Natural Gas Fired Power Plants Key to Job Creation and Clean Energy

By Caesar Rodney Institute Director, David T. Stevenson

High electricity prices kill jobs. Companies are leaving Delaware and new companies are reluctant to locate here. Delaware

has lost one third of its manufacturing jobs in the last decade. For example, Occidental Chemicals chlorine manufacturing facility moved operations to another state when electric costs jumped from $1 Million a month to $2 Million. Delaware manufacturers pay almost 50% more for electricity than manufacturers in other states. Most of this added cost is because we import 60% of our power from other states over capacity limited transmission lines. We are charged a penalty for causing grid congestion.

One solution is to build 1000 Mega Watts of new base load generating capacity in Delaware to cover our shortfall. Just building the power plants would add several thousand construction jobs, up to 700 permanent direct jobs and another 2000 indirect jo

bs. New generation capacity can lower electric prices to save jobs and entice more jobs. Those new power plants will most likely be fueled by natural gas, which offer an excellent combination of low cost and clean burning fuel.

Only a few years ago it looked like natural gas would be in short supply and prices quadrupled. Fortunately, huge, formerly unproductive, gas fields have come on line thanks to new technology and prices are lower than ever and are expected to continue to decrease. By some estimates we now have one-hundred ten years of natural gas reserves. Furthermore, one of the largest fields is located nearby under the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York and the gas can reach us by existing

pipelines. Extracting the gas is providing investment, jobs, royalties, and tax revenues in some of the poorest sections of America.

The new technology combines horizontal drilling techniques with a hydraulic fracturing technique (fracking) to coax gas to flow from fields where other technologies failed. Vertical wells are drilled between 2000’ and 6000’ deep. Horizontal wells are then drilled up to a mile long. More than one bore hole may be drilled from the same pad further reducing the surface footprint. Water, mixed with sand and additives, is forced into t

he well under high pressure opening micro-cracks in the shale. The micro-cracks may extend 100’ to 150’ laterally from the central bore and 30’ vertically. The sand holds the cracks open. The additives, such as friction reducers, biocides and oxygen scavengers, make the sand and water mix flow easier, prevent biological growth in the fractures, and prevent oxygen from corroding pipes In most drilling operations the fracking mixture is recycled. Much false information has been offered about the additives used in fracking. Table 1 provides a list of common fracking additives along with other common household uses of these materials.

There have also been exaggerated claims of frack

ing causing methane contamination in drinking water wells. Over the last sixty years over one million wells have used fracking. A 2004 EPA study found fracking posed no hazard to drinking water. Several highly publicized recent complaints of well contamination have been found to be false. Methane comes with trace chemicals typical of a specific source and this evidence confirmed the contamination came from other sources. This makes sense since the fields are far deeper than the drinking water wells and are separated by deep, impermeable rock formations.