keep my hand onó

[JEAN ALTOMARE] It certainly on the way, this is more than showerable heat.  You would not want to take a shower [Voice Overlap]  that's right.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] I don't know what kind of shower you're taking, that's way too hot.  You could put the hotdog with this, I bet.  You could have tea.

[JEAN ALTOMARE] You could certainly have tea, yes.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] Solar experts say the pitch of the White House roof is not ideal for solar power and the money could be better spent on other energy improvements.

When Carter White House staffer was quoted to saying,  They were great symbolism, but truth be told, there are a lot of people washing their hands with cold water at the Carter White House.  But it's that symbolism of solar panels on the White House lawn that organizer Bill McKibben is shooting for.

[BILL McKIBBEN] What we hope is that they will really begin seriously to look at the prospect of how they're going to deal with the solar on the White House.  They've done a pretty good job of starting to make energy improvements in a lot of federal buildings and that's good, but we need the symbolism too that comes from most important piece of real estate in the country, getting off fossil fuel.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] And word from the White House, they have no plans on reinstalling the Carter aero thermal solar panels, it's not because President Obama is anti-solar, it's because they already have some panels on the White House.  You see in 2003, with little fanfare, President George W.  Bush had photovoltaic and thermal solar panels installed.  They currently heat the presidential pool.

In Washington, Lee Patrick Sullivan, Clean Skies News.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Earlier we talked with historian Jay Hakes, an alumnus of the Carter Administration about the history of those solar panels.

[JAY HAKES] Well, I think there was a feeling that the time that renewable energy had a lot of momentum.  There was funding for it.  There was lot of excitement about it.  There were tax breaks going in, so I think we thought this was the way with the future.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] I mean, it must have been a real innovative move at that time also in the middle of the energy crisis.

[JAY HAKES] It was a very innovative move at the time, but there's a lot impressed in Carter speech that sort of recognized, I think that he saw there was some tension.  He said,  This is going to be either the beginning of the new way of an energy policy or these panels going to end up in a museum someday.î

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Right.  And he was right.

[JAY HAKES] So he was right, but I think the emphasis was on the positive that this was the way with the future and it would just grow and grow.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Also innovative at the same time, he actually called for 20% of renewable energy goal for the country by the year 2000.

[JAY HAKES] Right, I think people should read his speech in June of 1979, I think it's one of his overlooked energy speeches and he said we can get 20% of our energy from renewables by 2020.  In the historical perspective, that's now what the European Union is setting as the goal for 2020.

So he also set up the Solar Bank, the tax credits, if you put a solar panel on your roof on those days, you got a 40% tax credit, so it was a whole integrated program.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Now we know the panels are removed during the Reagan years but where were we?  Where was the U.S in renewable energy at the end of Carter's reign?

[JAY HAKES] Well at the time, we were sort of wheeling the roost in terms of renewable technology.  We were ahead of everybody else in the world.  We had sort of caught up energy spending, was kind of comparable to space spending and even health spending at that time.  But during the ë80s, we kind of lost that edge and by the end of the 80s, we were third behind Germany and Japan and are spending that renewable research and development and we've sort have been paying the price for that ever since.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] So now there is a new attention on these same solar panels, one of them arriving back at the White House.  What's your sense of the Obama Administration, reaction on President Obama to this solar panel which I guess is old technology anyway, this symbolic gesture of it, these people want it back on the White House?

[JAY HAKES] Well, I know a lot about these panels, because we have one at the Jimmy Carter library in Atlanta, so I see it almost everyday.  And it brings back sort of a fun memory for me, but it is the old technology solar thermo panels have advanced a lot since then, they're much more advanced.  So I don't know what the President would do, but I'd be looking for the newer energy technologies, whether it's thermal solar or photovoltaic solars, there are all sorts of new ways that are more efficient.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] What is a fan of solar and all renewable energy, do you see solar panels back in the White House under Obama?

[JAY HAKES] It's hard to tell but you know for a policy wonk like me, and my favorite thing would be seeing more spending on research and development, singled to the markets that would incentive it, but it would be good to see some panels back up there too.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] And you can see my entire interview with Jay Hakes on our website at CleanSkies.com.

Well coming up, getting gas from rock.  It's a story that's started in the U.S and now it's going global.

We'll tell you about U.S technology to extract vast amounts of natural gas from the nation's shale formations and how it caught the world's attention.

[EVAN WOLF] When I signed on with the National Guard, I did it to help protect America from our enemies, like in the Persian Gulf, not to clean up an oil company mess in the Gulf of Mexico.

We'll do whatever mission we're given, and do it well.  But America needs a new mission.  Because whether it's deep-drilling oil out here or spending a billion dollars a day on oil from our enemies overseas our dependence on oil is threatening our national security.  

