Horizon (1964–…): Season 49, Episode 15 - Fracking: The New Energy Rush - full transcript

I'm Iain Stewart and I'm
on the trail of what is perhaps

the most important geological
story right now.

The quest for a new source of power
found deep beneath the earth...

..which could change the lives
of us all.

Its discovery has sparked
a rush for energy in America...

..for a type of gas that appears
cheap and plentiful.

And with just one way of getting
it out the ground -

hydraulic fracturing,
or "fracking".

What is this energy lifeline
that's shaping up to be

the saviour of America?

As a geologist I want to know what
it means for the planet, and for us.



'I'm going to meet some of the
people who have become rich from

'this new energy rush.'

This one here looks like a vehicle
bought with gas money.

We see something we want, we buy it.

'And the communities
who are worried about the potential

'risks of fracking.'

Oh, gosh, look at that!

Would I want to drink that
every day? Yeah.

If I lived in this house,
absolutely not.

'I've come to America to find out
what fracking is,

'why it's a potential game-changer

'and to see what we in Britain can
learn from the American experience.'

MUSIC: "Ain't Wastin' Time No More"
by The Allman Brothers

'I'm starting off in the eastern
state of Pennsylvania.



'The people here have long looked
to the rocks that surround them

'for new sources of power
and wealth.'

What's wonderful about geology,
really, is this feeling

that you can read the rocks,
read the landscape,

every valley and hill tells
a story about the planet's past.

And if you go back far enough,

this region here was once
swampy forest.

And that's left its legacy in the
thick coal deposits that underlie

this area, that's made
Pennsylvania famous, made it rich.

And that's the point, really,
is that the towns

and cities that have flourished
here in the past,

their success was down to the rocks
and the minerals beneath their feet.

'The glory days of coal lie
in the past here,

'but the people are now returning to
the earth for a new

'and controversial source of power.

'It too comes from deep
underground.'

There it is.

'And it's starting to make
the state rich once again.'

Just glinting through
the trees there.

That's what I've come to see,
a live drilling platform.

There's something like a thousand
of these drilling sites

scattered across Pennsylvania

because this site is
the epicentre of an industrial

renaissance in America, one that's
creating tens of thousands of jobs,

because things like these are
looking for a new form of energy.

For some, the great
hope of the future - shale gas.

'It doesn't come out easily,
this shale gas,

'but a new form of extraction,
a new technology has made it
possible to collect.

'It's called hydraulic fracturing,
or "fracking."

'And we're all going to be hearing
a lot more about it.'

Let me try and convey to you what
hydraulic fracturing is.

If you imagined that this here is
the ground surface, where we

are standing now,
and that this is a drill.

The drill goes down vertically
and it's going down ultimately about

two miles but the point is that when
it gets down at depth, it can do

something really clever, starts to
bend round and it goes horizontal.

And then what happens is you
inject down millions of gallons

of water, tonnes of sand, some
chemicals all the way down here,

and that fractures open naturally
occurring cracks in the rock

and you create these fracks,
and that allows gas that's been

locked away in the rock to leak out
and then move back to the surface.

'This tangle of high-pressure pipes
is the reason we're now able

'to extract the gas.

'Because drilling on its own
doesn't release the gas.

'It's trapped in the rocks.

'You need to pump water under very
high pressure deep underground.

'That fractures the bedrock
and the gas can then be collected

'and pumped to the surface.

'It's a big engineering project
and it's only possible

'because of millions
of gallons of water

'and chemicals that are added
to keep the process lubricated.'

What's really clever is you can
do that again and again.

You can have another well
that comes down and does that,

another one that comes across
this way, another one here.

You could do 10, 20, whatever.

And so it's this combination
of horizontal drilling

and also this hydraulic fracturing
of rock that has created

this gas revolution.

'What all of this has
done is given us

'access to vast reserves of gas
we previously could not reach,

'and that has led to
a full-scale dash for gas.'

This is a ten-well pad, we have
ten wells on this particular pad,

six of which go out this way

and four of which go out that way.

So how far would they go?

Would they go beyond that hill
there? Oh, much further.
Really? Yeah.

