Why Anti-Fracking Environmentalists Are Holding Back the U.S.

Reason ^ | March 13, 2013 | John Stossel

[Wyatt's Torch]

Good piece by Stossel. The enviros goal is to basically shut down all production. They hate capitalism and this is their way to stop it.

[Smokin' Joe]

Various levels of gubmint are trying to demand disclosure of fracking fluid ingredients.

Yep, and those are every bit as proprietary as the KFC recipe or the formula for Coca-Cola.

Technically, dihydrogen monoxide is a chemical, so is glucose, so is oxygen, but humans aren't going anywhere without any of those, and too much can kill you.

The thing about fracking is that those chemicals are supposed to be and remain sequestered from potable water aquifers. Ordinarily, that is done as a matter of course, provided the well construction is correct and no one spills any on the ground.

In the event of a mishap, the chemicals involved should be available to anyone doing the cleanup or remediation. Publishing them wholesale, though would be like asking the above mentioned commercial ventures to release their recipes--something the particular company has expended a lot of research time and money on would be made available to their competitors, gratis.

(No wonder there is resistance to just ponying up a list.)

It isn't some huge conspiracy, because those chemicals will only see the light of day again (if ever--some break down in the wellbore) as a component of production fluid, either refined, or disposed of in injection wells far below aquifers which people get drinking water from.