Encana Fracking Cake for Kids – A Look Underground

The sweet irony of this video – some things, like fracking, are best expressed with a cake!

Green Washing

A recent company event provided an opportunity for one of our engineers to educate children about natural gas development. Parents and educators often ask us for industry material to use with this audience so we made this video in the spirit of creativity.

What do 11 tubs of icing, more than two dozen cookies and 115 cupcakes have to do with natural gas? A lot, actually, once sculpted into a layer cake that uniquely demonstrates how the clean energy choice is extracted in our operations.

Drilling for Shale Gas (2010). Mark Taylor of Encana teaches kids how to drill for shale gas.

See also: Spectra Energy Watch’s: “Kids Say [the] Darndest Things About Natural Gas”.

Spectra Energy Watch said, “When gas companies send children to defend the industry, it is a sign of desperation.”

Spectra Energy’s latest 3-minute PR effort in the form of a kiddie video includes a touch of irony. It begins with the kids comparing natural gas to farts, when asked, “What is natural gas?”

The video has been removed by Spectra Energy. We saw it.

Spectra Energy Watch Where Eminent Domain Meets Grassroots & Social Media. 26 Jan 2011.

Spectra Kiddie Video: Company Exploits Children to Sell “Benefits” of “Natural” Gas.

Kids Talk About Natural Gas as Flatulence:

“… something that comes out of humans’ butt”.

Spectra Energy Says This “Conveys High-Level Messages” Since Company Uses Children – Let Kids Hear Whole Story of Gas Industry & Spectra Energy’s Track Record.

Spectra Energy’s latest 3-minute PR effort in the form of a kiddie video includes a touch of irony. It begins with the kids comparing natural gas to farts, when asked, “What is natural gas?”1

“It’s kind of gross,” replies one child.

Maybe the kids know that much of the gas industry’s behavior stinks. High-Level Messages? Spectra Energy, calls these “high-level messages” in a press release, and opens its video with fart talk and sounds.

The first child to speak explains that natural gas is “… something that comes out of humans’ butt.” Other children make educational farting sounds. Keep in mind – this is a Spectra Energy corporate video – created, produced and launched by the company, and touted in a press release.2

The company press release says it is “part of its ongoing grassroots advocacy effort to promote the benefits and uses of natural gas.” Maybe the next video could show the company’s Board of Directors saying how cute they think this “high-level” messaging is, followed by the Directors making their own fart sounds.

“What’s good about natural gas?” prompts an off-camera interrogator. “It’s environmentally friendly,” replies one child. All of the children involved – more than 20 according to the company press release – are children of Spectra Energy employees.

Recommendation: Free the children, don’t exploit them. How pathetic. Risk Management Issues Wouldn’t it be educational if the kids also were asked, “What’s bad about natural gas?” Let the kids visit with children their age who live in a shale gas zone – whether Barnett in Texas or Marcellus in Pennsylvania or other shale gas states.

But don’t let the gas industry kids stay there long enough to develop nose bleeds, skin rashes or headaches. Explain that this is why gas industry executive families don’t live in a shale gas zone.

Let the kids learn about Spectra Energy’s actual performance record of leaks, explosions, pollution, multimillion dollar fines.

Let the kids talk to property owners and families who have been impacted by Spectra Energy operations – like property owners who live near the Steckman Ridge compressor station in Clearville, Pennsylvania.

Their parents can explain why this facility hasn’t worked right from the beginning. With homes nearby and an elementary school 3 miles away, this is Spectra Energy’s 12 billion cubic feet underground natural gas “storage” reservoir.

This facility includes 13 injection/withdrawal wells and a nearly 5,000 horsepower compressor station. From the beginning, there have been ongoing operational problems at Steckman Ridge that involve shutdowns/blowdowns that result in the release of toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and sometimes an oily contaminant into the atmosphere and on neighboring properties.

Recently, a valve seal failed on one of the company’s injection/withdrawal wells resulting, of course, in another gas leak. Spectra Energy admits that it knows how this huge compressor station performs compared to other compressors in the company’s system; but it refuses to share that information with its “neighbors.”

Spectra Energy has serious risk management issues. Perhaps the video is a metaphor for the company and the industry.

“Natural” gas may burn clean at the stove but everything it takes to get it there – from extraction to storage to transmission – is “gross” as the kids say in the video. Cue the fart sounds.

Links & Resources 1 Spectra Energy Kiddie Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/SpectraEnergy1

2 Spectra Energy News Release about its kiddie video: http://www.spectraenergy.com/news/releases/2011/jan/20110106_01.asp Or PDF file: spectra-energy-launches-new-youtube-video-as-part-of-ongoing-natural-gas-advocacy-effort
Spectra Energy Watch’s: “Kids Say [the] Darndest Things About Natural Gas”.

See also: Ali Geering-Kline. Greenwash of the Month: The Kid-Friendly (Fracking Dinosaur) “Fracosaurus”? 26 Jul 2011. Center for Environmental Health.

Hey, kids! It’s Talisman Terry, your “friendly Fracosaurus”! Terry the Fracosaurus teaches kids about “a clean energy source called Natural Gas,” found right in your hometown!

Wait, what?!

If the “frac” in that cartoon dinosaur’s name sounds scarily close to the natural gas drilling process called “fracking,” then you’re right—that’s exactly where it came from. A Canadian global oil and gas company, called Talisman Energy, recently released a 24-page coloring book for children explaining the “virtues” of natural gas extraction.

This, from a company tied to human rights and environmental abuses in Sudan and the Amazon, not to mention a recent fine for a large diesel spill in Pennsylvania.

This coloring book isn’t just part of a far-reaching public education campaign aimed at brainwashing the younger generations into thinking that fracking is some sort of safe, clean energy of the future. It’s specifically aimed at children in Twin Tiers, a cluster of counties on the New York/Pennsylvania border where Talisman Energy has developed more than 100 wells over the past 10 years, polluting the surrounding communities’ water.

Currently, there is an ongoing battle in the area over the distribution of permits to drill between gas companies and regulators.

Fracking injects chemical-laced water deep underground to crack open shale rock so the gas can escape. Drillers must then dispose of waste water that flows back up the wells, with the potential for severe environmental health hazards. When CBS’s “60 Minutes” ran a long segment about the controversial procedure, viewers across the country saw the now-famous clip of flames shooting out of a kitchen faucet, caused by fracking waste water disposal.

Not only does Terry the Fracosaurus tell kids that natural gas is a clean way to heat our homes, cook our meals, heat our water, and power our cars and buses—he also defines natural gas as a “clean-burning fossil fuel that is one of the cleanest, safest, and most useful of all energy sources.”

Wow, that’s a whole other level of greenwashing—it’s greenwashing aimed at kids! That’s like having Joe the Camel front for cigarette companies so kids will be drawn to the clean, safe, and most useful of all ways to smoke tobacco.

Talisman Energy has now stopped production of the coloring book because of all the negative media attention it received, but it will live on forever in ridiculous, corporate greenwashing legend.

CEH is actively investigating the health impacts of fracking, as well as other sectors of the energy industry. So please check back to our website and Generation Green for more updates soon.

And for the hilarious continuation of Talisman Terry’s continued coloring book life imagined by Stephen Colbert, check out the Colbert segment on Talisman Terry. (not available)
Ali Geering-Kline. Greenwash of the Month: The Kid-Friendly (Fracking Dinosaur) “Fracosaurus”? 26 Jul 2011. Center for Environmental Health.