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CBS Sunday Morning: Digging into the practice of fracking
CBS News - Sunday Morning ^ | 12/30/12 | David Pogue

Posted on 12/30/2012 9:33:21 AM PST by T-Bird45

What if I told you that we have a new source of fuel? It's cheap, it burns cleaner than coal, it's found right here in America, and there's enough of it for the next hundred years.

The fuel is natural gas. And the new source? Gigantic deposits of shale rock, miles underground. This one is called the Marcellus Shale. It covers 95,000 square miles, across four states.

The gas is locked in the rock. If you crack a piece off you can actually smell the gas inside.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: energy; fracking; geology; naturalgas; technology
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A fairly reasonable and balanced treatment with voices from both sides. It's not comprehensive in its treatment of the technology but the anti-fracking crowd is not given free rein to spout their propaganda, either.

I think it's worth the click and the video time. I watched it as it was presented on the program this morning and was initially skeptical on how fair and objective it would be. I was pleasantly surprised.

1 posted on 12/30/2012 9:33:26 AM PST by T-Bird45
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To: T-Bird45
If you crack a piece off you can actually smell the gas inside.

huh ?
2 posted on 12/30/2012 9:39:10 AM PST by stylin19a (obama -> Fredo smart)
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To: stylin19a
Huh, yeah, isn't natural gas odorless?
3 posted on 12/30/2012 9:42:11 AM PST by hinckley buzzard
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To: T-Bird45

I agree. The coverage was so far and balanced that for a minute I thought this was FOX News rather than one of the alphabet networks.


4 posted on 12/30/2012 9:49:16 AM PST by wmileo
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To: stylin19a

The fact is, methane (natural gas) is almost odorless. The “gas” smell comes from a chemical that is added to the natural gas by distribution facilities, dimethyl sulfide. It is there for your safety, to alert you by smell.

In large quantities, there is almost always some of this chemical occurring in pockets of natural gas, but in much more lower concentration than may be easily detected by a whiff.

The dimethyl sulfide is the result of decomposition of certain organic material such as proteins, which do contain some sulfur. Pure methane would have no sulfur attached to any of its molecules.


5 posted on 12/30/2012 9:49:42 AM PST by alloysteel (Bronco Bama - the cowboy who whooped up and widened the stampede.)
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To: wmileo

Sorry, ‘The coverage was so fair’


6 posted on 12/30/2012 9:50:37 AM PST by wmileo
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To: wmileo

Sorry, ‘The coverage was so fair’


7 posted on 12/30/2012 9:51:42 AM PST by wmileo
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To: T-Bird45; thackney; Carry_Okie

I’ll review it.


8 posted on 12/30/2012 9:51:42 AM PST by sauropod (I will not comply)
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To: T-Bird45
What if I told you that we have a new source of fuel? It's cheap, it burns cleaner than coal, it's found right here in America, and there's enough of it for the next hundred years.

I'd say the government is licking it's chops to regulate it and tax it into oblivion.

9 posted on 12/30/2012 9:59:03 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal The 16th Amendment!)
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To: hinckley buzzard; stylin19a; alloysteel
Huh, yeah, isn't natural gas odorless?

I made no claims about absolute scientific accuracy. Even my wife called that one out while we were watching it.

10 posted on 12/30/2012 10:01:22 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: T-Bird45

Fossil fuels are racist and benefit the rich only...therefore they should remain underground and buried....only non American companies and countries should mine and use it./s


11 posted on 12/30/2012 10:03:20 AM PST by Dallas59 (America died a little bit more on 11/6/2012)
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To: T-Bird45

I’m in the industry, and I agree that it’s a fairly reasonable and balanced presentation, though a bit lightweight.

The only real environmental issue is the water demand, and the industry is addressing that issue.

However, there are some watermelons who intentionally use blatantly deceptive propaganda to ban fraccing entirely. The presenter avoids calling them out in his conclusion. But, he’s right that fraccing is here to stay.


12 posted on 12/30/2012 10:09:31 AM PST by Skepolitic
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To: T-Bird45

While the piece was as balanced as I have seen from CBS in a long time, the bird woman (married to the Cornell Professor) is so stereotypical of the anti-anything-anytime-anywhere crowd. I doubt if that woman ever had a pleasant thought in her entire life and she and her fellow Marxists, hiding behind the environmental movement, will not be satisfied until all our lives are as miserable as hers.

The “test well water before and after drilling” should have been plain to Captain Obvious and only a retard would drill without such prior testing.

Also in reading the comments it is quite obvious who the average SeeBS viewer tends to be.


13 posted on 12/30/2012 10:21:47 AM PST by Wurlitzer (Nothing says "ignorance" like Islam!)
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To: Skepolitic

I, too, am in the business. Like you, I found it balanced but light. However, I don’t share your optimism that it’s here to stay. I suspect the communists in DC will eventually outlaw or tax it into oblivion. It’s to save the children, ya know. /s


14 posted on 12/30/2012 10:35:22 AM PST by lgjhn23 (It's easy to be liberal when you're dumber than a box of rocks.)
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To: Wurlitzer

Yeah, I could almost hear the granola crunching as that pair spoke. I knew what we would hear before they spoke when I saw that Cornell University jacket.


15 posted on 12/30/2012 10:40:14 AM PST by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: hinckley buzzard; stylin19a

“isn’t natural gas odorless?”

Yes but the CBS reporter smells like a reeking POS...hence when he takes a whiff of the natural gas, the very ABSENCE of aroma seems like a “scent” of something.


16 posted on 12/30/2012 10:47:07 AM PST by Fightin Whitey
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To: T-Bird45
Unless CBS explained where these "anti-fracking" groups get their money, connections, and legal resources, it is in no way a balanced presentation. For example, consider that the Natural Resources Defense Council is major a source of opposition to fracking. Yet the NRDC is funded largely by major stockholders in competing sources of energy, nearly controlling the entire energy market in California and exerting major influence in all 50 States. Now realize that Mary Nichols, long an NRDC lawyer, is being considered to replace Lisa Jackson at EPA.
17 posted on 12/30/2012 12:01:05 PM PST by Carry_Okie (GunWalker: Arming "a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well funded")
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To: hinckley buzzard

Methane is odorless. Natural gas has components in addition to methane especially at the wellhead and some of those have an odor.

It smells like money to me.


18 posted on 12/30/2012 12:02:43 PM PST by SargeK
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To: T-Bird45

What causes anti-fracking, lib heads to explode is not the supposed “dangers” of fracking, but the fact that there is a gigantic supply of new energy that can be accessed. They thought they had suppressed all efforts to extract new energy and we had reached “peak” oil. They thought the public had bought in to their scam about wind and solar energy replacing oil and gas as energy sources. They found out they were wrong and are desperate to stop new efforts like fracking. And if they have to lie to the public to do so, they’re more than willing.


19 posted on 12/30/2012 12:08:15 PM PST by driftless2
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To: SargeK
hummm New London Texas in the 1930’s had the worst school disaster in the US. The natural gas caused an explosion and no one smelled it because the natural gas was odorless. After that tragedy, scent was added to gas.
20 posted on 12/30/2012 12:08:26 PM PST by Ditter
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