Thing is, a clean American energy plan would cut our dependence on oil in half.  It's more power for America, made here in America.  Putting our people to work using all the resources we have.  

Some folks in Washington say now is not the time to clean American power.  I got to ask, if not now, when?

[BREAK]

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[SUSAN McGINNIS] Welcome back.  Cutting edge technologies have revealed vast amounts of new natural gas in the United States.  They're located in massive shale formations around the country and many believe they are a game changer for the U.S. energy picture.  Well now nations around the globe have taken notice.  They're trying to harness U.S. expertise to tap into shale formations in their countries.

They appear little more than huge rock formations jotting out from the shores of Lake Erie.  Gary Lash, geologist and professor at near by SUNY Fredonia knows there are a lot more.

[GARY LASH] Sometimes it will slip out in places, on the fractures especially and you can light, get a little bit of a flame going.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] It's rock like this known as shale that holds natural gas in its pores.  This formation is what's called an outcrop having emerged from the earth over millions of years.  Most shales sits miles underground.

But we're on top of it?

[GARY LASH] We're on top of the Marcellus, this is part of the Marcellus basin.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Far below, this Lake Erie Beach lies what could be the biggest shale formations in the country called the Marcellus.  It stretches for tens of millions of acres below New York, Pennsylvania and four other states.  It was Lash and colleague Terry Engelder, geologist and professor at Penn State who in 2007 first officially calculated just how much gas the Marcellus holds.

[TERRY ENGELDER] I constructed what we call in science, a back of the envelope calculation, which included a number of parameters.  Aerial extent of the Marcellus, thickness of the Marcellus, all of these things we could figure out from well logs or some other information and from that information I sat down and multiplied these numbers out, and at the end of the day. I said to myself holy cow!  There's a lot of gas here.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Engelder needed to be certain his calculations were accurate so he asked Lash to run his own numbers.

[GARY LASH] He called me up and said,  You calculate it, see what you can come up with.î

[SUSAN McGINNIS] You called him back and said--

[GRARY LASH] I said this is the number I'm getting and then he told me the number he had.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] And they were similar?

[GARY LASH] And they were quite similar yeah.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] It was an amount that far exceeded the 2.7 trillion estimates that was out there at the time.

[TERRY ENGELDER] There was somewhere between -- I don't know three and five hundred trillion cubic feet

[GARY LASH] We realized what we had in our hands was a super giant gas fill.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Similar stories played out at shale formations around the country.  At the Barnett Shale in Texas, the Fayetteville in Arkansas, the Haynesville in Louisiana and more, a total 22 shale place over 20 states.  

The most authoritative estimate of U.S. natural gas resources comes from the potential gas committee affiliated with the Colorado School of Mines.  The PGC estimates the country's total natural gas resources at 18,036 trillion cubic feet.  Up more than 50% from just four years earlier which shale making up about a third of potential resources, adding what are called approved reserves from the Energy Information Administration and total technically recoverable resources top two thousand trillion cubic feet.  That's two with twelve zero's.

With U.S. consumption now around twenty trillion cubic feet a year that is in more than 100 years supply.  It's that potential that's drawing natural gas producers like Range Resources, the third biggest U.S. natural gas driller to shales. Like the Marcellus and they're getting to the gas with technology-developed in this decade.

[LEE PATRICK SULLIVAN] It's a few hundred feet for that drill bits to go horizontal but as we speak, about a mile below our feet that drill bit is starting to pass into the Marcellus shale.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Range resources Matt Pizzarella is describing horizontal drilling where a drill digs thousands of feet down then makes slow turn and drills horizontally into the shale.  Range gave Clean Skies News exclusive access to its Orton Well site one of more than 400 wells drilled into the Marcellus.  We climbed right on to ranges rig number 254 to witness the technology.  We also watch from control center where engineer Scott Thomson literally stirs the drill.  So when you turn down to the left it turns that way?

[SCOTT THOMPSON] Whichever way I'm turning in here it's the way it's going

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Once dug another technology kicks in called hydraulic fracturing where water mixed with sand and chemicals is forced into the well at tremendous pressure fracturing the shale allowing the gas to flow out

[MATT PIZZARELLA] The water, the sand, and the additives are pumped in the whole at about 9000 pounds per square inch and at that point the water then goes into the formation and actually breaks up that rock.  It puts almost microscopic fractures about the width of a sheet of paper in the rock.  Once that happens that's what stimulates that gas.  The gas follows the path of least resistance into the well bore and then flows for several decades afterwards.

[RAY WALKER] Started out everything we did didn't work

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Several decades earlier ranges Ray Walker, Vice President of operations here worked in the conventional natural gas business.  He had a front row seat as it turned unconventional.

