Posted on 04/25/2011 4:23:57 AM PDT by Scanian
More Print Critics of hydraulic fracturing were quick to pounce on last week's well blowout in Pennsylvania as proof that the controversial method of extracting natural gas is an environmental threat.
That includes state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who just days earlier rashly overreached and vowed to sue the federal government unless it commits within 30 days to conducting a full review of regulations that would allow natural-gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin.
At issue is fracking -- the controversial process in which a high-pressure mix of water, chemicals and sand is used to extract natural gas from rock formations.
And, Schneiderman notwithstanding, a federal review of fracking is under way -- and is just one of several.
Which is fine. Nobody is advocating reckless action.
But it remains that a good way to kill fracking is to study it to death -- which appears to be Schneiderman's real goal.
He and the usual Greenie suspects are looking for a permanent ban on fracking, which has long been allowed in every state -- except New York.
In addition to Schneiderman's obvious stalling, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is conducting its own fracking assessment.
Even assuming that the study is a good-faith effort -- and that's not at all clear -- it won't be completed for months
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
It’s either frack or freeze.
WOW, can you imagine what it would be loke if ANY episode of Start Trek had ever addressed how horrible natural gas was like they did nuclear power?
In five years, if fracturing were eliminated, there would be a decrease of nearly 79% in wells completed. As a result, the country would experience [in 5 years], a 17% reduction in oil production and a 45% reduction in natural gas production, relative to the reference case, with declines continuing during the forecast period resulting in a 23% reduction in oil production and a 57% decrease in gas production from the reference case [in 9 years], . Due to the country’s increasing reliance on unconventional resources, where over 95% of wells are routinely treated using fracturing, the impact on production would be permanent and severe.
Measuring the Economic and EnergyImpacts of Proposals to Regulate Hydraulic Fracturing
http://www.api.org/policy/exploration/hydraulicfracturing/upload/IHS_GI_Hydraulic_Fracturing_Exec_Summary.pdf
Freeze a Yankee.
I think Obummer should get fracked!
My only concern is of the consequences of fracking with substances that would prove to be hazardous when they seep into the environment or inadvertently sucked up a well drilled for household water. I realize that a coal seam is not exactly a benign water filter either, but why contaminate more when not contaminating at all is an option?
I’ll bet he’s been both fricked and fracked!
The water table is usually around, or less than, 100 feet deep. Fracking occurs about a mile deep, through a double steel pipe cased in cement. While it’s theoretically possible to breach the pipe & cement to contaminate the water table it is extremely, extremely unlikely. I don’t know of a single case after decades and tens of thousands of wells....but there may be one. More likely is that used fracking water (which is still about 98% water) could spill to a place it shouldn’t go. There are plenty of good ways to avoid that. The bad press against fracking is politically based misinformation.
Please..we have been doing this for sixty years. The wells are cased (with steel) to several thousand feet below the aquifers. Contamination is extremely rare. But, as I said, this is a made up controversy. We have been doing this for sixty years and thousands of wells. What happened is that the Coal Industry doesn’t like the fact that Natural Gas will replace them....
One factor is that people commonly believe that everything below the surface is pristine, organic and certainly benign for human contact. It is as if hazardous minerals only exist on Mars, or when water comes in contact with an arsenic bearing strata, it never picks up any. So, naturally, anything evil drilling companies might use is going to only corrupt Gaia.
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