Way, way beyond there.

It's about a mile-and-a-half long
outward under the ground

and about a mile-and-a-half deep.
Right.

You know, it's the scale of it.

I'm looking round,
I can just see stuff everywhere.

I mean, huge amounts of water,
of sand,

of material - of labour, as well,
going into these things.

They are huge investments
aren't they?

There is, there's a lot.

There's great investment
that takes place.

This frack spread probably cost
anywhere from $30 million to
$50 million

to put on just for the capital.

'But as a geologist,

'I'm interested in how they've been
able to achieve all this.

'And the technology that's made it
possible in the first place.'

So what are we looking at?

The top of the grey, that's
essentially the ground level, is it?

The top of the grey is essentially
the ground level.

And then that's the drill hole
coming down?

'They can identify with pinpoint
accuracy the fracks that occurred

'deep underground when high pressure
water is injected into the shale.'

They're the pops and the cracks
that occurred as we stimulated

the reservoirs, so we had geophones
down the well bores listening

to it so that we could then locate
where all this was happening.

So you can hear the pops
seven thousand feet below you?

That's incredible, isn't it?
Look at that.

And it gives us an idea as to how
much of the rock we've stimulated

so we can figure out just about
how much of an area we're

going to drain with the natural gas
coming back through the well bore.

What I find extraordinary is
this is you imaging things,

tiny things going on, thousands
of feet beneath our kind of feet?

Yeah, exactly, it's pretty cool.

And it's actually
a kind of subterranean world that

really no-one else sees.

You're the only person,
people that really see this?

The first time you see
the 3-D seismic is the first time

anyone's actually ever seen
what the geology looks like
7,000, 8,000 feet under the earth.

'The United States has been leading
the quest to extract shale gas.

'You can quickly see why some might
find it attractive.

'It's unlocked a new
source of power from the planet.

'But shale gas is not unique
to America.

'Other countries, including Britain,
are looking to follow.

'And to better understand the nature
of shale, I've returned home...

'..to the Peak District,
in Derbyshire.

'As ever, we're drawing upon
pockets of energy laid down

'millions of years ago, which
stretch right across the planet.'

So, to explore the origins of shale,
I'm going underground.

I love places like this.

I think it's why I became
a geologist actually, the idea of

exploring the nooks and crannies of
the planet, you know, kind of

peeling back the skin
and just diving in,
understanding how things work.

And also that feeling that
you're seeing a world,

a hidden world, that very few other
people see or appreciate.

You know, we're only
50 metres below the surface

but we've gone back
350 million years.

'All that time ago,
where I'm walking now,

'in fact, the rocks beneath
what we call the Midlands,

'was at the bottom
of a warm, tropical sea.

'A sea crucial to the story
of shale gas,

'and evidence for that ancient,
vanished water world is everywhere.'

This is such a great place!

Every so often, you get these
tantalising glimpses

of how the rock used to be,
forensic clues, if you like.

I mean, they're everywhere
and there's a really nice bit,

actually, there's a cracker
just here.

I'm going to get muddy now, but...
see if I can get up here.

Look at this! Look at that!

You can see this texture here
amid all this smearing

and that is a huge, branching coral.

Look at how it goes. That's huge.

And lots and lots of debris,
shale debris around.

In the modern seas, coral reefs are

the centrepieces of
marine eco-systems

and they were exactly the same
350 million years ago.

This tells us that the carboniferous
seas were just teeming with life.

'But it wasn't just the sea
that was rich with life.

'The land was, too.

'It was covered in
tropical rainforest,

'with lush vegetation
and trees up to a hundred feet high.

'Plant life which is equally
important to the story of shale.'

The nearest coast was
over in that direction.

There was lagoons and swamps

and a huge delta that kind of swept
decaying tree and plant material

down into this,
which would have been the ocean.

I've got a sample of rock that
you would find here. Look at this.

You can see all the plant
material, the leaves,

the ferns, absolutely gorgeous.

And so you've got all this decaying
plant material deposited

alongside decaying sea creatures
like we saw in the cave

and plankton and bacteria,
and they all become this

kind of organic mush that ends up
embedded in this shale rock.

