[Revolting cat!]

Can you say “fracking” on TV now? Times surely change, Shirley!

[pgkdan]

The question for the rest of us is whether we are serious about domestic energy production. All forms of energy have risks and environmental costs, not least wind (noise and dead birds and bats) and solar (vast expanses of land). Yet renewables are nowhere close to supplying enough energy, even with large subsidies, to maintain America's standard of living. The shale gas and oil boom is the result of U.S. business innovation and risk-taking. If we let the fear of undocumented pollution kill this boom, we will deserve our fate as a second-class industrial power.

That's the truth!

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[ez]

I live near the Marcellus shale. But my well is only 25 feet deep so, frack away!

[Fred Hayek]

So the anti-capitalist, anti-human Gaia worshippers lie to push their agenda.

[AndyTheBear]

Once again the environmentalist establishment does not like a new alternative source of clean abundant energy. Seems as soon as a new tech starts to prove itself as effective for the masses is when it goes from being “alternative” to being “dirty”.

[CPT Clay]

Bump to read Later

[woofie]

Is natural gas going to go up any time soon?

[nascarnation]

credits to FReeper cripplecreek

[ArchAngel1983]

They’re already trying their best to stop it in NW PA. I guess 30 years of depression era economy isn’t enough for them. Oh well, you can always live in the past . . .not!

[okie01]

Only a decade ago Texas oil engineers hit upon the idea of combining two established technologies to release natural gas trapped in shale formations. Horizontal drilling—in which wells turn sideways after a certain depth—opens up big new production areas. Producers then use a 60-year-old technique called hydraulic fracturing—in which water, sand and chemicals are injected into the well at high pressure—to loosen the shale and release gas (and increasingly, oil).

Notice that the two technologies are "established". In Texas, "fracking" has been commonplace since the fifties (over sixty years ago). And, during that history, no water well (under 200 ft depth) has been contaminated by "fracking" in vertical wells at beyond 8,000 ft in depth.

Now, in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale (as well as in Texas, in the Barnett Shale, where I reside), "fracking" is taking place in horizontally drilled wells. Again, below the 8,000 ft horizon. Use your head. Is there any reason why "fracking" a horizontally-drilled well at 8,000 ft would contaminate a 200 ft water well -- while "fracking" a vertical well at 8,000 ft would not?

Further, they say methane has been found in Pennsylvania water wells. Where might it have come from?

Is not the entirety of Pennsylvania under-lain by coal beds? Is not shallow methane always found in close association with coal beds? Are there not old wells all over Pennsylvania drilled to raise so-called "coal-bed methane"?

Net:net -- there is no scientific reason whatsoever to be concerned with "fracking" in the Marcellus Shale. No more than there is to be concerned with "fracking" in the Barnett Shale.

[Erik Latranyi]

I live in Williamsport, PA....in the heart of Marcellus Shale drilling.

The hysteria is incredible.

The liberals, who complain about a lack of jobs in previous years, are now complaining about all these drillers and traffic in our area.

I have challenged them to cite what industries they want that would not create more traffic or more people coming to our area. Nobody can cite one.

It shows that while liberals always talk about creating jobs, they are the first ones to complain when a jobs boom begins because it changes their way of life.

[Para-Ord.45]

bm

[South Dakota]

I worked in the Jonah/ Mesa natural gas fields of Pinedale Wyoming.
I worked on the fracs and as a flowtester and the average depth of every well I worked on was 13 thousand feet or better

[NoLibZone]

Fracking is less harmful than the depleted Missourian we release in the Middle East to protect our energy needs.

Frack baby frack!