Natural Gas Sustainability Program FAQs

A: Halliburton Company pioneered hydraulic fracturing in the 1940s, and the technique has been used to extract oil and gas for decades.

Mr. Mitchell is an early pioneer of shale gas discovery and production. Mr. Mitchell and his company, Mitchell Energy & Development Corporation, are credited for making shale gas extraction commercially viable through the development of technologies that combined hydraulic fracturing with horizontal drilling. He is considered an elder statesman in the natural gas industry and continues to take a leadership role in addressing the challenges of shale gas production.  

David Brooks, an opinion columnist for The New York Times, has referred to Mr. Mitchell as a “business genius” who helped offer the United States a wondrous gift—fighting through waves of skepticism and opposition to extract natural gas from shale. 

A: Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technologies enable the production of significant natural gas resources trapped in shale formations. These relatively new resources provide, for the first time, the opportunity to produce enough quantities of natural gas to stabilize prices and supplies for the production of power across the United States and for the restoration of American natural gas-based manufacturing.

By maximizing energy efficiency and renewables and increasing responsibly produced gas power for generation, importantly, there is an opportunity, in relation to coal-fired power, to reduce carbon outputs, toxic air emissions, and water use from the power system. In addition, if community and environmental impact issues of hydraulic fracturing are resolved, and shale gas can be developed to meet electric power and industrial manufacturing needs, gas development has the opportunity to stimulate significant investments and job creation in many regions of the U.S.

A: With Mr. Mitchell’s position in the natural gas industry and science circles, the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation is able to lend its voice—and be heard above the rhetoric about natural gas and hydraulic fracturing—to the ongoing dialogue and debate about the development of this important energy resource.  

As such, an opportunity has emerged to leverage Mr. Mitchell’s unique ties to the natural gas industry and the foundation’s solid relationships with environmental organizations, funders, and leading universities to develop a high-impact, credible, and effective campaign to help figure out effective, sustainable solutions to the challenges of shale gas development and production while capturing the energy, environment, and economic benefits of the fuel.

A: The foundation is confident that natural gas can be produced and used sustainably, although the following guidelines would need to be met for the foundation to be fully supportive of the production and use of shale gas and hydraulic fracturing

1. production of natural gas with 1 percent or less methane leakage;
2. full integration of renewable resources with gas on the grid; and
3. mitigation of current negative environmental and social impacts.

The negative impacts of shale gas and hydraulic fracturing are still being studied and characterized.  The foundation’s perspective is that any negative consequences from the use of these technologies can be feasibly and economically managed with well-designed regulations—control technologies already exist to address most known impacts.  The key is to establish appropriate guidelines that require operators to implement rigorous well integrity standards, capture methane leakage, and reduce air emissions from associated drilling operations.

The use of sustainable natural gas, paired with renewables, is a viable fuel mix that is healthier than coal for electricity production.   Once significant impacts from shale gas development are mitigated, the use of natural gas and renewables for electricity production has far fewer air quality impacts and uses significantly less water than coal-fired generation.  Overall, with consistent implementation of drilling regulations, natural gas and renewables provides us with the most economical path forward in cleaner electricity production.

A: The goal of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation’s Natural Gas Sustainability Program is to support the emerging regulatory, industry, community, and academic efforts to reduce the negative environmental and community impacts of shale gas development and hydraulic fracturing while capturing the energy, environmental, and economic benefits of the fuel. 

A: Fortunately, the ability of natural gas power plants to cycle their output up and down to match the variability of wind and solar energy means that utilities can buy wind and solar power without also having to purchase costly backup power.

Theoretically, using natural gas for baseload fuel could make it more economical for electric utilities to use renewables and could make proponents of renewable energy strong supporters of putting more gas into America's electric power systems, thereby reducing reliance on coal resources. However, this natural fit between gas and renewables is threatened because in some parts of the country, including Texas, wind and gas are competing to provide added power to local utilities.

Wind and solar resources compete with gas to provide non-baseload power while coal remains the baseload supply and is less affected by added renewable generation. A substantive review of how the power system can be optimized to take advantage of both renewables and gas simultaneously needs to be undertaken.

A: The foundation’s Natural Gas Sustainability Program will implement a number of solution-driven tactics, including:

1. a meta-analysis of all methane studies completed to date, including studies due to be completed this year, all to build a framework to better understand the wide variation in results in estimates of methane leakage rates;
2. a comprehensive analysis of the market structure, pricing, and technological barriers to better integration of renewables and gas in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) system;
3. a collaborative and inclusive effort to design an incremental improvement in the regulatory scheme for oil and gas operations in Texas, which we believe is needed because regulations have not kept pace with the technological improvements in the industry, including hydraulic fracturing.

A: The goal of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation’s model regulation initiative is to incrementally improve Texas’s oil and gas regulations so that they address the industry’s advanced production capabilities. With this action, the state of Texas will have the most aggressive regulations for natural gas and hydraulic fracturing in the world.

Texas’s thought leadership in the industry can be exported to other major natural gas producing states and other countries, resulting in a sustainable natural gas product and production technology in Texas and throughout the world.

A: The foundation utilizes its connections to the industry, environmental community, and academia to collaboratively address natural gas and hydraulic fracturing challenges -- strategically and pragmatically address gaps in research, advocacy, and regulations to accomplish the goal of determining if natural gas can be produced sustainably.

The foundation approaches these challenges and the process of addressing them without an established agenda of either promoting or halting natural gas production.

A: The unresolved challenges related to natural gas shale development can be divided into two broad categories.  

The first set of questions involves natural gas as a fuel source.  

The questions are related to determining 

1. to what extent fugitive methane emissions (unique to shale gas development and transport) occur and how these emissions can be minimized; and  
2. to what extent natural gas shale displaces renewable energy and energy efficiency in the dispatch order on the grid and how this displacement can be minimized.

The second set of questions involves the impact of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to develop shale gas (as well as shale liquids) and how these impacts are unique to unconventional production technology.

These technologies have a distinct footprint on the environment and communities, but the scale and character of these impacts ARE NOT definitively characterized. Impacts include

1. surface water and groundwater pollution;
2. air emissions;
3. land changes; and
4. community confusion/discontent.

A: The primary issues related to natural gas shale production and use that must be addressed include

1. the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) profile of production and distribution should be better understood and addressed. Due to its long­term impact on climate, methane leakage must be 1 percent or less;
2. water quantity impacts must be objectively characterized and better managed;
3. water quality impacts and the technologies to address them must be objectively studied and developed;
4. air emissions profiles of dense development, their leakage points, and related health impacts must be investigated and mitigated;
5. appropriate regulatory schemes (in each geographic region) that eliminate loopholes for operators—regardless of size—need to be improved or developed; and
6. the economic and technological barriers to integrating energy efficiency and coupling renewable resources and natural gas to displace coal in power production must be overcome to maximize the benefits of reducing coal use.

The aforementioned challenges need to be addressed in ways that support existing community and economic values, strengthen current credible local and regional interests, and makes large-­scale gas development acceptable.