So inside this shale rock
you've got

these little pockets
of organic material

that gets cooked up
and transformed into shale gas,

and it's this shale gas
that's getting touted as
the saviour of the planet.

'I want to see for myself
this ancient rock that contains

'the shale gas.

'So I'm off to visit
a fellow geologist

'who really knows this rock.

'In a series of warehouses,

'the British Geological Survey
keeps 250 kilometres of core samples

'from wells
and boreholes all over Britain.

'Brought down from a dusty
top corner is the rock
we're all talking about.'

So is this it,
this is the shale rock?

Yeah. Oh, look at that.
It's pretty heavy.

It IS heavy. So this has been taken
out of a drill hole

going down what depth roughly
for this stuff?

This one's down to about 500 metres,

so about half a kilometre
below the surface.

I guess that's why it's
so compact? The layers are kind of
squeezed in.

Yes, it's been crushed by a whole
lot of rock, weighing down on it

over a very long period of time, so
it's pretty hard and compact stuff.

The thing is the rocks
that I normally associate with

having gas in them are kind of sands
and you can see the pores

but here, completely different
thing, isn't it?

Yeah, this is so compact, so fine.
You can't see anything.

It's hard to believe
there's gas in it at all.

It's incredible, isn't it?

'There's only one way to see
what's trapped within the rock.

'By scanning wafer-thin samples
with a focused beam of electrons,

'images are produced
of the hidden world inside.'

So we've got a scanning
electron-microscope image here,

a live picture, in fact,
of a piece of shale.

The darker things here are probably
plant material.

This might be a spore, for example,
here, and what you're seeing here

on these small, dark grey areas
are pores, or holes between
the particles,

and it's in these holes or pores
that the gas actually collects.

Tiniest little pinpricks of space
inside this really compact rock.

Yeah, we're only
talking about a micron across

so a thousandth of a millimetre
across. Very, very small.

'This is the stuff that
drilling companies are after,

'essentially natural gas,
but stuck in solid rock,

'sometimes several kilometres
beneath the surface of the earth.

'No wonder it takes all that
high-pressure water to get it out.

'Shale gas isn't just found in
remote deserts or beneath the sea,

'places far away from our homes.

'It's found under our back yards.

'So it's not only an issue for
the energy companies, it involves

'whole communities and there seems
to be winners and losers.'

# On the other side of Jordan

# There's construction
on a mansion just for me... #

Here in Louisiana,
in America's Deep South,

some appear to have benefited.

'It has at times transformed
the lives of ordinary farmers

'because in the US, you can own
the gas that lies under your land.'

This whole region is sitting
directly on top of the shale rock

and it's the gas from that shale
that's made

some of the farmers here
millionaires overnight,

or as they're referred to here,
"shaleionaires."

So what was the kind of sum,
then, that you got?

Well, I've got a copy of this...

You've got a copy of what...?
The cheque that they gave me!

Let's have a look at that.

And there it is,
well, it's like $434,000.

$434,000.

I don't think I've seen
a figure as much, as high as that.

'CB Leatherwood has
made his fortune by selling

'drilling rights on his farm.

'And now the wells are producing,
that lump sum is topped up

'by a steady stream of royalty
cheques popping into his mailbox.'

And this right here is onions.

Spring onions, I recognise those.
Oh, yeah.

'He's given money to his children

'and it allows CB to live the life
that he's always dreamed of.'

I have about 30 mules
and, I believe, seven horses.

Got one for every occasion.

This is nice, isn't it?

This one here looks like a vehicle
bought with gas money.

Tell me, this one's beautiful.

A Lincoln town car.
We see something we want, we buy it.

So what do you put all this
good fortune down to?

It was a gift from the good Lord.

A gift from up above?

Gift from up above.
Not from down below, not from...

It was a gift from up above.
I'm a geologist, I would have it
as a gift from geology

but you have it from up there,
upstairs.

That's right,
that's who made it for me.

# I have a source

# Of strength when I am weak... #

So, I can understand that
some people, if they've got
mineral rights,

and they've got gas underneath
their land, they're benefiting.

What about other people?
How do they benefit from it?

