German Brewers Warn Fracking Could Hurt Beer 325
Taco Cowboy writes "Those of you who like free beer, watch out! The practice of fracking for shale gas may ruin the beer you drink. Under the 'Reinheitsgebot,' or German purity law, brewers have to produce beer using only malt, hops, yeast and water. 'The water has to be pure and more than half [of] Germany's brewers have their own wells which are situated outside areas that could be protected under the government's current planned legislation on fracking,' said a Brauer-Bund spokesman. The Brauer-Bund beer association is worried that fracking for shale gas, which involves pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground, could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity."
Beer saved the World! (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously... [wikipedia.org]People would die if they didn't drink fermented beverages in antiquity. [slashdot.org]
The real pollution problem with fracking (Score:5, Interesting)
The real pollution problem with fracking for gas isn't the fact that it's fracking as opposed to more traditional extraction techniques, but that the drilling sites are not well monitored and even existing regulations are not well enforced. In other words, the same crap can happen with conventional drilling. It's also ridiculous that thanks to Dick Cheney, companies don't have to tell the EPA or state environmental departments what the ingredients of their fracking fluids are. At least that's the situation here in the US - as an American I can't speak to the German situation so well. Hopefully they handle it better.
I'm afraid that this is yet another industry that'll screw itself through short term greed, just as lax safety at nuke plants has trashed that industry.
Re:Energy a bit more important than Beer (Score:5, Interesting)
Or if only there was a way to filter the water (they don't already filter it?).
Filtering works great for sand, grit, etc. but is not so easy w/ various mixed in chemicals.
Or if only you could take hydrogen and oxygen gasses and do anything useful with them.
You mean the hydrogen that you get from the electrolysis of water, and the oxygen you get either from that or liquefying air? That'll solve your energy problem.
RO Water (Score:1, Interesting)
We have reverse-osmosis filtering system on the water source for the humidifiers for the environmental chambers in the test lab at work. It's not unknown technology. The old-fashioned alternative is a still.
Are these breweries currently using unfiltered, unpurified water?
All because of the bad example in the US (Score:3, Interesting)
I've myself gone to such meetings and it's quite astonishing the kind of utter rubbish that's being peddled as 'fact'. :)
When I get up and ask questions the organisers get nervous and the press interested
But these agitators seem to get away with it, at least for now.
As an example in my town they showed this slide [blogspot.com] that 'proves' how water is affected.
The scale is so ridiculous I can't imagine why we haven't produced this shallow gas a century ago.
Fact is the shale in my region sits below 3500 m (~10,000ft.)
Above it are huge salt layers that cap the Slochteren formation, the largest but 3/4 depleted on-shore gas field in Europe.
Would there be any leaks from the frack they'd logically end up in this reservoir.
A lady from the public jumped up and cried "Where should we go once our water is polluted", the organisers agreed with her, this crime should be stopped!
In the mean time they 'forget' to mention polluted water is produced at every conventional oil- and gas field, something that in this part of Europe has never been an issue.
But with shale gas it should be?
Thanks Cheney/Bush for fucking up a good idea with irresponsible legislation.
Re:Energy a bit more important than Beer (Score:2, Interesting)
But working safely is in the short run obviously not the cheapest method.
Re:Uebersetzungsfehler? (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually it is not a "law" as such. There is not law book that contains this law. It used to be a law in some places and guilds in the middle ages. But currently it is a well observed as a principle. The idea is to use the cleanest water possible. What is bad about trying to put the best ingredients into your product.
Re:Energy a bit more important than Beer (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody drinks from a lake river or stream anymore.
The entire city of Vienna, Austria - and that is: millions of people - drink from mountain streams, whose water is led to Vienna by aquaducts and pipes.
Re:Energy a bit more important than Beer (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you misunderstand how fracking works. Fracking works by pumping water into the earth. The water is typically not potable, because potable water is expensive.
Isn't one or the key ways of making water potable by filtering it through the ground?
Its not that the fracking water is impure it is that it is actually Fracking MUD, an intentional mix of water, chemicals, (bentonite and others), as well as propellants. It starts polluted.
Bad Fracking vs Good fracking (Score:4, Interesting)
All fracking is not the same.
Bad fracking
1. Shallow wells
2. permeable layers between fracked shale and aquifer
3. Poor handling of fracking chemicals
Good fracking
1. