Fracking Fantasies

Environmentalists have taken aim at a common natural gas extraction technique called Hydraulic Fracturing, or Fracking. The enviros claim that Fracking will contaminate ground water or even cause earthquakes because it involves injecting water, sand, and some chemicals into bedrock to increase natural gas supplies. Not only are these claims specious (Fracking occurs well below the water table), the enviros are revisiting a long history of hypocrisy since the only way to obtain their renewable energy goal is through Fracking.

States like Wyoming and Texas are now requiring thorough disclosure of Fracking chemicals. France has banned the practice outright. Agitprop movies like Gasland seek to demonize the technology that has turned an expensive, price volatile commodity into a near limitless resource. Even if everything the enviros say about Fracking is true, they still want the US to shift toward natural gas for most of its energy needs, and that requires Fracking. As usual, the enviro dirty laundry is showing.

At least 23 states have renewable energy laws that purport to require 15% to 30% of all electricity to come from renewable energy sources. But wind power provides less than 2% of the nation’s electricity and solar nearly zero. How do these states hope to go from 2% to 30%? The answer is a political sleight of hand called the Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS. An RPS does not actually require a massive and impractical investment in solar and wind generation, it requires the overall CO2 emissions of a utility to mirror a hypothetical portfolio of renewable energy sources (assuming such technologies actually worked as advertised).

A RPS solution usually contains a token amount of wind and solar credits, along with advertising encouraging consumers to conserve, but the bulk of the results come from replacing coal plants with natural gas turbines. The unadvertised reality of a RPS is that it is nothing more than shifting from coal to natural gas. Renewable energy? Hardly, but natural gas contains hydrogen atoms that when burned release H2O, not CO2. By its nature, natural gas releases less CO2 per unit of energy, so the bottom line of replacing coal with natural gas resembles an investment in renewable energy. Also, natural gas turbines produce fewer secondary pollutants than coal, a nice plus given the EPA’s regulations regarding mercury and particulates.

So, renewable energy has next to nothing to do with wind and solar and is mostly replacing coal with natural gas. What is the problem? Well, prior to Fracking, natural gas was a limited and expensive commodity with a highly volatile price. Shifting electricity generation to natural gas would more than double the price of powering people’s homes. The only way to achieve a RPS is to ensure a vast and stable supply of natural gas, and currently Fracking is the only practical way to do that.

The same enviros that demanded the shift from coal want to shut down domestic natural gas production. The old line about conservation, living simply, and other collectivist garbage cannot withstand the fact that the US economy needs energy to function. Be it coal or natural gas, something must be extracted from the ground, and it must be burned. But enviros do not care about reality because they are never held accountable for their positions; they are just ‘for the planet,’ not for regular people powering their homes. The Old Time Media will never point out the enviro hypocrisy of both demanding more natural gas energy and outlawing its production, but the enviro’s Fracking fantasy seeks to hobble the US way of life nonetheless.

Long before drilling or gas was ever discovered, there have been Methane influxes in the ground water. (Especially near coal layers.) Like the Gulf region, drilling large areas has relieved formation pressures dramatically, which has in turn, reduced natural oil and gas migration/seepage to the surface. In some cases, natural seepage has completely stopped or has been greatly reduced.

In the PA field, (Marcellus Shale) there are impermeable layers above the fracked shale that will not allow it to migrate. Surface casing is also very carefully certified and installed to prevent contamination from gas wells.

(I am consulting in that field currently and have seen no evidence of these bogus claims being true. Our Directional, Intermediate and Surface program insures that even further.)

The images of burning well water in a glass in Gasland are from Colorado well water nowhere near any drilling activity. The reports of methane in PA groundwater in the recent Duke study likewise were found to be from natural sources closer to the surface.

I noticed myself in the NY Times 'expose' on radiation in fracking water that their supporting information on the worst wells was missing.

The amount of misinformation and slime being spread by the anti-fracking camp is staggering.

One would think that logic would eventually win. Of course if we were in a logical world. But there are too many ignorant, brainwashed fools on the East Coast who believe every thing they are told or read.

In the end though, simply shut off their heat and electricity. It won't be long before they start screaming that somebody lower the price of energy so they can afford food again. Maybe then they can all be happy, knowing that the “Mother Earth” has been saved. (When it was never in trouble in the first place.)

The main problem is not, IMO, the big-city types in the cities. It is instead the big-city types who moved out into the country - you know, the same folks who move out to Lancaster County for the country ambiance and then complain about the smell from the dairy farms.

You have a lot of folks from NYC who bought homes in the woods in the Marcellus shale belt (including NE PA - the region is infested with them - they take busses to work). And now, egads, there are well pads just down the road from them. Ruining their country experience. So they see anti-fracking as their main NIMBY path.

Unfortunately for them, most of the old timers LIKE the jobs and revenues that drilling and production is creating - the old timers have tasted hard times for many years and like the smell of money that fracking represents. And the old timers are typically the county power structure. Hence the NIMBY folks shifting the battle to the media, where misinformation can get traction.

So, renewable energy has next to nothing to do with wind and solar and is mostly replacing coal with natural gas.

Add 'Biomass' (or in laymen's terms, burning wood, dung or garbage) and hydroelectric which the Greenies also try to kill you and you have 95% of all renewable energy.

The only energy they support is the types that won't work.

They don't give a crap about the environment. Their goal is to destroy the economy so they can replace it with their Marxist utopia. Once that happens, you'll never hear a word about the environment again because the government will be the only polluter.

“The only energy they support is the types that won’t work.”

I think that is my entire article in a nutshell.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.