Well, bringing work
into the country, communities.

You've got...you bring the
drilling rigs in to drill the wells.

It furnishes jobs.

You bring the people in
to build the locations.

Jobs were scarce, the economy wasn't
too good before this came around.

I mean, it was awfully slow.

So if we were to do a kind of a poll
of all the houses around here

and all the people,

what proportion do you think
would be for shale gas, be positive?

I'd say 90% of them.

Really, as high as that?

It was great to speak to CB today.

I know what he says you have
to take with a pinch of salt.

He's made a lot of money on the back
of shale gas, but what I thought was

interesting was the idea
the whole community had benefited,

that the rewards had seeped through
right to the bottom level.

'But not everyone in a community
sees cheques or jobs.

'One of the objections has been
that all that machinery involved -

'the pipes, the lorries, the rigs,
blights rural communities.

'And fracking is now taking place
across the US,

'from sea to shining sea.

'It's startling how widely
it's already spread.'

Take a look at this.

You don't just find shale gas
in Louisiana or Pennsylvania.

You find it right across America.

Energy companies reckon that there's
more natural gas in America

than there is oil in Saudi Arabia.

I mean, look at it.

It's estimated something like
a million fracking wells, a million!

Production or exploration
in 30 states.

Now, what all that means
is an energy renaissance,

cheap abundant energy
right on their doorstep.

'Geology may be a science,
but it seldom happens in isolation.

'It's tied up with politics,
with economics

'and you don't have to look far
to see how fracking is starting

'to change the politics
and economics of this nation.'

The thing is,
it's looking like a game-changer.

I mean, the price of gas in the US
is something like a third

of what it is in Britain,
and that should be

good for the American consumer,
for American industry.

But actually, there's already signs
that that's happened.

Those energy-hungry users,
things like chemical plants,

manufacturing firms,
they're already starting to

re-shore their operations

and that's because the cheap labour
in places like that is trumped by

the cheap energy
in places like this.

'But there's another reason
why fracking is being

'talked of as a game-changer
right across the world.

'It's about how safe
our energy supplies are,
about energy security.'

'To give you an idea
why that matters, I'm going

'to leave rocks and geology
behind for a moment.

'I've come back to Britain,
to the nerve centre

'of its National Grid, to get
a sense of the bigger picture.

'These are the people who have to
ensure there's enough power -

'from nuclear, coal,
gas, renewables -

to meet our energy needs,

'and I've chosen a rather special
moment to visit,

'because tonight
they're under pressure.'

CHEERING

'When Strictly Come Dancing ends,

'millions of us
will put the kettle on.'

Ten!

'And these guys need to bring on
more power at that precise moment.'

Eight.

'What really fascinates me
is how they choose to deliver it.

'Hydro, water power.'

What we have is a top lake and
a bottom lake, so during the night,

when electricity prices are cheap,
we pump water up to the top lake

and during the day, we just let
the water come down again

through the turbines to create
electricity very quickly
and flexibly.

So, basically, as soon as
electricity demand starts to rise,

you throw water at it?
We throw water at it, yes.

Right, I'm going to ring
the BBC controller now, Bernard,

to see whether he's got an update
on the Strictly end time.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello, Jonathan, it's Neil Wise
at National Grid.

Thank you.

'The closing minutes
of Strictly are tense.'

This looks like the end. OK.

'They have to time
the release of water precisely,

'to match the sudden surge in demand
for electricity.'

Two seconds under, OK. Bye, now.

CHEERING

I think we're in business.

'When the moment comes,
Bernard opens the flood gates.

I'll send the Foyers now...

..and Cruachan as well.

I think, probably do
the Ffestiniog as well, there we go.

'Demand begins to level off.
They've made it.

That was pretty impressive.

I mean, watching those guys operate,
watching them

judge the moment-by-moment
changes in demand and then match

that against electricity generation
from coal and from nuclear,

from wind, and those injections
of water - that's pretty special.

The thing is, for decades
that energy mix is what's kept

the lights on in Britain,
but things are changing.

'If we want to continue to have
this level of control in the future,

'we're going to have to make sure
we have the right energy mix

'at the right price
and at the right time.

