Posted on 03/18/2017 10:27:10 AM PDT by Starman417
The Trump administration has rightly decided to repeal an Obama administration rule on hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” as it is commonly known, a process which injects fluids under pressure to release oil and natural gas trapped in America’s vast shale formations. According to The Hill:
The Trump administration is planning to repeal former President Barack Obama’s landmark 2015 rule setting standards for hydraulic fracturing on federal land.The rule was designed to burden the oil industry with excessive reporting requirements which would allow the EPA to delay and derail, new exploration and drilling. It was designed to kill fracking, a key part of America’s energy resurgence, based on unfounded environmentalist fears, namely that fracking poisons drinking water, accelerates climate change, and causes earthquakes. As Investor’s Business Daily commented on the Obama fracking rule enacted in 2015:Justice Department lawyers revealed the decision late Wednesday in a filing with the Denver-based Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, where the federal government under had been fighting against the oil and natural gas industry and conservative states to get the rule reinstated….
The rule set standards in three areas for federal-land fracking: integrity of well casing, storage of waste fluids and public disclosure of the chemicals used.
It was written in part to respond to suspicion and anger from the public regarding the controversial oil and gas extraction technique, which has grown exponentially and been behind the boom in domestic energy production and resulting low prices.
When the Obama administration recently released its new regulations on fracking — regulations that it said were needed to keep up with the advance and success of the decades-old technology to meet public safety needs — the Independent Petroleum Association of America and Western Energy Alliance immediately filed suit, saying that the new regs were based on "unsubstantiated concerns" that lacked any scientific basis.Fracking simply doesn’t threaten our frinking water. Nor does it cause earthquakes, which became a minor issue in the 2016 thanks to fringe presidential candidate Jill Stein. The earth moved for environmental extremists when a 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck Oklahoma. As soon as the first aftershock, the greenies were in full voice blaming fracking, the technology that has fueled America’s oil and natural gas boom."Hydraulic fracturing has been conducted safely and responsibly in the United States for over 60 years," noted IPAA president Barry Russell, who also pointed out the impact of the new regulations on job and economic growth. Fracking has produced an oil and natural gas boom, making them energy sources of the future, not the past.
The Obama administration doesn't like fracking and wishes that fracking would just go away so it can go on subsidizing the Solyndras of the world. But Russell is right: Fracking is safe, and the new study proves that any concerns are politically motivated fear-mongering.
Published online in late March in Environmental Science and Technology, the study focused on 11,309 drinking wells in northeastern Pennsylvania. It found that background levels of methane in well water are unrelated to the location of oil and gas wells drilled using fracking technology….
Shale formations in which fracking is used are thousands of feet deep. Drinking-water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There's a lot of solid rock in between. And as we've said, the technology is not new, with the first well employing fracking being drilled in Oklahoma in 1947.
Oklahoma state regulators ordered 37 disposal wells used by frackers shut down and Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein tweeted:
Fracking causes polluted drinking water + earthquakes. The #GreenNewDeal comes with none of these side effects, Oklahoma. #BanFrackingHydraulic fracturing, the technical term, does not cause earthquakes nor has there ever been evidence that it contaminates drinking water. Fracking has been used in oil and gas production in Oklahoma since 1949 and now, more than six decades later, the chicken littles of the left are claiming it now causes major destructive earthquakes?
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...
Drill, baby, drill!
Cuomo killed fracking in NYS.
The problem with fracking is production drops off rapidly after a few years of pumping.
No matter. Some envirowacco will file a law suit, and some liberal commie homo loving judge, like the muzzie immigration rule, will rule against Trump and everything will be slammed to a stop. That is their game plans. Use the federal courts to stop any and everything Trump wants to do.
Right after the visit of the Saudi Prince.
US Fracking was driving the Saudi budget toward bankruptcy before this rule was lifted - this is body blow to the Saudis financial future, and a big boost to ours.
The problem with fracking is production drops off rapidly after a few years of pumping.
Yes, but there are ways to move the head that can access additional reserves in the ground in the same area. It is the free market - find a big enough reserve that is economical to access and go for it. Find the wrong reserve for the method used or one that is too small and it is not economically viable. In that sense, it is not different than traditional drilling.
This decision by the prior administration had little to do with the methodology or risks - it was part of the “green energy” movement tied to the eco-fascism of the left.
This is a great ruling that will sustain jobs, create some news jobs and wealth, and perhaps most importantly it illustrates to the energy market that Trump is very serious about his pledges.
Now we MUST demand the phasing out of ethanol subsidies. The ethanol program is a prime example of bad governance. It is a failed welfare program that has increased the cost we pay at the pump and the mechanic.
We’ll see if anyone reads this. Truths:
1) Fracking brings up oil. It also brings up water. This is called production water and is contaminated by usually at least salt, but since shale has uranium in it, the water is sometimes lightly radioactive because of sediment in it. Fracking doesn’t cause quakes. But that water has to be disposed of. It is usually pumped back down into the ground some distance away at great force to get rid of it. THAT is what causes quakes.
2) The water is pumped back down at great force because the oil and water is not an “ocean” or “pond”. It’s rock. The rock has pores and the oil came from pores (as did the water). Some distance away is more rocks and there are pores and maybe the pores aren’t filled. So you fill them and it takes a lot of pressure to do it.
3) There has been no fracking miracle. No yankee knowhow technological leap. The guy himself pointed out fracking has been going on 50-60 yrs. It’s not new. The reason oil flowed was price. When it was $110/barrel with 0% interest rates, they could borrow to frack and cover the enormous costs (it takes **millions** of pounds of sand hauled to the site by truck to frack a single well). When the price was $110, you could cover it. Now, at $48, it’s largely loans that don’t get repaid (because the Fed creates that money from thin air, after all).
4) Yes, the fracking depths are WAY below drinking water aquifers. No risk to that water at all. BUT, the well that goes down there does pass through the aquifer. Having a regulation to be sure some fly by night wildcatter doesn’t use cheap cement to line the hole is not a foolish reg. Stein’s wacko quote about contaiminating drinking water is bullshit, but solid cement regulations is not oppressive and not a stupid thing.
As an aside, if one does not believe in a planet-wide flood of Biblical proportions, then where did the deep-buried coal and shale-oil come from?
Coal is deposited above sealevel, organic shales are typicaly emplaced below water level, and it is amazing what can happen when continents collide.
1) Fracking brings up oil. It also brings up water. This is called production water and is contaminated by usually at least salt, but since shale has uranium in it, the water is sometimes lightly radioactive because of sediment in it. Fracking doesn’t cause quakes. But that water has to be disposed of. It is usually pumped back down into the ground some distance away at great force to get rid of it. THAT is what causes quakes.
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I thought that maybe at some point when the technology gets there—that production water could be cleaned up for agriculture or even drinking water—and the contaminants like salt or even uranium —reprocessed for industry. But if the water is freaking radioactive—that idea is a non starter.
And then they refrac the well.
I worked on some wells that were drilled in the 60s.
In the Mt. View area of Wyoming.
They came in, used directional drilling, extended the well but not any deeper, lateraly along the strike.
Then they fraces it. What had tricked almost to nothing came alive again
Wonder what happened to all those little fossil critters that got buried in deep sediment. Same thing that happened to the imprints of coalified leaves and tree trunk solids tat never got a chance to shrivel and rot? Hm.
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