May
23, 2014 6:29 AM
The
oil industry benefits the environment in a number of ways, a scientist said
Thursday at a community forum.
Dr. Scott Hornafius, president of Elk
Petroleum and visiting research scientist at the Earth Research Institute at
UCSB, held a talk titled "What Is The Oil Industry Doing To Reduce Green
House Gas Emissions?" at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center. The forum
was hosted by Save Our State California. "Every time I get into an oil
project, it ends up cleaning the environment," Dr. Hornafius told the crowd
of more than two dozen people. "I'm not talking about small change. I'm
talking about really spectacular changes in the environment. "
Oil
production can reduce natural oil seepage, Dr. Hornafius said. Pumping has
cleaned the tar off the beaches in Santa Barbara over the past 40 years and
reduced Santa Barbara's air pollution, he said. This cleansing of
above-ground oil pollution worldwide also reduces methane concentration in
the atmosphere, Dr. Hornafius said.
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing,
increases productivity of oil and natural gas wells. The practice has come
under criticism from environmental groups, but Dr. Hornafius referred to it
as "the crime without a victim. "No clear evidence exists of
fracking being harmful, he said. Instead, fracking has allowed a switch from
coal to natural gas, resulting in a 30 percent decrease in carbon
dioxide emissions from electricity generation in the United States. "When
the fracking revolution happened, we had so much natural gas in this country
and we couldn't export it," Dr. Hornafius said. "It was trapped
here. The price of natural gas and oil in our country de-coupled." The
price of natural gas in the United States collapsed, due to an influx of
natural gas and a reduced reliance on oil.
Dr. Hornafius's daughter, Kayla, a graduate student at Miami
University of Ohio, gave a presentation on the benefits of capturing carbon
dioxide emissions from corn ethanol and other biofuel plants, then using the
carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery from old wells. This plan would
create "carbon negative oil," meaning it would take carbon from the
atmosphere and redeposit it into the Earth, removing one of the major
contributing gases that contributes to the greenhouse effect. Negative carbon
oil is the only method of retrieving oil that results in the actual removal
of carbon from the atmosphere, but at this point it is blocked by California
regulations, Dr. Hornafius said. "We're going to do this project in
Nebraska. We're going to make carbon negative oil. We're going to see if
there's any interest in making carbon negative oil. We're going to see if
anyone cares," Dr. Hornafius told the News-Press. "The only state
that has in place legislation that would incentivize people to make carbon
negative oil is California, but the regulators are trying to not allow that
to be a solution."
email: ddailey@newspress.com
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Thursday, May 29, 2014
SOS EVENT IN SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS!!
Thursday, May 15, 2014
SOS California Invites Public to Discuss What the Oil Industry is Doing to Reduce Greenhouse Emissions, May 22
Thursday, May 22
9:15 - 10:30 am
Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center
1118 East Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara
A public forum discussing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and what the oil industry is doing to reduce them will be held at the Cabrillo Pavilion Arts Center in Santa Barbara at Thursday, May 22. The event will feature J. Scott Hornafius BA PhD (Geology) and the discussion will include the impacts of oil production and fracking in shale gas reservoirs and capturing CO2 emissions, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard legislation.
Topics to be covered:
- Oil production reduces natural hydrocarbon seepage, which cleaned the tar off the beaches in Santa Barbara over the past 40 years and reduced Santa Barbara's air pollution due to oil production from Platform Holly, but also caused a worldwide reduction in the methane concentration in the atmosphere due to oil production around the world.
- Fracking in shale gas reservoirs lowered the price of natural gas, which caused power plants in the US to switch from coal to natural gas over the past five years, resulting in a 30% decrease in the CO2 emissions from electricity generation in the US. The same CO2 emission reductions could occur worldwide if fracking were to spread outside of North America.
- Capturing CO2 fermentation emissions from corn ethanol and other biofuel plants and using the CO2 for enhanced oil recovery to make carbon negative oil will remove CO2 from the atmosphere, and provides a way for California to economically reach the goal of reducing the carbon intensity of its transportation fuels by 10% by 2020, as required by the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) legislation.
About J. Scott Hornafius
J. Scott Hornafius BA PhD (Geology) - Executive Director of Canning Petroleum Pty, Ltd has 30 years of global experience in oil and gas exploration and development. He was President and CEO of MegaEnergy, Inc., from 2000 until 2011, during which time he oversaw the land, geophysical, drilling and production operations of the company. Scott still serves as a Director of MegaEnergy and is founding shareholder of the company. MegaEnergy was a pioneer in the Marcellus Shale development in Appalachian Basin, and is currently involved in two Marcellus Shale Horizontal drilling projects in Pennsylvania. While serving as President of MegaEnergy Scott raised $15.5 million in private equity from sophisticated oil and gas investors, and was responsible for negotiating $120 million in asset sales. Prior to founding MegaEnergy, Scott had a successful career with Mobil Oil Corporation, including management and technical roles in projects involving onshore and offshore California exploration, heavy oil steam floods, horizontal drilling projects, and North Sea and Gulf of Mexico deep-water exploration programs. Scott served as Geological Manager in Papua New Guinea for Mobil Oil in 1989-1991 and was a secondee in 1997-1998 to the Licensing Branch of the Department of Trade and Industry in the British government, in which he administered the 8th Landward Round.
About SOS California
SOS California is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of natural gas and oil seep pollution upon our ocean, our beaches and air quality through education and awareness.
For further information contact Judy Rossiter, judy@soscalifornia.org
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Monday, May 12, 2014
It's Time to Educate Santa Barbara about Natural Oil Seeps!
Up until approximately 30 years ago, Santa Barbara schools would include facts about the offshore natural oil and gas seeps (located in the Santa Barbara Channel) within their curriculum. Unfortunately, today the knowledge of why we have tar on our SB beaches is not as readily available to both students and teachers. Often the offshore oil production take the blame for oil slicks in the water and tar on our white sand beaches, while the fact is actually just the opposite: offshore oil production has contributed to a cleaner marine environment in Santa Barbara.
This morning, SOS received a testimony from a concerned parent of a Santa Barbara student:
“I am a native to SB. My son came home and told me about a teacher (high school) that was almost in tears about getting tar on her feet on a SB beach and blamed the oil platforms for the problem. I had to explain to him that it's from "natural oil seeps" in the SB Channel and that long before we were here the Chumash used the tar from the beaches to repair their boats. I told him the teacher was wrong to tell the class the tar was from oil platforms. Then I did a quick search on google and found you. Your website is very helpful and educational.”
This exemplifies some of the issues in the Santa Barbara community that we at SOS California would like to address:
- The lack of information about the oil in the water/tar on the beaches due to changes in the local educational curriculum - and the world-wide phenomenon that is unique to Santa Barbara (home to the 2nd largest offshore oil & gas seeps in the world!)
- The perpetuation of myths from our children's ill-informed teachers/educational system (where is our environmental educators on this?)
Help us inform our local community about the concerns with natural oil seepage! We would like to invite any Santa Barbara local to the discussion.
- What are your experiences with tar on the beaches?
- What did you learn about it in school?
- How do you think we can change the way we educate our community about these issues?
Please SHARE your experience, it is valuable to us, you and the Santa Barbara community!
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