'You probably won't have heard of
the Isle of Grain gas depot

'in Kent, but the chances are
you may have used

'some of its gas
to keep your house warm.

'It's a good place to see why
energy security is so important.'

This is the biggest above-ground
gas storage tank in Europe.

Look at that! It's absolutely
humungous. Let's get up there.

Don't know
if this is a good idea actually.

'And it's not the only
giant container here.'

Ha!

'In total, there are around
a million cubic metres of gas.'

More steps!

'That may sound a lot,
but we're an energy-hungry nation

'and across Britain,
we store only enough

'for around two weeks of supplies.'

Something like 40%
of the electricity we get

comes from burning gas,

and in future years that's
going to dramatically increase.

But the thing is, you see the gas
that's in there and in there

and in there, it's not our gas.

Let me show you.

It comes from far, far away,
brought in by ships like that.

'And this is not just any old ship.

'It helps keep Britain afloat.

'More than half of
our gas is imported,

'a lot of it from one tiny country.'

It's just like a massive
wall of steel.

Apparently, it's a quarter
of a mile long from, bloody hell,

from there all the way across
right to the far end there.

And this monster has come
7,000 miles.

This is from Qatar, in the Middle
East, right beside Iraq, to here.

You can see the gas just getting
taken off through these
unloading pipes.

There's enough gas in there
to power 70,000 homes for a year.

'We get our natural gas
from countries in the Middle East,

'from Africa and from Russia,

'so the political uncertainties
are obvious.

'And we're also subject
to the vagaries of the market.'

Those beasts seem so slow
and lumbering

but they operate in this
fast-paced environment.

I mean, for a start, there's
no guarantee that ship will

ever reach its intended destination.

It might get diverted, mid-ocean,
from Europe to Asia, just

because there's someone there that
will pay a higher price for gas.

And that's
the nub of the problem, really.

There is no absolute energy security
with ships like that.

'That's what we, and all countries,
mean by energy security -

'the ability to have certain
supplies of gas at a price
they can control and afford.

'And that's the other attraction
of fracking. It's home-grown energy.

'Many here in America have become
almost heady with the potential

'of fracking, for its economic
benefits and energy security.'

As a geologist, you're only
too aware that the planet

can change our world either for the
better or for the worse, and there's

something in these hills that...
a niggling thought that something's

not quite right, that there's
more to this than meets the eye.

'There's a lot of questions
being asked about fracking.

'Some are about whether
we should be investing in another

'carbon-based form of energy at all,

'and over the next few years, this
charged debate is going to unfold.

'But what I want to look at now are
some of the more immediate risks.

'I'm back in Pennsylvania, in the
foothills of the Endless Mountains.

'It's a good place to get to grips
with one of the concerns

'I'm most interested
in trying to understand.

'The risks that gas
and contaminated water

'might be leaking out of the wells
into the surrounding land.'

For months now, I've been reading
solidly about fracking, just about

everything I can find,
especially on the internet,

and if you go onto the internet,

what you find a lot of the stuff
is about, you know,

people falling ill and the health
effects of it and you can't really

find very much in the scientific
literature about this, so what

I'm really interested in is finding
a bit more about this, and actually,

it's been surprisingly difficult
to find someone to talk about it.

'That's because I've heard that
some people who have fallen ill

'have received compensation and
aren't allowed to talk about it.'

But I'm hoping today, up in
these hills we're going to find

a couple who are very happy
to talk about it

because they're in a bad way,
apparently.

Hello?

Hi, are you Janet? Yeah.

I'm a very wet Iain.
Hiya, how are you?
Welcome, come in. Thank you.

When did you first hear
that word, "fracking"?

How many years ago was it?

Two, at least
two and a half years ago.

Just as recently as that -
two or three years ago? Yeah.

I didn't really pay attention,
you know,

until we got affected,

and then once we got affected,
then you begin to wonder why.

That's when I actually
looked at the word "fracking."

Right. You know what I mean?

Like, how could this
have happened to us?

'Janet and Fred McIntyre live in
a remote area of rural Pennsylvania.

