The Boom (49 page)

, April 20, 2011.

Brown, Sara. Unpublished and untitled senior thesis, Elizabethtown College, 2006, available at Sullivan County Historical Society and Museum.

Gold, R. “Faulty Wells, Not Fracking, Blamed for Water Pollution.”

, March 13, 2012.

Klein, Philip Shriver, and Ari Arthur Hoogenboom.

. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.

Legere, Laura. “Stray Gas Plagues NEPA Marcellus Wells.”

(Towanda, PA), July 10, 2011.

McGraw, Seamus.

. New York: Random House, 2011.

Silver, Jonathan D. “Origins: The Story of a Professor, a Gas Driller and Wall Street.”

, March 20, 2011.

Waples, David A.

. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2005.

Wilber, Tom.

. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012.

While some pieces of this chapter have been reported elsewhere, the full story of Aubrey McClendon and Carl Pope has never been told before. I am grateful to Pope, Michael Brune, and other Sierra Club officials, including Ken Kramer, Jeremy Doochin, Barbara Frank, and Roger Downs, for sharing their recollections. Alan Nogee and Tim Wirth talked to me about environmentalists and their response to climate change and natural gas. Scott Anderson at the Environmental Defense Fund has, over many years, helped me find my way through confusing and contradictory statements by the industry and environmentalists.

Details of the 2011 protest march came from participants as well as from uploaded YouTube videos. The source of McClendon’s “We’re cold, it’s dark, and we’re hungry” quote is the September 2011 Marcellus Shale Insights Conference. It is archived here: http://www.chk.com/news/articles/pages/20110911_akm.aspx. (Last accessed August 2013.)

I reviewed copies of the
Houston Chronicle
,
Austin American-Statesman
, and other Texas newspapers on microfiche at the Austin Public Library to find the “Coal Is Filthy” ads. These ads were well covered by R. G. Ratcliffe at the
Chronicle
and Asher Price at the
American-Statesman
. Their articles helped piece together the broader story. The Tom Price quote is from an
American-Statesman
article. Texas secretary of state records indicate that the Clean Sky Coalition was registered on January 26, 2007, and that it was formed as Delaware nonprofit corporation a week earlier, on January 19. The coal lobby’s “disturbing departure” quote is from an April 22, 2008,
Washington Post
article, “Breaking the ‘Be Nice’ Rule in the Energy Family.”

Pope’s “Among the fossil fuels . . .” quote is from Nissa Darbonne’s interview with him, “An Unexpected Union.”

The history of TXU came from corporate material and the US Interior Department’s announcement that it was expanding the boundaries of the Dallas Downtown Historic District. Its $10 billion coal plan was covered in specialist publications such as
Megawatt Daily
as well as in the
Dallas Morning News
. More details are in the “background of the merger” section of TXU’s Prem-14a SEC filing on June 14, 2007. Details of the electrical power generation are from the Energy Information Administration’s
Electric Power Annual 2006
. Data on natural gas surpassing coal in Oklahoma and equaling coal output nationwide in April 2012 are from table 1.1 of the Energy Information Administration publication
Electric Power Monthly
. I also used this monthly publication for the changing US electrical mix. The EIA’s
Monthly Energy Review
was the source for my discussion of falling carbon dioxide emissions; see table 12.1. It must be noted that the sluggish economy, as well as coal-to-gas switching and improved energy efficiency, played a role in lower emissions.

Details of the February 2007 rally can be found in the February 16, 2007, edition of the
Austin Chronicle
, as well as a report and photographs on the
Burnt Orange Report
, a blog devoted to Lone Star politics. It can be found here: www.burntorangereport.com/diary/2890. (Last accessed August 2013.)

McClendon hasn’t talked at length about climate change, but his comments to a conference held by the Independent Petroleum Association of America on October 3, 2006, provided quotes and a degree of clarity. His “Coal is the wrong answer for Oklahoma today” quote is from a July 31, 2007, article in the
Daily Oklahoman
. His letter in the
Tulsa World
—the source of his quote that “Coal is simply on the wrong side of history”—appeared on August 26, 2007. “What’s the matter with self-interest? . . .” was in a
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
article on September 27, 2007. “We crave volatility” comes from a panel he appeared on at CERAWeek in 2007. The Thomas Friedman column, titled “Global Weirding Is Here,” appeared in the
New York Times
on February 17, 2010.

I read several years’ worth of Carl Pope’s bimonthly columns in
Sierra
, the Sierra Club’s magazine. He wrote about the threat posed by global warming to “all our previous gains” in “A World Transformed” in the March–April 2007 issue. I also read many issues of the Pennsylvania chapter’s newsletter, the
Sylvanian
, and the New York chapter’s
Sierra Atlantic
. The
Alameda
magazine profile of Brune, cited below, is the source of the story of his takeover of the PA system at Home Depot. Pope’s claim, “We will not take money from oil companies,” comes from a speech he gave at the City Club of Cleveland in June 2008. It is viewable here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQBkhXDAZKk. (Last accessed August 2013.) The Sierra Club’s
Energy Resources Policy
was first published in September 2006 and then updated in May 2009 and July 2011.

To learn more about the Ross #1, I reviewed filings by Gastem, the New York State legislature, and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. The December 4, 2011,
New York Times
published a profile of actor Mark Ruffalo that included his neighbor’s quote, under the headline “Ruffalo Embraces a Role Closer to Home.”

