Science Project

8th Grade Fall 2011 Mrs. Dunphys Class

New York Times In North Dakota, Flames of Wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie Clifford Krauss

Introduction
Reading my morning paper, I came across a news article in the New York Times, discussing topics relevant to my eighth grade science class. We were currently finishing up a unit on Earth Science, and I thought this would make a great end of unit project. The article, by Clifford Krauss, titled In North Dakota, Flames of wasted Natural Gas Light the Prairie, highlighted the effects of burning the natural gas instead of harnessing it, not to mention the negative effects of emitting CO2 into the environment. This article was in direct relation to what we just finished in class talking about greenhouse gases. I felt that, with our recent discussions in class, they had enough background information to understand the article. The article starts of by painting a picture in the readers eyes on what the flames look like across the night sky of the prairie, and then delves into the topic of concern: burning natural gas. It discusses how much energy we are wasting and how much effect we are having on the atmosphere. The statement, Everyday, more than 100 million cubic feet of natural gas is flared this wayenough energy to heat half a million homes for a day. Then it discusses exactly how much carbon dioxide is being emitted, by telling the readers that the Carbon dioxide emitted is equivalent to the amount of CO2 384,000 cars put off in a year. The article continues with government regulations in other parts of the country and how they deal with the natural gas emissions. Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio all use a process called hydraulic fracturing and have very little regulations on limiting the flaring. It concludes by giving an example of a state that harnesses the natural gas and explains that they have a goal of zero gas emissions while currently at 20 percent. The final statement sums the major claim of the article, You can do it fast or you can do it right. For my students to best understand the articles topic, I split the class up into four groups. Each group was assigned to a piece of information that was relevant to the topic and relevant to class content. Major Claims of the Article: Hydraulic Fracturing is a cause for concern in relation to water quality.

Burning Natural gas is a waste and an environmental hazard.

The topics given to the students were centered so that they may understand the major claims of the article. The topics were as follows: Bakken Shale Formation and other Shale formations: Shale Oil Production of Oil Shale: Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling Environmental Impact 1: Water Quality Environmental Impact 2: Natural Gas Burning After groups presented their topics as a class we wrote a letter to the President of the nation, addressing our concern as citizens.

Group Ones Findings

What is the Bakken Shale Formation? How is it created? How is it processed? What are some of the other Shale Formations in the US?

Group Ones Presentation consisted of a power point that discussed what they found. They found the following: The Shale formations are sediment that has not yet turned into crude oil. The natural forces havent been applied to it. Shale Oil is a younger form of crude oil. Shale is sedimentary rock, meaning it is in the form of layers. There are different types of Shale that are used for different reasons. The shale that we are discussing is black shale. Black shale is the form of shale typically called oil shale that can be broken down into natural gas and oil. Two types of oil can be taken from the shale: Conventional Oil and Unconventional. o Conventional Oil is what we normally see. The oil comes up directly through the pores of the sediment and can be extracted. The grey represent impermeable shale that traps the oil in between. The yellow is sand stone that allows the oil to flow freely through pores making it easily accessible. o Unconventional Oil is the kind of oil that is still in the pores of the impermeable shale sediment that has to be extracted in a different way. Different Shale formations in the US o Bakken Shale (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota: New York Times article) o Barnett Shale (Texas) o Marcellus Shale (Appellations) o Haynesville Shale (Louisiana) o Fayetteville Shale (Arkansas Other use of shale is to produce clay and cement.

Sources for Group 1: http://geology.com/rocks/shale.shtml Department of Energy

Group Twos Findings:

What is Hydraulic Fracturing? What is Horizontal Drilling? Show a diagram of Hydraulic Fracturing Where else, other than in North Dakota, is this currently happening?

Group Twos presentation was a trifold visual describing Hydraulic Fracturing. They also showed the class a YouTube Video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0kmskvJFt0 They found the following: According to the EPA, Hydraulic fracturing is a well stimulation process used to maximize the extraction of underground resources; including oil, natural gas, geothermal energy, and even water. In the case of the Bakken Shale, they use HF to extract oil from the shale. The process with the extraction wells and there are two types of well: o Vertical drilling 100-1000s of feet below the surface. These are needed in every well system o Horizontal drilling that is combined with vertically wells to cover more ground After the wells are put in place chemicals and water are flown through the wells at high pressure causing fractures to occur in the sediment. Once the sediment is broken a substance is pumped into t he fractures to keep them from closing. When the process is done the fluids that were put in initially rise back to the top. These fluids are called flow back. They get recycled or disposed of into the surface water or into the ground.

This is currently being done in: o Bakken Shale (Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota: New York Times article) o Barnett Shale (Texas) o Marcellus Shale (Appellations) o Haynesville Shale (Louisiana) o Fayetteville Shale (Arkansas Sources: Environmental Protection Agency http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/class2/hydraulicfracturing/wells_hydro what.cfm YouTube: Video Called Horizontal Drilling and Hydraulic Fracturing

Group Threes Findings

What environmental impact does the drilling have on the water quality? What are we doing to prevent anything happening?

Group three presented using a power point. They found the following: North Dakota and the Midwest holds one of the largest aquifers in the world. The wells being produced around this aquifer poses high risk in contaminating this aquifer. Denver Post stated, Oil and gas operations take place many thousands of feet below the surface. There are multiple layers of protection in place to guard against intrusions in to water producing rock formations. Oil companies say that it is completely safe. Hydraulic Fracturing uses 3 to 7 million gallons of water in each well Many of the shale oil drilling takes water from watersheds, which are our fresh water sources. Creating wells and expanding development increases the risk for drought If hydraulic fracturing is done properly then water quality is a very low risk for contamination For the example of New York, test are done on the water prior to drilling so that if contamination happens it is only caused by the drill and are considered guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around. The highest risk for water quality is if something goes wrong; Gas spills, pipelines leaking, methane gas leak into to watershed and numerous more risks are at stake.