'Two years ago, the energy companies
arrived and began to frack for gas.

'Shortly afterward, the McIntyres
and some of their neighbours
fell ill.

'They fear that it might be
connected to fracking,

'that somehow chemicals might have
leaked into their drinking water.

'And they're now struggling
to understand what is happening
to them and their community.'

We got the flu, well, what we thought
was the flu, got horribly ill,

violently ill
and we were like that for a week.

'Because of their concerns,

'the McIntyres only use
bottled water now,

'for drinking, washing and cooking.

'The US Department
of Environmental Protection

'and the energy companies themselves
tested their drinking water

'and they gave it
a clean bill of health.

'But the McIntyres are unconvinced.

'It's a confusing picture.

'We simply don't have the scientific
evidence that separates out

'coincidence from a direct cause.'

Since they began drilling here,
I suffer from seizures

and through all this, right before
our water turned purple,

I went into renal failure.

So it's quite a lot of completely
different things, it's not just...

Yeah, it seems to affect
the very old, the very young and

if you have like a low immune system
or you're sick, you really get sick.

These things have happened to me.

You can't prove it
scientifically, that...

But you're convinced, are you?

It just seems weird.

'Around 50 people
in their community now only use

'water from bottles,
and paid for by charity,

'which Janet helps to deliver to
isolated friends and neighbours.'

Hiya, how are you? Hi. Hi, there.
What's your name? Iain.

Iain, OK.

All the way from Scotland,
to deliver your water.

Oh, bless you!

Six of these?

HE GROANS

We've good water
but it's contaminated now.

I've lived here since eight years
old and now they're ruining it.

Where do you want it?

The water stinks.
The animals won't drink it.

I don't drink the water any more,

and I have a hard time swallowing and
breathing, and there's nothing they
can do.

So do you know anyone around here,
any of these houses,

that actually have decent
water from their boreholes?

They used to
but they're all on the water run.

They go to the water bank or...

They're all going
to your water bank?

Yeah. That one, that one,
that one, that one.

That one, that one, this one,

that one, myself over there,
beside me.

They're all...

Everyone, basically. Yeah.

'What I've found here is a community
that's become afraid of fracking.

'But what I think it is that
feeds their fear is that it's

'easier to ask questions
than to get hard answers.'

You know, a number of people have
said that fracking has ruined their

water but the trouble is that good,
solid, scientific evidence is pretty

thin on the ground, and what makes
it even more complicated is that

gases like methane, for example, can
occur naturally in drinking water.

What mining bosses say is that
incidents of contamination

are few and far between and the
result of accidental chemical

spillage on the surface or not quite
casing the drill holes properly.

In other words, that they're
the result of shoddy practice,

not fracking.

'Although there are no
national figures,

'here in Pennsylvania some
6-7% of wells have reported what's

'termed "well failures" in each
of the past three years.

'But what we don't know is

'if those problems have led to
ground water contamination.

'To make things even more
complicated, US fracking companies

'have been reluctant to disclose
exactly what chemicals they use.'

You know, the thing
about the fracking chemicals is

that, in America,
they're proprietary,

so that they're a closely
guarded secret,

each company
with their own particular mix

that they don't want the others
to know about, so it's like a secret

recipe, really, like the ingredients
of HP Sauce or Coca Cola.

In fact, even the guys
that are handling

the chemicals on the fracking job
might not know what

the particular chemicals are,
and it's that secrecy that really

is at the heart of, I think,
most people's suspicions,

that it's somehow, you know,
a nasty, noxious cocktail of stuff.

'A new law in Pennsylvania does
allow physicians special access to

'information about the trade's
secret chemicals,

'but it's not straightforward.

'Dr Amy Pare has treated people with
lesions to their faces who

'she thinks may have been
exposed to the fracking chemicals,

'and the drilling companies will
only tell her what those chemicals

'might be under stringent
conditions.'

Well, they'll reveal those if you
sign a confidentiality statement.

That's a lovely way,
that's a Catch-22, isn't it?

So you can sign the form that
says you won't tell anyone else

and you know. Right.

What does that mean,
you can't tell the patient?