The IEA data on the impact of increased gas consumption on carbon dioxide emissions that Michael Brune discussed can be found on page 91 of the IEA publication
Golden Rules for a Golden Age of Gas
, which is cited below. The quote about how people “may find it difficult to accept” that gas helps slow the rise in carbon dioxide is on page 99 of this report.

The Citigroup report I referenced is called
Shale & Renewables: A Symbiotic Relationship
. It was written by Jason Channell and issued on September 12, 2012.

Birol, Fatih.

Paris: IEA Publications, 2011.

———.

. Paris: IEA Publications, 2012.

Brune, Michael.

. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2008.

Casselman, Ben. “Sierra Club’s Pro-Gas Dilemma: National Group’s Stance Angers On-the-Ground Environmentalists in Several States.”

, December 21, 2009.

Cohen, Michael P.

. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1988.

Darbonne, Nissa. “Dear Sierra Club, Do You Take This U.S. Natural Gas Industry? An Unexpected Union.”

, March 4, 2008.

Devall, Bill. “The End of American Environmentalism?”

1, no. 2 (Autumn 2006): 157–80.

Freeman, James. “The Weekend Interview with Aubrey McClendon: The Politically Incorrect CEO.”

, April 28, 2012.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Kennedy Jr., Robert F. “How to End America’s Deadly Coal Addiction.”

, July 19, 2009.

Leaton, James.

London, UK: Carbon Tracker Initiative, 2011.

McKibben, Bill. “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math.”

, July 19, 2012.

Pope, Carl.

. New York: Liveright, 1972.

Pope, Carl, and Paul Rauber.

. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 2004.

Robbins, Noelle. “Speak Softly and Carry a Big Green Stick: Michael Brune Kicks Butt for the Rainforest Action Network.”

July–August 2009.

Shogren, Elizabeth. “Natural Gas as a Climate Fix Sparks Friction.” NPR

, February 23, 2010.

Walsh, Bryan. “How the Sierra Club Took Millions from the Natural Gas Industry—and Why They Stopped.”

, February 2, 2012.

The YouTube video of Claude Cooke and his wife ghost riding is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBPJTK1YBvs. When I last watched it, in August 2013, it had nearly 2.8 million views. Cooke first contacted me after my “Faulty Wells, Not Fracking, Blamed for Water Pollution” article appeared on the front page of the
Wall Street Journal
in March 2012.

The source of the estimation that about $5 billion is spent on cementing, out of a total outlay of $105 billion, comes from correspondence with Richard Spears of Spears & Associates. He admits that determining the actual spending is difficult and the $5 billion figure should be treated as an informed estimate.

Details on the sixteen families whose properties were bought by Chesapeake can be found in the federal court case
Phillips et al. v. Chesapeake Appalachia LLC
in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Also, the state Department of Environmental Protection press release “DEP Fines Chesapeake Energy More Than $1 Million,” dated May 17, 2011.

I have met and talked with Claude Cooke—and his grandson Brian Smiley—numerous times. The biographical material about Cooke came from interviews. The American Petroleum Institute’s calling Cooke’s work a “revelation” is from API Recommended Practice 65—Part 2,
Isolating Potential Flow Zones During Well Construction
(1st ed., May 2010). API Technical Report 10TR1, “Cement Sheath Evaluation” (2nd ed., September 2008), provides a thorough account of cement-testing technology and praises the isolation scanner, though it notes that the tool’s advanced sensor capability “does not probe deeper into the cement sheath” (section 9.8.5).

I constructed Marvin Gearhart’s biography largely from an 1982 oral history interview by Floyd Jenkins, available through the University of North Texas Oral History Program, Denton, Texas. This was the source of information about Gearhart Industries and the quote “I got it in my blood.” I also relied on contemporary newspaper accounts of the merger with Halliburton, published in the
Dallas Morning News
and Fort Worth
Star-Telegram
, and Halliburton filings with the SEC.

Mark Zoback’s quote “There are three keys—and those are well construction, well construction, and well construction” is from an interview and first appeared in my March 2012
Wall Street Journal
article.

The radial differential temperature tool was issued US Patent no. 4,074,756 and the related US Patent no. 4,109,717. In addition, I relied on Cooke’s publications, the most important of which are cited below.

Information about the role of cement and the failed negative pressure test is from numerous sources compiled by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, including the chief counsel’s report, which went into detail about cementing. The quote “cementing an oil well . . .” is from page 99 of the report
Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling—Report to the President
. The detail about BP ordering well integrity testing is on page 95 of the chief counsel’s report
Macondo: The Gulf Oil Disaster
. Three key reports are cited below. Further information about what happened was first reported by my colleague Ben Casselman and me in the May 27, 2010,
Wall Street Journal
article “Unusual Decisions Set Stage for BP Disaster.”

Information about the Flatirons well comes from the “Evaluation of Precompletion Annular Gas Leaks in a Marcellus Lateral” paper cited below and from conversations with Jeff Jones, a managing director at the company, and Bob Ging, an attorney who represented Brockway Borough. Further details are from Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection internal reports and documents obtained through Right to Know Law requests. The well is DU 3-6-1H in Snyder, Pennsylvania. Among the papers I obtained that were important were daily inspection reports; a summary of a Section 501 conference meeting held on August 3, 2011; a Flatirons PowerPoint presentation dated February 23, 2011; and a Flatirons presentation discussing the pros and cons of remedial cementing, dated July 27, 2011.