Posted on 05/07/2011 9:23:34 PM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, seeing increased domestic natural gas production as a linchpin in its long-term energy strategy, has named a panel of experts to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner.
The administration hopes to avoid the safety and regulatory breakdowns that led to the Deepwater Horizon blowout a year ago as it oversees onshore drilling using hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has asked the panel’s seven experts, to be led by John Deutch, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and deputy defense secretary, to recommend within 90 days immediate steps to make fracking cleaner and safer.
The group will have an additional three months to come up with comprehensive safety and environmental policies for state and federal regulators who oversee gas drilling.
Mr. Chu said that he was acting at the direction of President Obama, who outlined a new energy strategy last month that calls for stepped-up domestic oil and gas production but also new rules to make the business safer.
Hydraulic fracturing involves the high-pressure injection of fluids into underground shale formations to break open natural gas pockets. The technique, which has been in limited use for decades, is expected to significantly increase recovery of domestic gas supplies and keep prices moderate for years.
But the practice also pours millions of gallons of dangerous chemicals into the ground and into wastewater treatment systems, which in some cases cannot remove all the potential toxins. There are also numerous documented cases in which fracking fluids leaked into aquifers and contaminated drinking water.
“America’s vast natural gas resources can generate many new jobs and provide significant environmental benefits,” Mr. Chu said in a statement late Thursday, “but we need to ensure we harness...”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
They’re about to ban fracking.
Hi, were from the government and were here to help.
Not a good sign if your a fracker
Frack 0bama!
mark
“Mr. Deutch is a director of Cheniere Energy, which operates a major liquefied natural gas terminal in Louisiana and a number of gas pipelines.”
Cheniere sole place on this earth is to import natural gas from other countries, Deuth couldn’t have a stronger confict of interest.
They’re about to ban fracking.
Or make it extremely expensive.
Frack 0bama!
There is little to no proof that fracking is dangerous at all. Another attempt to hamstring the future of drilling.
“has named a panel of experts to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner”
IOW, to direct leasing rights to obastard and donk supporters.
And they built in a six month delay for businesses to pony up.
Thugocracy 101...
They don’t want it to work - And, like you said, want to “regulate via press corpse release” like this one: These “numerous documents cases” have been hyped and exaggerated by lawyers and EPA-enviro’s and university prof’s who want money to get money to study the problem.
Assigning a compliant CIA bureaucrat to any energy problem? Yeah - Sounds like a real DOE way.
The groundwater wells are thousands of feet, sometimes tens of thousands of feet above the oil and gas reservoirs - but that minor difference doesn’t matter to the enviro’s who hate and despise national energy production in any form.
“They’re about to ban fracking.”
Yup, but exemptions will be given to those who “play ball” with obama. Just like with Obamacare.
Again, thugocracy (ie, marxism) 101...
I doubt that, but they'll probably ban the use of benzene, and any waste fluids that gov't waste water treatment plants can't handle unless the drilling companies want to clean it completely up to gov't specifications in the Clean Water Act.
“The Obama administration, seeing increased domestic natural gas production as a linchpin in its long-term energy strategy, has named a panel of experts to find ways to make hydraulic fracturing, a fast-growing method of extracting natural gas, safer and cleaner.”
Oh goodie, the leftist greenies are estatic, Obama is going shut it all down.
I have worked on many wells during completions, can remember very few that were not fracked. And I go back more than a couple decades in the oil patch.
Of course, when the drilling activity stops everywhere from the Bakken (we frac that, too) and the Three Forks, to the Marcellus and Haynesville shales, and purt'near anyplace there is drilling in the US, the spike in prices will all be the 'fault of the eeeeeeevil oil companies' I can hear the BS already.
This is something which should be regulated and controlled at the State level, by people who are familliar with the industry, current practices, local geology, and the State's needs for Environmental controls.
A lot of frac fluids which cannot be cleaned and re-used are disposed the same way as production water—in disposal wells. That is another practice that has been in use for over 60 years. Only real slobs or screw-ups would dump the water where it will cause problems, and the States can pull their permits and shut them down.
Pure evil. The NYT runs a story where Up is Down, and Down is Up, and a hundred papers will reprint the story tomorrow as if it were gospel.
Are you saying that benzene is one of the injection fluids. Sure wouldn’t want that leaking into my aquifer.
Find me an aquifer it's leaked into already.
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