Energy

Quebec's shale gas deposits

Quebec sits atop vast shale gas deposits — but will Canada's greenest province pay the environmental cost to develop them?

By Joe Castaldo

Joe Castaldo is a staff writer for Canadian Business. He joined the magazine in January 2007 and has written about a variety of topics, including management issues and investing. For Canadian Business Online Joe writes about clean technology — companies, tech developments, and environmental policy and investing. More stories by this author >>

Quantifying the emissions from shale gas drilled via fracking is virtually unexplored territory, according to Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental biology at Cornell University. Generally, burning coal for electricity releases twice as many emissions as natural gas, which is why the latter resource is viewed as better for the environment. But this statistic can be misleading. "The emissions during burning are probably less than half the story," Howarth says. Leaks occur during production and transportation, releasing methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Howarth's preliminary research suggests that shale gas can actually be worse than coal, depending on the extent of methane leaks.

Residents in a handful of U.S. towns near drilling operations have also reported contaminated water — even to the point where tap water is flammable due to methane content — but the industry rejects any connection between fracking and water contamination. "It's just a myth that is virtually impossible to be true," says Michael Binnion, CEO of Questerre Energy Corp., a Calgary-based company developing shale gas in Quebec. Developers drill below the deepest water sources, he says, with one or two kilometres of rock separating fracking locations from aquifers. Binnion concedes mistakes do occur, however. "When you consider there's a million wells drilled in North America, I'm not sure it would be a huge surprise if we didn't drill them all perfectly," he says.

Concern about shale gas and its impact on water recently led the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to embark on a two-year study, and New York state halted issuing new drilling permits while it updates regulations around fracking.

Meanwhile, the Quebec Oil and Gas Association is holding a series of public meetings to address concerns. At one point during the first meeting in mid-September, president André Caillé was met with boos from the audience. Getting shale gas out of the ground, it seems, will require a lot more than just new technology.

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