Places like New York, Colorado, and Texas have very high regulations on protecting water quality EPA regulates North Dakota, as with all states, every step of the well making process: building the well, maintenance, monitoring, testing, and closing of the well to ensure the safest possible way of keeping the water clean. It is the same as the Oil spill in the Gulf. When something goes wrong, and it is possible everyday for something to go wrong, it can be catastrophic. It can harm people, animals, and our environment. It is agreed that the water quality is in jeopardy, like the article states, however, it would seem that after everything we learned they have a sufficient amount of protection to prevent bad things from happening.

Sources: North Dakota Department of Health and EPA http://www.ndhealth.gov/WQ/GW/uic.htmes: Cornell College Research Journal http://www.cce.cornell.edu/EnergyClimateChange/NaturalGasDev/Documents/ City%20and%20Regional%20Planning%20Student%20Papers/CRP5072_Wat er%20Quality%20Final%20Report.pdf Denver Post www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_13961683

Group Four Findings:

What environmental impact does burning the gas cause? What are ways to prevent this hazard? How much energy is wasted why burning the gas? Is it true that it is better to burn it than to do nothing?

Presented their research using multiple visuals and PowerPoint. They found the following: New York Times article claims that is better to burn the natural gas than to just allow it to be released in pure form. Agreed. The Natural gas that is being emitted from theses wells is Methane. It is better to burn the methane, which converts it to CO2. CO2 is weaker greenhouses gas than methane. Greenhouse effect is like a greenhouse we see here on earth. The greenhouse lets in light from the sun and heats up the air in the

greenhouse. Once it is heated up the glass traps the warm air in. This happens to our Earth. The sun warms the Earth up and releases some heat back into space. The atmosphere helps us hold in the heat. At night, Earth's surface cools; the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap the heat, but some of the heat is released back into the air. The earth is getting warmer and warmer because we are putting more and more greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere causing the heat to get trapped. The flaring of the methane gas is emitting, according to the New York Times article, at least two million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. 384,000 cars or a medium size coal fired plant would emit! The worst part about this is that not only are we hurting our earth, but we are wasting too much energy that we could be using instead. The article is right. We need to fix this issue. The article tells us that 30 percent of the gas is burned as waste! No other major domestic oil field currently flares close to that much. says Clifford Krauss from the New York Times. The natural gas that is being wasted every day could heat a half a million homes a day. It doesnt make sense that they claim they just cant do anything about flaring ight now, because many other companies are capturing the natural gas and using it. Companies in Colorado, Texas, and New York. This means it is doable, and we should have more regulations across the country to stop the waste and harming the environment. Amy Mall, a Senior Policy Analyst, in Washington, D.C., Stated, Right now, toxic waste generated by the oil and gas industry is not subject to federal hazardous waste regulations. Thanks to a special loophole, it is instead treated like non-toxic waste, even though the pits are notorious for having problems, and have contaminated drinking water around the country. She also said that flaring causes serious harm to wildlife. Sources: Amy Mall http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/ USA Today http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/09/ndakota-gas-flaring-raises-energy-pollution-issues/1 New York Times Article NASA for kids http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/bigQuestions/greenhouseEffect/

Letter to the President of the United States of America

Mrs. Dunphys 8th Grade Class Oakdale Community School District James Town, ND

Mr. President 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500

Dear President,

My name is Maggie Sanders, a student in Mrs. Dunphys eighth grade science class. I have been selected to speak for my class as a whole and represent our concern for this country and the world. It was brought to our attention, in a New York Times article that our teacher brought in, that places like North Dakota are flaring natural gas and treating it as waste. For a science project we were assigned different topics covered in the article to better understand what is happening. Through our group projects we became well informed about this issue. We learned that the Bakken Shale in North Dakota is an important resource for us to get off the use of foreign oil, and we learned that the hydraulic fracturing is an overall safe and efficient way to produce this oil. However, we also learned that this process produces a byproduct: natural gas called methane. Instead of harnessing this we are burning it and wasting. This is a cause for concern for us, because of what we are learning in class. There are two reasons why we think that flaring gas is a bad idea. First, we shouldnt do it because burning methane releases harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and secondly because it is wasting energy. If our goal is to get more energy wouldnt it make more sense to capture the gas and use it as something useful instead of wasting it irresponsibly. If we, as a an eighth grade class, can understand why this is irresponsible, than we are hoping that you can understand too. We believe, as the article discussed, their needs to be more regulation on flaring. We ask that you take the time to review this issue and make regulations to stop flaring. If we stop flaring than we not only will have another form of energy we can use, but we can also help our environment. Our future as a generation depends on you.

Thank You. Sincerely,

Maggie Sanders Mrs. Dunphys Eighth Grade Science Class

Reflection of Project:
I am very pleased with the outcome of this project. I am helping create concerned citizens, stewards of the environment and managers of our planets limited resources. I am also pleased to find that my class found this topic engaging and that they enjoyed finding the information. It was nice to see that they agreed with the article I brought in and that they were motivated to find out more about it. The article was relevant to class topics, which made it all possible. I can see myself in the future always looking for articles relating to the environment and try and connect it to the content we are covering in class. ***** I am actually interested in what it would be like to do a project like this. I obviously wrote this with a very open mind in an ideal setting. But like I said I am interested in using this in the future. I probably wouldnt go as far as encouraging a letter to the president, but if they came up with that I would be willing to help.