US Energy Panel Cautiously Endorses Fracking 294
Hugh Pickens writes "The Christian Science Monitor reports that a U.S. Energy Department advisory panel has endorsed fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, a promising technology that injects a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals underground to fracture rock and release shale gas previously thought unretrievable, paving the way for tens of thousands of new wells. If fracking can be done safely, it could be a major source of domestic energy over the next century. Shale gas makes up about 14 percent of the U.S. natural gas supply today, but is expected to reach 45 percent by 2035. But first, serious environmental concerns must be addressed. Earlier this year, a Duke University study of 68 private groundwater wells in Pennsylvania and New York state found evidence that shale-gas extraction has caused them to become contaminated with methane. One key recommendation by the panel is a call for transparency regarding the use of chemicals in the extraction process. Drillers say they would like to keep the exact formula of the chemicals they use secret because it represents a competitive advantage."
WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
The U.S. Energy Department endorses this horrible process?!? All of the places where this technology was used has resulted in contaminating the neighboring population's water.
Oh wait, it also resulted in the harvesting of gas... well that trumps everything then.
Magic Formula (Score:5, Insightful)
Have other independent bodies endorsed fracking? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod Parent Up! (Score:5, Insightful)
CSM has amazing articles and unlike most of the drivel coming out of places these days is actually well written and researched. The "Christian" part throws a lot of people but it shouldn't.
Too fracking bad (Score:5, Insightful)
"Drillers say they would like to keep the exact formula of the chemicals they use secret because it represents a competitive advantage."
Too fracking bad.
Besides, there's no need for secret competitive advantage when it comes to energy. They all rake in billions regardless. It's a natural resource and it's up to us to monitor how it's used. If you don't want to be in the lucrative energy business because you dislike the transparency that needs to accompany it, then you need to find another business to be in.
Easy solution: molecular tagging (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's an easy solution: require oil companies to put trace additives that are uniquely identifiable into the chemicals they inject. (e.g. custom molecules that identify the oil company/well). Then if these chemicals are found in drinking water, lakes or streams, you know where they came from, and can issue a massive fine to the oil company and well owner. This way they can keep their fracking formula secret, and will self-police themselves to some extent as long as the fines are sufficiently large that it destroys any profit from breaking the rules.
There have to be a few chemists, oil guys, and political wonks reading. Do it.
"Transparency"... And its limits... (Score:5, Insightful)
Without accountability, and without means of redress(at least sufficient to be useful in practice, ie. typically not civil court for anybody who doesn't have substantial resources, and ideally sufficient to restrain, rather than merely punish, wrongdoing), transparency is basically just a PR stunt.
If it is wholly legal, or de-facto legal because nobody can afford to sue and wait a decade while the lawyers hash it out, to expose my water supply to fracking chemicals, it barely matters whether I get to know what is in them or not. If I do, writing that retrospective paper for the Journal of Epidemiological Toxicology will be a lot easier for some researcher. If I don't, I'll just have to live with the suspicion that my water's observable properties are alarming, and the local cancer rates seem high.
Short form: Impunity renders transparency irrelevant.
no, i mean GASLAND (Score:5, Insightful)
the film that causes gas industry PR people to shit bricks, because it shows several people, on film, setting their water on fire, and because it has interviews with people who have had the gas companies pay for their new water supplies (trucked in periodically), and because Josh Fox has discussed what happened to those people for daring to talk to him - the gas companies shut off their supply of water.
initimidation and persecution are not the tactics of an group that has the facts behind their cause.
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is, Pennsylvania is where the Drake well was drilled..... There is a creek there named oil creek.. it's named oil creek because the oil production companies used to dump oil into the creek with troughs running straight from the wellheads, then skim the oil at a refinery downstream.
Yow. I have to say, that does not give me good feelings about how conscious the oil and gas companies are about the environment.
"We'll drill the gas out now, and some time in the future, after we've made our profits, other people can clean up any teeny little mess we might have made-- they can worry about that later."
Re:It already is a major, massive source of energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Same bullshit argument, different day.
I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. The lion's share of the town's economy was tied to the forest products industry. The timber barons got rich, the rivers and streams got silted and polluted, the old growth forests were destroyed (and won't be back for centuries), and "the jobs" so loudly touted by those industry barons are long gone. On the whole, I'd say that was a lousy trade. The argument that the temporary economic boon is welcome despite the risks is laughable. That deal will make a few folks rich, and will eventually leave the community worse off than it is now (jobless and
poisoned. Think harder.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
> Another major factor about "fracking" it has been around for decades since 1947 for gas and oil, the first official use is dated to 1903, Why worry about it now? Sounds like media scare tactics.
Asbestos was used for insulation since 1857 and the first usage of it goes back at least 4,500 years. Why worry about it now?
Radium-laced water was used to cure virtually everything around the start of the 20th century. Why worry about it now?
Thalidomide was used to combat morning sickness since 1957. Why worry about it now?
Maybe because we've actually learned that some of the things done in the past turned out to be staggeringly stupid and short sighted?
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple - all but one of the members of this panel had proven ties to the gas industry.
I support gas drilling if it can be done responsibly and safely. The problem is that right now, there is no evidence that it is possible to do it responsibly and safely.
It isn't a technical problem, it's a political/management one - If the gas drilling companies said, "OK, we just fucked up, here's what we are doing to prevent it from happening again." - I'd be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt after a few screwups.
The problem is that their attitude is, "Nothing wrong ever happened. The contamination is not our fault... Some bacteria crawled into your well that had been clean for decades at around the same time we started drilling. No, there isn't any connection. Drilling is safe!" - They refuse to acknowledge their problems and mistakes and take responsibility for them, and as a result, those mistakes keep getting made over and over again.
If New York approves gas drilling, I'm seriously considering moving elsewhere. The uncertainty of hydrofracking is why I haven't bought a house yet - I'm screwed if house values around here plummet due to hydrofracturing.
Re:no, i mean GASLAND (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why no one trusts the gas industry.
They keep claiming biogenic methane was the cause.
1) In the case of some of the Colorado incidents, the state EPA was apparently receiving funds from the oil companies. Eventually the federal EPA came in and tested - the conclusion was that the methane was NOT biogenic in nature but matched the shale gas in isotopic content.
2) Do you really expect me to believe that multiple wells which have provided clean water for decades suddenly become contaminated with biogenic methane within a year or to, if not only months, after drilling commences?
Re:WTF? (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently, via electricity produced by hydroelectric dams. Yes, flooding large swatches of land is a bad thing, but it's cleaner energy than coal, shale gas or oil. My province (Quebec) is also currently working on adding cleaner sources such as wind and tides. Fracking was also proposed, but the outcry from the population put a break on that endeavor and the government decided to invest in cleaner forms of energy (energy companies here are owned by the government).
Hydroelectric power is the reason that the NWP region is losing salmon populations. There is no "clean" power. It either screws up the ecosystem by way of pollution, screws up the ecosystem by displacement, or screws up the ecosystem by removing energy from the atmosphere and messing up weather patterns.
Stop lying to make yourself feel special. Thanks.