Gasland Part II Page #11

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than other fossil fuels and it's

a good transitional fuel.

So we tested that,

and the answer is, well, no, it's not.

The White House has

clearly bought into this idea

that natural gas is part

of the solution

to moving us gradually

off of fossil fuels.

I don't think they did that

with good science.

We estimate

that somewhere between

3.6% and 7.9% of the total

amount of gas produced

over the lifetime of

a well is emitted to the atmosphere as methane.

There's a continual leakage at

the well head, there's leakage

from the storage

and processing facilities,

purposeful venting,

also accidental leaks.

They throw it into

the pipeline systems and the distribution systems

and storage systems--

there's leakage in all of those.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

Global warming is caused by greenhouse gases

emitted from

fossil fuel burning.

When you burn coal,

you get a lot of CO2.

When you burn natural gas,

you get about half as much,

but methane is the second-most

important greenhouse gas,

and it's 105 times more potent

at trapping heat in

the short 20-year timeframe.

Bob Howarth's research shows

when you add up the methane

escaping into the atmosphere,

the fugitive emissions,

and the CO2 from fracked gas,

it makes it the worst fuel

for global warming.

There's only one planet,

you know.

We're doing the experiment

now of how global warming is going to work.

We're sitting in this bowl,

you know, this--we're down here

at the bottom, and the climate

goes back and forth

within some regime,

year by year.

The worry is that,

in warming, it'll switch up

and go over into some

other bowl over here,

and you'll have a dramatically

different planet and that,

once you've switched

from this stable regime

over to there, there's

no easy way to get back.

You don't suddenly start

reducing your greenhouse gas emissions

and go back up

over this hill, back to the way things used to be.

You're over there,

in a new universe.

If you believe that we might be

approaching a tipping point

over the next couple

of decades, then you need to be really careful

about pumping methane--that's

such a potent greenhouse gas

in the short timeframe--

into the atmosphere.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
Frank Finan,

a woodworker near Dimock,

surrounded by gas wells,

bought a FLIR camera--

a camera that can see methane

undetectable to the naked eye.

FOX:
When I heard that

for the first time, I said, "Who is this guy?

He bought a FLIR camera?

Is he out of his mind?"

Yeah, I was.

I was out of my mind. [Clears throat]

Things like this

will put you out of your mind.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
He started

to discover what Bob Howarth had calculated--

methane exploding into the air

in huge clouds

out of fracking sites.

FRANK FINAN:
And then

it occurred to me it was like Disneyland

compared just to

the world, and now it's not anymore.

For some people,

it still is.

For some people,

we're just a story in the news.

[Scoffs]

You know, I'm a woodworker.

Why does a woodworker

have all this equipment?

So don't tell me

this is not your job. FOX: Yeah.

Step out of your box.

Go where you've never

been before.

Yeah.

The times have changed.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
One night,

I went out with him,

but this time, we didn't need

the FLIR camera.

[Siren blaring]

[Gas hissing]

FINAN:
Yeah,

going in the air.

FOX:
Huh?

I just don't believe it.

Look through

your window on this side.

It's something,

isn't it?

Whoa! That one--

did you see that one? It just went out.

Shooting methane

up in the air.

[Hissing continues]

MAN:
Oh, dude, it's right

behind somebody's house.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:
This is

what Bob was talking about...

methane venting straight up

into the atmosphere.

There had to be a better way.

So we did a study looking

at the possibility of powering the entire world

for all purposes

with clean, renewable energy.

And among those that

we considered beside--

was wind, concentrated

solar power,

solar photovoltaics,

geothermal power,

hydroelectric power,

tidal power, and wave power.

And we find that

there's enough wind power in fast wind locations

to power the world

5 to 10 times over.

FOX:
Just the wind?

Just the wind.

The red is--the more red

it is, the faster the wind speed.

Wow.

And the more blue, the slower, so you can see

the Great Plains

of the U.S. has a lot of wind resource.

And offshore, the East Coast

has a huge amount of resource, plus it's shallow.

And then we looked at

can we match power demand, or supply with demand,

and found that by bundling

resources together--

because the wind doesn't

always blow and the sun doesn't always shine,

but it turns out, based

on physical laws of nature,

when the wind is not

blowing, the sun is often shining.

And if you take those

two resources and then use

hydroelectric to fill in

the gaps between them,

you can match almost

all supply with demand...

Uh-huh.

in places that have reasonable hydroelectric resources.

FOX:
We don't need

to drill for natural gas is what you're saying?

No, we don't need--

there's no need

to drill for gas,

for coal, for oil.

We have sufficient

resources that are clean and renewable.

It's not necessary.

Natural gas is just

not necessary

in solving this problem.

FOX, VOICE-OVER:

It occurred to me that looking at the root of the problem,

I was going to have to try

to investigate something that no one wanted to talk about.

I called all 500-and-change

members of Congress.

15 people answered the call.

We have no energy policy

in the United States

to take us out of

our energy predicament.

What we do in this country,

unfortunately, is lurch

from one golden dream

to another.

So, right now, it looks,

in so many people's minds

on Capitol Hill,

"Well, natural gas.

Oh, that's what we've been

looking for," you know,

"Why didn't we think

of this before?"

All that's getting

across is this new,

large reserve that's going

to be so easy to tap.

The oil companies don't--

on some of these matters, don't even need to lobby.

FOX:
Right.

Because it's just...

not questioned.

FOX:
...interested

in hearing about

is the influence of oil

and gas on Congress. Oh, yeah.

Influence? Heh!

Try "ownership." Ha ha ha! Really?

Would you care

to elaborate?

Have we started yet

already? We have started.

Oh, OK. Sorry.

I was just chatting.

In Washington,

I have seen...

committee meeting

after committee meeting

where a great many members

just read the same talking points

that are exactly

the same thing that the industry witnesses are saying.

FOX:
People are out there

battling for their homes,

and they're trying

to make their case here in Washington

for the Safe Drinking

Water Act, for the Clean Water Act,

for the Clean Air Act,

the Super Fund Law.

Essentially, they have

a lesser voice, is that what you're saying,

on Capitol Hill,

than the corporations?

I'm saying that corporations

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