Oh, correct,
you can't tell the patient,

so, say I suspected that you had
been exposed to something.

If it's on a regular
inhalational panel, fine,

but if you just can't figure out
what exactly it was, you would sign

the confidentiality statement which
is for these proprietary chemicals.

They say that they'll release
the chemicals that they may have

been exposed to and then
if those tests come back positive,

I can't tell you about it.

So, can you tell my doctor?
Can you tell anyone else?

No, I mean, I'm a plastic surgeon
so I would refer you to

an occupational medicine doctor
but I would just refer you.

So you couldn't then pass
the information on to that

person of what, the information
that you'd found?

No, I would refer you
because it's a proprietary chemical.

It's a trade secret, so...

But essentially this is a gagging
order placed right across you,

isn't it?

So, for physicians, in order to take
care of your patients,

there needs to be transparency
and this completely breaks

that down, and so, yes, it's very
upsetting for us

because you want people to get
better but if you can't

explain to someone what's happening
to them, how do you get them better?

And then how do you find out

if other members of their family
may have been exposed or other

people that are in the area
have been exposed?

Because no-one can talk about it
so it's,

it really goes against
any type of modern medicine.

You know, the thing is, I'm not
one for conspiracy theories or

anything like that but this secrecy
is just...weird, really.

You know, as a kind of academic,
as a scientist,

you're wanting transparency.

You want openness.

I know it sounds cliched,
but you're wanting the truth.

What Amy is talking about here
is just that.

She just wants to know the data,
the scientific data.

And the fact that that's been

kind of held back is just really
exasperating.

It's really frustrating to try and
get to the bottom of most of these

real, you know, controversies
and what people want to know.

They want to know, is it safe?

We just don't know.

'But there's one scientist who has
carried out a number

'of studies on the potential impact
that fracking has on ground water.

'Rob Jackson
and his research team have tested

'hundreds of samples from drinking
water wells, like this

'one in north-western Pennsylvania,
for evidence of contamination.'

So where's the water coming from?

Well, this is coming from a private
well for the house

and it's coming from about 250 feet
under the ground, and what Tom's

doing there is just hooking the hose
up and we'll purge the water, run it

for a while to get a fresh water
sample from that, from that well.

'The water is from a shallow aquifer
which provides drinking

'water to the local community and,
unusually, it's full of bubbles.'

What we have here is basically
a methane leak detector.

This lets us determine
if the bubbles we're seeing

are related to air
trapped in the water, if it's

something combustible like methane
or ethane. You'll see as we...

INSTRUMENT BUZZES
Wow!

..get closer, you know, without a
doubt this is basically methane

that's coming from the water.

'This drinking water
is fizzing with gas,

'so saturated that bubbles trapped
in a bottle quickly build up

'to worrying proportions.'

Oh, there's a pop there!

Look at that!

It's burning.

A flaming bottle of gas.
That's a lot of methane.

You don't want that in your water,
do you? Certainly don't!

'By analysing the different
kinds of carbon

'and hydrogen that make up
methane gas, Rob

'and his team are able to determine
where this gas has come from.'

Natural gas that's found underground
and is formed under high heat

and pressure, millions
and millions of years ago,

has a different fingerprint
than natural gas

formed in shallower layers
by microbes, by biological activity.

'Lab results are consistent
with water that's come up to the

'surface from the deep shale layer
two miles underground.'

This gas looks like what you find
naturally in the Marcellus.

The gas is actually mined by
the companies for extraction.

Right, so that's down at that
level where the fracking's going on,

is it? It is.

Could I drink this?
You could certainly drink it.

I mean, yeah, all right,
should I drink this?

I don't know, I probably wouldn't
be crazy about drinking it.

I mean, apart from the bubbles,
it looks pretty clear
and all the rest of it.

It does. I certainly wouldn't
want to drink it regularly.

Would I drink that now? Absolutely.

But would you, would
I want to drink that every day

If I lived in this house?
Absolutely not.

'One of his studies found
measurable amounts of methane

'in 85% of the samples.

'Now, methane can leak
naturally from deep underground

'but the pattern that Rob
found is revealing.

