Gas Wells for Dummies (HSW Week 7)

Natural gas wellhead

It stands to reason that some content-farm freelancers are competent, at least in the areas where they have expertise. We have no one on staff who's qualified to argue with an M.D. about drug interactions or with an experienced welder about the difference between TIG and MIG welding. HSW's Jamie Page Deaton seems to be one such competent freelancer when it comes to automotive questions. Her problem today, though, is that she apparently knows little or nothing about "How does natural gas drilling work?" but wrote the article anyway.

Maybe because "gas" was in the title? Who knows...

Whatever the case, Deaton's  lack of familiarity with the processes involved in natural gas exploration and production is pretty obvious, starting with the inane claim that,

"A natural gas well isn’t at all like a water well (where you drill a hole in the ground and water fills it). Natural gas tends to be contained within the underground rock itself. The rock must be broken to release the gas."

First, Jamie Page apparently thought that the water in a water well materializes out of thin air. Well, no, it doesn't: the water is also "contained in the underground rock" or soil and flows into an open borehole. Guess what: natural gas does the same thing! Second, although these days many people think that the only way to get gas is by fracking, that's far from true. Conventional natural gas reservoirs were in production decades ago, long before the first fracking operations in Pennsylvania and Texas.

Deaton wandered further afield in her very next sentence:

"And if it’s brought out the wrong way, it can contaminate the groundwater supply surrounding it."

We can't even figure out the antecedent of that "it": does she mean the gas can contaminate groundwater? And just what does "the groundwater surrounding it" mean, anyway? Groundwater doesn't "surround" things! We assume Deaton meant groundwater near the gas well, but that's not at all clear. But wait: it gets worse. Here's how Jamie thought a fracking job works:

"...after drilling a hole, energy companies line the hole with materials meant to keep the gas in. Next, they send electric charges down the well, which affect the rock around it."

We can guess that the first part is meant to refer to casing the borehole, but "[sending] electric charges"? Unless that's some bizarre interpretation of either perforation or wireline logs, it makes absolutely no sense. There's more, though: check out Deaton's description of prospecting:

"...natural gas drilling starts when a deposit of natural gas is found deep beneath the Earth’s surface. To find these deposits, energy company scientists use a variety of methods. They look at the surface geology of an area, the seismic energy (how energy moves from inside the Earth to its surface)..." Ummm, no, that's not what seismic exploration is, Jamie. Oh, and as for fracking solutions and formation water? It's disingenuous to say that wastewater is "stored deep underground": "disposed of" is a more apt description, since no one plans on removing it from "storage." In conclusion, although our Dumbass of the Day finished by telling her readers that, "[N]ext time you’re relaxing in a toasty warm house heated by natural gas, you’ll know where it comes from"; we think you'll know pretty much know nothing.

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