Find out FACTS
Here we provide the answers to Frequently Asked Questions about fracking, the relationship of SDG&E and Sempra, the dangers of methane leaks, and Sempra’s climate busting business plan.
Sempra is the Natural Gas Holding Company that owns San Diego’s utility, SDG&E. Sempra also owns other subsidiaries including SoCalGas that was responsible for the largest leak of methane gas in US History (100,00 metric tons).
Sempra is using our utility payments to build a fracked gas export empire. Their vision is to:
1) Significantly expand the extraction of fracked methane gas. They call it “natural gas” but 80% or more of this gas will be extracted via fracking.
2) Build infrastructure to sell this gas overseas from terminals in Texas and Mexico.
3) Establish a multiple-decade global dependence on fossil fuels.
It is not an exaggeration to say that their plan is the equivalent to setting off a climate bomb. Sempra estimates that the US Permian basin contains 2,400,000,000,000,000 (2.4 Quadrillion) cubic feet of frackable methane and they want to be a huge part of transporting, selling and burning this gas around the globe. This will accelerate global heating when we should be ending fossil fuel use and transitioning to renewables. From Sempra’s own presentation:
So-called “natural gas” is mainly produced from drilling or increasingly from hydraulic fracking. Natural gas is primarily (85%) composed of methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, 20-80X more potent than CO2. While burning methane is cleaner than coal, methane leaks at every stage of the extraction, transport and shipping process and these leaks are 2.5x more common than reported. Over the short term (20 years) fracked gas extraction is worse than coal for the climate. This is why we say “Sempra Fracks Our Future“.
In addition to burning fracked gas, which releases CO2 into the atmosphere, the fracking process itself causes significant pollution and hazards. Many materials that come up from from fracking wells are contaminants, including sulfur, mercury and even radioactivity. Here are a list of hazards at each stage:
Sempra told us! Here is a link to the
slideshow describing the company business plan and the Climate Bomb they plan to set off using ratepayer overcharges.
No. Sempra Energy’s SoCalGas sued California for not promoting Natural Gas!
In 2019, Sempra sold the last of its renewable energy projects. In other words, they went all in on fracked gas. Sempra increased their holdings in this dangerous fossil fuel and focused on selling it abroad.
Sempra shareholders also voted down issuing a report on how “Sempra’s assets and lobbying activities align with the international Paris treaty on climate change.”
An extensive report from the Physicians for Social Responsibility found widespread use of cancer-causing forever chemicals, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), in 1,200 wells across 6 states over 10 years. These teflon-chemicals are ‘slippery’, which increases the efficiency of gas extraction, but they are also highly toxic and highly resistant to environmental breakdown (i.e., ‘forever chemicals’). Just one cup of forever chemicals can contaminate 8 BILLION gallons of water.
At one fracking site in Texas, drilling operators pumped 324 pounds of PFAS into a single well. Fracking companies have been poisoning groundwater for decades but we still do not know the extent of this damage because so much of it is shielded from public view.
Physicians Group Uncovers Evidence that ‘Forever Chemicals’ (PFAS) Have Been Used Extensively in Fracking Unbeknownst to Public
All In
In 2019, Sempra sold the last of its renewable energy projects. In other words, they went all in on fracked gas. Sempra increased their holdings in this dangerous fossil fuel and focused on selling it abroad.