'He found levels that averaged
17 times higher

'from water sources located within
a kilometre of a natural gas well.'

Yeah, there's no
question that there are homes

and historical data that
show methane in people's water

long ago,
and there are stories going back

generations of people being able to
light their water naturally.

I think what we see is that
you have a much higher

prevalence of that for people who are
living near a natural gas well,

so it's not that that
doesn't occur,

it's just it occurs a lot more
often if you're near a gas well.

So, the million dollar
question, then -

how is the gas getting
to the surface?

Well, we think the most likely
pathway is through the well

itself by drilling a hole
into the ground, by not sealing it

properly with cement or by
using steel tubing where the joints

aren't sealed, that it's actually
kind of leaking out the well itself.

Probably not what
people are most concerned about

and that's a direct
communication from thousands of feet

underground, all the way up to
surface through the rock.

So it's unlikely, then, that you
frack, and that there's a fracture

goes all the way up
and gas starts to kind of follow it?

Yeah, I think it's very unlikely.

It's not impossible in an area
even like this where you have

natural fractures
and fissures underground.

A frack might connect to
one of those natural fractures

but in general, I think
that's much less,

much less likely than in a well
that's constructed poorly.

'If he's right, it suggests
the problem here is not with

'fracking deep underground
but nearer the surface
with well construction,

'certainly when it comes to methane,

'but he didn't find any evidence

'here nor anywhere else
that fracking fluid
had leaked from a well.

'It makes for a complex picture,
one that's just starting to emerge.'

So it sounds like there's lots
and lots of questions,

and, at the moment,
very few answers.

Yeah, there are a lot
of unanswered questions

but a lot of good people
in different groups around

the country and around the world
trying to answer those questions.

'And those questions are being
asked around the world,

'because other countries, including
Britain, are set to follow

'the Americans and start fracking,

'because if you look at a geological

'map of Britain, it's clear we have
substantial reserves of shale gas.'

So what we're seeing now is, flying
over Britain, about maybe

300 metres above the surface,

and ahead of us you can
see following the road, is Mam Tor.

So this is where
I was just the other day,

walking around on that hill.

What a great way to see it.

And if we start to descend, now this
is the beauty of this model...

We crash through!

That's the ground, looking from
below, and what we see here is the

bottom surface of the shale, and now
you can see clearly this landscape,

places where the shale is deep,
places where the shale is shallow.

Now we're coming out
somewhere in the north of England,

by the look of it.

And what we have here is
the Pennines, and to the right

and the left or the east and west,

the shale goes down deep underneath
those areas, so into Lincolnshire

and, for example, under Blackpool
and under Lancashire,

but also there's shale underneath
these areas here, north of London

then curling round south of London
to Sussex and also into Hampshire.

So a big question, really,
how much shale gas is there?

All I can say is we know
a lot about how much shale there is

but we don't quite know how
much gas there is.

But it looks to me
that there's a lot of it.

Yeah, there's a lot of shale

so the chances are there's quite
a lot of shale gas.

'The go-ahead to frack has been
given by the Government in Britain

'but on a small scale, and it's
going to happen differently here

'in a legal and regulatory framework
that's tougher than in the States.

'For instance, in the UK, companies
will have to disclose

'what's in their fracking fluids.

'But what I think British engineers

'and scientists will have to
convincingly demonstrate is not

'just that they know the risks, but
that they will manage them safely.

'There is one risk that arose here
that needs to be put into context.

'When the first frack
happened in 2011,

'it triggered an earthquake,
a small one, similar to the

'hundreds that have taken place

'in the last century
because of coal mining.

'So, despite the alarm,
from that perspective,

'the seismic risks are small.'

I set out to explore the American
experience of fracking,

and it seems to me that there's some
real lessons to be learned.

From a technical perspective,
there's a consensus emerging

that says that the risks of ground
water contamination are fairly low

as long as you can ensure the
safe engineering of those gas wells.

In the UK, a Royal Society
report came to pretty
much the same conclusion.

You know, there's broader questions.

I mean, should we do it?

Do we want to do it? And what is the
ultimate price we're going to pay?

Answering those questions isn't
just for scientists.

It's for all of us.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd