Shale Gas and the Environment: Engaging with the Public
Eradicating horror stories
“Communication with the Public,” the title of an interactive session at the Global Shale Gas Forum in Berlin, Germany, is not an easy task, especially when it comes to reaching out to the public on energy-related projects that may affect them.
Prof. Mike Stephenson, Head of Science, Energy at the British Geological Survey, offered a case study example of how things can go awry.
“In the UK we’ve been working quite intensively on carbon capture storage (CCS), introducing storing gas in salt,” he said. “In Britain we’ve been doing it for many many years, and it’s known as one of the safest ways of storing gas.”
Stephenson said the site in question was near Blackpool, where concerned citizens came to the fore after hearing about the construction of a CCS facility “in their back yards.”
“They are retired people, people with access to the Internet, people worried about their house prices,” he explained. “They had a bourgeois reaction.”
“Just Google ‘gas storage accident’,” suggested Stephenson. “That was enough to kick start an enormous campaign against gas storage, and it became an easy way to make gas storage a frightening thing among the public.”
He said this was a shame in that Britain had only nine days of reserve gas storage compared to Germany’s 70 days.
“I imagine that the reaction to shale gas will be similar,” he stated.
Stephenson said that he had been engaged in a research project with Cambridge University on acceptance of numerous energy issues, like CCS. “The public are invited to a venue where I’ve given talks, I’m asked to leave and then psychologists and sociologists monitor their opinions. Basically, the result is you see extraordinary levels of ignorance from the public.”
He added, “They react very strongly to diagrams and words like ‘aquifer’, or ‘super critical’ – which does sound terrifying. It shows that we need to explain things.”
Finding an “honest broker” could help communicate energy industry views to public
“The government, Department of Climate Change, and others are thinking about how to talk to people,” explained Stephenson. “It’s difficult for the companies to do this because it’s not their job to speak to the public, and secondly, the companies don’t tend to be believed by the public, because ‘they want to make money’, ‘don’t care’, etc.”
“There needs to be an honest broker,” he proposed, “someone who can be trusted on the issues.”
Kenneth Mahrer, PhD, Senior Geophysicist at Apex HiPoint offered a best-case scenario.
He recounted that he had worked on a US government project in western Colorado, involving natural wastewater, that has been continuously injected since 1996. “They’re making room in the ground to inject water. We definitely make earthquakes with it,” he said, “of magnitude 4.4.”
Despite the “aftershocks” from the activities, Mahrer said the public was involved and their worries were assuaged.
“The key here was, ever since day one, since the 1980s, the public was included in the plan in seminars, open houses, and the local public within 30-40 mile radius are still always invited to come there.”
Mahrer added another tip: “Use no jargon, or acronyms that people don’t understand. When this 4.4 earthquake occurred, people felt it and they came to the site, and things went well because they had been told. Most of these people are ranchers, and that went well.”
That doesn’t mean there haven’t been hiccups regarding the project, specifically involving the press.
“What didn’t go well was a newspaper article entitled ‘Feds give states the shakes.’ The first one occurred in Colorado in the 1960s and the military hadn’t said anything. So Denver was sensitive to man-made earthquakes. And small towns were incensed. But the locals were pretty good about it. If there was any damage you could come in, fill out a report. One claim filed was for a 120 year old building that had been damaged,” explained Mahrer.
He said such projects weren’t just about telling people, but explaining things to them at a level they could understand.
“The project is still going - it’s a 100-year project and they’ve put away something like 100 billion gallons of water so far.”
“As an industry we can’t give up on our ability to convince people It’s beholden upon us to do our damnedest,” said Graham Tiley, General Manager New Ventures (Exploration) at Shell International Exploration and Production B.V., who recalled: “In Sweden we invited anyone to come and see our drilling rig, we showed them around and it helped to demystify the whole process.”
Mike Stephenson pitched in: “People may love the idea in Texas, but there are some parts of Europe where they’re not used to drilling.”
“It’s not that I’m saying companies shouldn’t be on the ground saying what they’re going to do, but it’s good to have an honest broker. It’s an uphill struggle. The public tends to look after where you get your funding from and tend to say ‘the company would say that - we can’t trust this or that company because they’re going to make money out of this, they don’t care about the environment.’”
Graham Tiley mentioned the so-called “Shell Energy Dialogues”. He said “You actually want to facilitate a better quality of public dialogue. Sometimes the company may be required by law to engage with certain stakeholder groups in some countries. It’s a whole range of stakeholders.”
Tiley continued, “Engage early and often enough before it gets to the adversarial end of the perspective. The key is to not get to that point if you can. It’s well recognized that the more open approach is the one that will be a success.”
Panel members touched upon the risks of debates involving energy projects.
“Knowing the arguments that they’re going to bring up ahead of time is important,” said Kenneth Mahrer. “If you come in as an expert, you’ll get blown out of the water if you’re talking to your own people. Talk to the public in terms they’ll understand.”
“Hydraulic fracturing in general is coming into the news, so legislators are having to deal with it and a lot of the feedback that they’re getting,” he explained. “In western Colorado, her knowledge of it was almost zero, we talked for a few hours to let her know what’s going on as well as what could go wrong. Their lack of knowledge is quite profound, because they don’t work in the industry.
Members of the audience expressed concern that authorities were not educated about shale gas and that the industry, as technicians, was not able to communicate efficiently.
“Greenpeace and World Wildlife Forum are communicators and opinion formers,” said Mike Stephenson. “One of the things we’re committed to doing is having a day for explaining carbon capture. We’ve got to head these NGOs off at the pass before they say ridiculous things.”
“They’re trying to sell newspapers,” added Kenneth Mahrer, “so if they can make something appear bigger than it actually is, they do. The oil industry has a major black eye from the oil spill (in the Gulf of Mexico), but no one recognizes the successes.”
“Nature abhors a vacuum. Somebody’s going to fill it and we need to fill it before someone else does,” said Graham Tiley. “It’s about a bit of humility from our side, and local people have a genuine right and need to know, saying trust me just doesn’t work. It’s a show me, tell me world.”
In an earlier presentation, Annie-Sophie Corbeau, Senior Gas Expert at the International Energy Agency said that the acceptance of local communities and landowners was a key factor for success for shale gas.
“People in Canada are scared,” she commented, referring to shale gas development in Quebec. Public meetings on the shale-gas industry in Quebec haven't gone as smoothly as organizers from the Quebec Oil and Gas Association had hoped and have been dominated by shale-gas opponents who don't want to learn about how the industry works.
“For you experts this is rubbish,” continued Ms. Corbeau. “You need to convince people - public opinion can kill a project. Landowners won’t receive any money from conventional gas operations here in Europe.”
“Resolution of environmental issues needs to be properly addressed,” said Corbeau, “and there is definitely a lot of education needed for local populations and governments. It’s important to talk to them.”
Clear communication is both critical and challenging. As the meetings in Quebec have shown, the audience may not wish to listen.
You are most welcome to reproduce this article, including with attribution Originally Published by Natural Gas for Europe and with a link to NGFE.