David Porges, the CEO of EQT Corporation, a major natural gas company, spoke to an audience of about 100 people at the University of Charleston on Thursday night about fracking, coal and greenhouse gases. (See article.)
Porges said the chemicals used in the fracking process are no worse than the ones you find in your own home. He added that all the chemicals used in fracking are available on frackfocus.org, which is run by the Groundwater Protection Council.
‘”I tend not to be a big proponent of using natural gas instead of coal because of climate change … I don’t know whether the Earth is in a long-term warming trend or not,” he said.
But if the planet is warming because of human activity and high levels of carbon dioxide, “We’re going to have to figure out a way to get energy we need without creating greenhouse gases,” and natural gas offers a lot of air quality benefits, he said.’
When asked about whether fracking causes earthquakes, Porges quickly negated the claim and said “sensitive areas” should be avoided.
EQT operates in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia and owns over 14,000 wells and 5.2 trillion cubic feet of total natural gas reserves.
Fracking Curation project 