[RAY WALKER] We all laughed about it, thought it was a big joke.  It was completely unconventional to anything we've done before

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Walker was first approach by Mitchell Energy in 1982.  Owner George Mitchell was the first to attempt unconventional drilling in Texas' Barnett Shale and it took a quarter century to make it work.  Today, the Barnett is the largest producing gas field in the country.

[RAY WALKER] I give all the credit to George Mitchell because he just absolutely refused to give up and he had in his heart that it was going to be a commercial play and it was going to be a game changer and of course he was right.  

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Well horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing together have allowed U.S. natural gas producers to tap into vast amounts of new natural gas in the U.S?  When we come back, are those technologies have caught the attention of other countries including Norway, Italy, China and Germany bringing their experts here to learn how its done

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[MALE SPEAKER] You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.  There are thousands of teens in foster care who would love to put up with you.

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[SUSAN MCGINNIS] Welcome back to Clean Skies Sunday. We've been telling you the story about U.S. natural gas found in shale formations around the country and how uniquely American technology has allowed producers to tap into that natural gas and change the U.S. energy picture.  Well now, we continue our story with a look at how producers around the globe want to tap into that uniquely American Technology.  We pick up with Professor Gary Lash of SUNY Fredonia.

Lash recently hosted geologist from Nixon Corporation looking to develop shale in Columbia and Canada.

[GARY LASH] They want to learn more about shale on all levels to start to develop in those inóBritish Columbia is a place that people looking at now and the areas of Columbia.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Do any have a large potential there in Columbia?

[GARY LASH] In some of the youngeróyes they do.  Younger than the Marcellus, but the geology isn't going to be that different, it's just a younger version of the Marcellus.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Reid Detchon of the UN Foundation says companies worldwide are making deals now to take American know-how back home.

[REID DETCHON] What we're really seeing is foreign companies coming to the US to find out about our technology.  So BP and StatoilHydro have made major investments, for example in Chesapeake Energy, in order to get access to the technology.

[CHARLES EBINGER] Well, we've got visitors coming from all of the world to visit our 10 or 12 principal shale formation.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Charles Ebinger of the Brookings Institution says it's because of the potential for shales outside North America, for both gas and oil.

[CHARLES EBINGER] One addition to the United States and Canada, the large shale oil potential looks like it's in Norway and Russia, possibly in Hungary and Poland.  China looks very large, Australia, Indonesia, India, the great next region in Eastern Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Chile are certainly the major spots.

I should mention also in the Middle East, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that's very promising for shale gas.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] A recent agreement between the US and China to develop Shale gas was sealed by the heads of government.

[REID DETCHON] We're seeing a lot of interest in China about the Shale potential.  China is very concerned about its energy supplies, very concerned about dependents on the Middles East and on other areas for their very fast growing economy.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Detchon agrees there was vast potential worldwide.

[REID DETCHON] India is going to take a very keen interest in shale gas development.  They are also not well supplied with other resources.  And I think certainly in Europe, there's going to be a lot of interest in gas from the energy security perspective.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] What's the period of time over which willóthat will turn from promising into reality?

[CHARLES EBINGER] Within a decade.  Within a decade we'll see a lot of Shale Gas in a lot of these countries coming to market.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Estimates of just how much Shale Gas could be tapped outside North America very widely.

But one phase, it could be the equivalent of more than 200 years worth of natural gas consumption in the US at current demand levels and could possibly nearly 700 years worth.

Tony Meggs of MIT warns that science gives little certainty.  To find Shale he says, look where there's oil and gas now.

[TONY MEGGS] So wherever there are conventional deposits of oil and gas, in Russia, in the Middle East, in parts of Europe, other parts of the world, wherever there are conventional supplies, there will be shale gas.

Now some of these will be economic and producible, some of it won't, and until we get around to testing it, it's really too early to tell where the good deposits are going to lie.

So the answer is yes, there's a lot of gas and a lot of uncertainty.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Meggs says the best global assessment for unconventional reserves was done in the late 1990's estimating 35,000 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, tight gas, and coal bed methane.

[TONY MEGGS] So if that number was right, that would be 300 years worth of unconventional gas at current production rates.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] The prospect has both foreign companies coming to the US and American companies heading overseas.

[MALE SPEAKER] It's happening, Exxon's been looking in Poland and Hungary.  Conoco is one of the biggest shale gas drillers right now and they've got interest all of the world soóand Exxon in Australia,, near their Gorgon big LNG field, they now think there may be shale gas there as well.

