Fracked Up (and Ammonia)
MS (Matt Simmons)
You have this unbelievable hype about shale gas which is probably the most destructive form of energy we've ever created. [We] destroy drinking water [and the environment].
MC (Marc Chabot, Interviewer)
We have more than enough natural gas [..] you read in the papers about we should start exporting out we have so much of it
MS
That's the silliest thing I've heard it might the adult career [..] I'd rather believe that the fairy godmother just married Santa Claus.
MC
You can see this reflected in the markets though Matt if you take a look at the price of let's say crude oil which is over at seventy and then you take a look at natural gas which is in the three dollar range
MS
The tragedy of natural gas is we collapsed the price on the belief we had a glut. So the people were all promoting shale gas [..] If you follow the controversy in the Barnett Shale [theirs was] the only shale gas that we ever basically got out [cost effectively] because of high gas prices through the use of long extended horizontal drilling, which has been around thirty years, and then massive amounts of hydraulic fracking to shove so much water with additives in it down haul that it busted up the impermeable granite.[We] have destroyed between 50 and 70 billion gallons of [drinkable] water and what's really [freaking out the] EPA [is] the disposal issues because the water basically that comes back up is toxic and they're putting it in abandoned oil and gas wells and if they reach a fracture [it will poison the environment, then] we've doomed the fate of Texas. So follow this EPA frack water disposal issue closely.
MC
Is there anything makes you optimistic
MS
Yeah what's happening here in the Gulf of Maine liquid ammonia that's real I think it's ironic how much money Silicon Valley plowed into this to try to see who could do the most to reduce the carbon footprint and this incredible small group of us here [did great work].You can create a lot of [wells] in the offshore and have it right two or three miles offshore and man will perfect the technology of building these conversion things that look like clean refineries and turn that into liquid ammonia and the byproduct turns out to be two really interesting things, [..] pure water and salt both of which have economic value. I fully believed that Midcoast Maine will end up being the kind of refinery capital of the 21st century for liquid ammonia.I've actually become a hero of some of the lobstermen here that you're down calling me Mr. Liquid ammonia which is I get quite a kick out of coming from Utah.