Is anybody else scared about hydrofracking???

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/08/29/lennon-family-other-celebrities-launch-anti-fracking-group-in-new-york/

http://www.propublica.org/article/trillion-gallon-loophole-lax-rules-for-drillers-that-inject-pollutants

Just in case you think It Can't Happen Here...



If you're not scared yet, you should be. See "Gasland", and make your freinds watch it as well.

-s.

Not Photoshopped...

-s.

Downtown Springfield MA just blew up this morning in a natural gas bomb. Two buildings have been levelled.
There was a gas leak, the fire dept. came to investigate and bam! It started, they say, in a strip club. The whole deal is seedy as he77.

Can't blame that one on fracking, though...

-s.

Somewhat related to this thread, have you all been hearing those opinion pieces about how America is on the cusp of an energy boom that will make us larger producers of carbon-based fuel than even Saudi Arabia? By some time in the 2030's?

At the end of these pieces it is revealed that they're talking about natural gas and how fracking will be the technology that makes it possible. Economic boom times! Right around the corner!

It's like those commercials from the corn lobby saying how high fructose corn syrup is good food.

I'm scared about it. The money is incredible. Groundwater is so boring, until you're thirsty. Yes, I'm scared.

There are many who convincingly argue that all the optimism about an energy boom via fracking is just an attempt to inflate another bubble. The economics are just not that good, and some of what has occurred is more about flipping land than drilling. An example are the recent troubles at Chesapeake Energy. Here is an interesting look at some of the numbers:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/doing-some-math-on-fracking-propaganda.html

Well... what else were you expecting in TEXAS?

-s.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/us/as-fracking-in-texas-increases-so-do-water-supply-fears.html?src=recg

Thanks for that story about Texas. Here is what fracking looks like in Colorado:

http://ecowatch.org/2013/must-read-fracking-colorado/

Messing with the water supply is much, much worse than messing with the atmosphere, which we used to (seem to) think was the worst thing to do.

Wait, is Hydrofracking that bad for the water supply in those areas?

Yup

-s.

Water is the next oil. Countries will go to war over access to water.
The global economy is built on the foundation of accessible/available water.

When you and your neighbor share a river, and when you are upstream of your neighbor, you can pollute your neighbor's water, because his laws don't apply to you. Or do they?

...And now, in The Netherlands...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/world/europe/more-earthquakes-in-loppersum-the-netherlands.html

-s.

I just read the story about the Netherlands this morning. Very frightening. Especially when where you live is below sea level and the earthquakes seemingly triggered by the extraction of natural gas could cause the protectives dikes to be breached.

Not total thread drift...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/01/opinion/the-tar-sands-disaster.html

-s.

An update courtesy of Bill Moyers...

http://billmoyers.com/content/the-facts-on-fracking/

-s.

The worst part of this is that the USA is one of the few countries in the world that has the resources (and land) to actually build safe nuclear, large scale solar thermal plants etc. The anti-nuclear crazies have screwed everyone. The worst part is due to them no new (safer) reactors have been built - they just keep running the older plants.

I haven't done the research to satisfy myself if fracking at large is dangerous. It sure sounds like there are some cases where it's definitely screwed up though.

Things won't change until the voting public at large gives up on the two-party system and starts voting for independents or folks who actually stick to their campaign promises

Even safe reactors need to have their waste disposed of safely somewhere, which apparently isn't that easy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/23/us-usa-nuclear-leak-idUSBRE91L19G20130223

Plus, the nuclear fuel cycle is massively subsidized by nuclear weapons production...

Dave:

Agreed - Hanford is a mess due to all the crazy stuff they did there. Back in NZ they took the entire chemistry lab of the local university and buried it under the football field due to experiments way back when radium and other such things were all the rage.

They could improve the situation - maybe not fix it outright but improve it. However let's see what gets passed: Oh I know CISPA. Great thinking - there's far more donor dollars to be gotten from lobbyists for that. I mean online piracy is definitely more important than fixing leaking tanks of radioactive waste - what was I thinking!

--Tarp

Alfa75 -

A travelling wave reactor would solve that, or go for the Thorium fuel cycle.

Tarp

Gasland Part 2 debuted last night on HBO. Who else saw it? Did it scare you? If so, what are you gonna do about it?

http://www.hbo.com/documentaries

-s.

Soda I received a notice from MoveOn about hosting a gasland part 2 screening in Maplewood this Sunday. After the movie there will be a discussion with other MoveOn members. I just got back into town and received the email. Not sure I can host, if you are a Maplewood resident and interested, I will send you the info. I was in Canada, but I spent a night in fracking land - Mansfield, PA. A non blood relative of mine just sold mining rights to his farm in PA. We went to visit home on his farm, all so messed up on many levels. His neighbor already has a mine, so he felt like he was going to be affected so why not get some money.

I live in South Orange, h4daniel, but will not be around most of Sunday, so can't host that screening...

-s.

BTW: I urge everyone to see this second installment. The environmental devastation being visited on PA, TX, CO, etc. is being replicated around the world, all stemming from greed cloaked in the myth of an easy answer... When the cost of a gallon of clean water is higher than that of a gallon of gasoline, perhaps folks will wake up, but by then it'll be too late. Will The US then invade countries which have neither oil nor gas deposits (but clean water) in the name of Homeland Security? This has become a GLOBAL problem. I'm pretty scared...

-s.

Yes, we should avoid fracking and use more coal....Most of the world is concerned about getting out of poverty. Only rich people can afford such delicate distinctions. We can have our tempest in a teapot all we want here with clean coal and more gas use and falling CO2 emissions. Russia, China, India, Brazil and their ilk will do what they have to do to move forward economically and nothing we do about carbon and the environment will mean a damn in the big picture.

A) Your response saddens me: much too simplistic, although correct about Russia, China, et al., and
2) Coal is NOT the answer, and nobody with a brain thinks it is.

-s.