[REID DETCHON] Well that shale isn't far out in Europe as well a number of European companies.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Few would call it a global drilling rush, certainly not of the magnitude that we see here.  But experts say if and when developed, global shale could unleash, gas resources never thought possible and could change the geopolitics of natural gas.

So this could really eventually, I don't know how far into the future, but render Russia powerless in the whole energy picture.

[ROB SOBHANI] Precisely.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Rob Sobhani of Caspien Energy Consulting says global shale could dramatically could improve Europe's ability to withstand cut-offs of Russian gas, the kind we've seen happen in recent payment disputes with Ukraine.

[ROB SOBHANI] And that's why the Russians are scrambling to tie up long-term market relationships with the Europeans through their various pipeline agreements into Europe, through their pipeline agreements with the Chinese.  And so Russia realizing that American innovation has become a game changer, is also scrambling so that it will now lose it's preeminence in the natural gas field.

[MALE SPEAKER] There are considerable imports coming into Europe from various places, particularly from Algeria, from Russia and actually a lot of gas coming from Norway which of course is part of Europe.

But the overall there's a net, very substantial imports.  So indigenous supplies from let's say Eastern Europe and France and other places have the potential to reduce the amount of imports from other countries.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] But Russia could gain as well.

[ROB SOBHANI] If Russia has as much shale gas as we know they have in conventional gas, I think it means that Russia is going to beóthey have the potential to be -- continue to be a major supplier to Western Europe and possibly even on a much bigger LNG exporter to the world market.

So from Russia's perspective, I think this is very good news from their security standpoint.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Some say Russia's shale and conventional natural gas supplies mean that it will continue to hold the same place to you politically.  Do you agree?

[REID DETCHON] Well I think that nobody can be dominant if there is abundant supply.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] In addition to the geopolitical changes, experts see environmental gains.

[MALE SPEAKER] The real benefit of more gas in the world is that it helps to spread out the energy usage across different sources, and also most importantly, gas is considerably clean than coal in particular.

So gas displacing coal in the energy system in term so of C02 output is a very good thing.

[SUSAN MCGINNIS] But the new technology brings new environmental concerns.  The millions of gallons of water used to each well.  An estimated 800,000 gallons returned to the surface, tainted with chemicals that could include lead, mercury and formaldehyde.

[REID DETCHON] There are important environmental questions that need to be addressed.  You're going to be drilling a lot of holes in the ground.  You're going to have to deal with a lot of waste water that is not very easy to dispose off.  In some places, surely the availability of water will be a constraint.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Still, experts say it will decades to develop shale globally and most shale gas will remain in the ground simply because there's so much conventional gas there that's cheaper to get out.

Elliott Gue of The Energy Strategist says price is one key to shale's future.

[ELLIOTT GUE] In order to develop the kind of domestic capacity to drill for shale that we have in the US, the domestic know-how in a lot of these countries, you're going to have to see gas prices to be a lot higher than they are today.

Right now, at current natural gas prices, who's going to go in a place like Pakistan and develop natural gas reserves when prices in around the world are so low?  You also have a lot of LNG capacity coming on stream, liquefaction capacity, export capacity coming on stream over the next 18 to 24 months.

A lot of these countries have major LNG import capacity.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] But with climate legislation working it's way through congress and a global treaty near completion, natural gas may have a bigger role in the global energy future.

[MALE SPEAKER] There was great opportunity to increase the use of natural gas over the next few years.  Where it off-sets frankly, old and inefficient coal fire power stations, that's a very quick win in terms of C02 reduction.

I think that 's a great opportunity, but it mustn't be the only thing we do.  We need to continue to develop carbon capturing storage, continue to develop wind, etc.  So it's a balanced portfolio of activities.  It is certainly the case that an extra amount of gas, this great sort of resource that has been recently discovered and developed buys a little a time, creates more options and it 's something that could be used relatively quickly.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Other experts agree.

[ELLIOTT GUE] I think it is certainly the game changer of the 21st century and it would be the best thing that could happen to the United States in terms of energy independence.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] Many of these talks do reach an agreement, a formal treaty, you do see gas as a winner?

[MALE SPEAKER] Gas will be a winner absolutely.

[SUSAN McGINNIS] An MIT report on natural gas released over the summer predicts that natural gas will provide an increasing share of US energy needs over the next several decades, increasing its share of the energy market to 40% from 20 right now, with shale a big part of that reason.

Longer term though, it does predict a dimmer future for natural gas if green house gas regulations cut the C02 that's allowed into the atmosphere that is the goal of the White House.

And that does it for us, for this edition of  Clean Skies Sunday, I'm Susan McGinnis.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, we'll see you right here next Sunday morning and until then, we'll see you at Cleanskies.com, also you can find us on Twitter and Facebook.  Have a great day.

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