Posted on 07/22/2011 7:20:44 PM PDT by neverdem
The world’s projected natural gas supplies jumped 40 percent last year. Until a decade ago, experts believed it would be technically infeasible to exploit the natural gas locked in 48 shale basins in 32 countries around the world. Then horizontal drilling, combined with hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, was introduced. The shale gas rush was on, and last year the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) dramatically raised its estimate of available natural gas.
The ability to produce clean-burning natural gas from shale could transform the global energy economy. Right now we burn about 7 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of natural gas to generate about 24 percent of the electricity used in the United States. The U.S. burns a total of 23 TCF annually to heat homes and supply industrial processes as well as produce electricity. Burning coal still produces about 45 percent of U.S. electricity.
A rough calculation suggests that 100 percent of coal-powered electricity generation could be replaced by burning an additional 14 TCF of natural gas...
--snip--
The national green lobbies initially welcomed shale gas. In 2009, for example, Robert Kennedy Jr., head of the Waterkeeper Alliance, called it “an obvious bridge fuel to the ‘new’ energy economy.” Local environmental activists were not as enthusiastic, arguing that fracking contaminates drinking water and causes other forms of pollution. After a while, some of the national lobbies began to come around to the locals’ side. In the words of the journalist Matt Ridley, “it became apparent that shale gas was a competitive threat to renewable energy.” Josh Fox, director of the anti–natural gas documentary Gasland, put it bluntly on Kennedy’s radio show: “What’s really happening here is not a battle between natural gas and coal. What’s happening here is a battle between another dirty fossil fuel and renewable energy.”...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
Hurry up and get this going, done with smidgen of intelligence it could radically improve our economy and infrastructure.
Oh wait, THAT is why the eco-nuts are now against it!
(Imagine scathing, imaginative, swearing and curses directed at eco-nuts here) them!
And their enablers too.
Make up your fracking minds, will you!?;)
Maybe they finally realized they got punked by the multi-trillion dollar natural gas interests while they were busy fighting against nuclear power.
Problem is, the gas companies were acting with more avarice than intelligence and screwed things up. If they'd acted responsibly and had been honest from the start, there would be only fringe opposition. When the mainstream began to catch onto their deceit and sloppiness, it turned a lot of otherwise supportive folks against them.
Details?
The type that can be confirmed if you please.
What, like this?
Two Oil-Field Companies Acknowledge Fracking With Diesel (note that several others have been named since this story)
Actually, though, you've hit upon one of the reasons for mistrust--the removal of the ability to confirm. First, read the claims carefully. Note, for example: "There are no cases where hydraulic fracking has been proven to have affected drinking water."
Now, recognize that the statement can remain true as long as gas companies continue to pay off "reach a settlement with" anyone who has evidence that their drinking water was affected. The absence of evidence actually points to there being evidence, considering how fast the worst reports are settled.
But if you want to take the time, you can definitely confirm this. Go to the state environmental regulatory agencies and go through copies of environmental monitoring reports that involve groundwater for unrelated sites near fracked wells. Observe the oddball constituents in groundwater that are found in fracking fluids but not the contamination plume from the actual monitored site. Or see how the aquifer near that coalbed (it's not just shale fracking, but coal gas wells are fracked) is contaminated with constituents that aren't part of coal. You might have to read the chromatograms to look at non-target compounds, but they're there.
It will be interesting to see the results of lawsuits like the ones described here: "The water well next door to their house began to spew methane. So much so that they ended up putting a flare in the person's backyard," Holton said.
And then there's Dimock, PA, where the surface spill of fracking fluids caused the contamination: The real shock that Dimock has undergone, however, is in the aquifer that residents rely on for their fresh water. Dimock is now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.
I could go on and on about the silly logic being used in the gas industry propaganda (e.g., "It contains food products like they put in gummi bears" [uh, yeah, but putting edible products in with toxics doesn't make it all safe]).
Are all the negative claims true? No. But because of the demonstrated deception, people are inclined to believe them all, and even suspecting worse than what's been reported.
Apologies for the length of this, but I wanted to hit a few of the various types of examples.
I am not good with finding old threads, the search engine does not work well for me.
I do recall a recent thread about a company using “Clean Propane Fracking” to avoid most if not all of the issues you linked.
It’s very late, I will follow your links in the morning.
No worry over the length, I much prefer detail to sound bites.
Thanks for the reply and goodnight, my FRiend.
I think that back in the '70s or so, it was the left that was for nuclear power, while the right wanted to be cautious. My overall impression is that the left is for energy sources only until it looks like they'll work!
Environmentalists also supported wind power until they were implemented.
Let’s all remember that environmentalists have contaminated more drinking water than all the oil/gas companies combined with their forced addition of MTBE to gasoline!
The absence of proof of a conspiracy is proof of a conspiracy...
Battlestar Galactica. The best Fracking show on TV. Ever.
You do know that methane naturally off gases from many geologic formations right. CO2 even.
Without some kind of spiking within the reservoir you can’t blame fracking.
Oh...and yea...I have designed cements and fracturing fluid for well service companies and have analyzed thousands of ground water samples.
One very good quick indicator of contamination in groundwater is pH. Drilling forwards are very basic.
Oh...by the way...modern instruments can detect things in the parts per trillion, but just because you can measure it doesn’t mean that there is toxicity or risk.
forwards=fluids
I think you're probably mistaken.
Yes. There are some rocks that off-gas HS if you whack them with a hammer. All kinds of fun stuff.
Without some kind of spiking within the reservoir you can’t blame fracking.
How about 17x? That's a pretty good spike.
I skimmed the paper and while the study has problems (e.g., sample size) and is basically "preliminary findings" on the topic, I don't recall major problems that would make me think that the 17x is entirely an artifact.
Oh...and yea...I have designed cements and fracturing fluid for well service companies and have analyzed thousands of ground water samples.
Good. Then you would know that they are misleading people when they claim that casing and grouting an interval is 100% foolproof in preventing cross-contamination. You'd recognize that events like these don't even require failure of grout/annular seal.
One very good quick indicator of contamination in groundwater is pH. Drilling forwards are very basic.
You can get groundwater effects from the high pH grout even if there's no fracking fluid in the aquifer. OTOH, you can get fracking fluid in the groundwater at unsafe concentrations without it being evident in the pH (both from precision and from the buffering of pH being more rapid than the degradation, diffusion, dispersion, etc., of many toxic constituents).
Oh...by the way...modern instruments can detect things in the parts per trillion, but just because you can measure it doesn’t mean that there is toxicity or risk.
I'm well aware of that. I've dealt with parameters at the femtogram per liter level and lower.
I am also aware that many conservative assumptions are made when coming up with health-based standards.
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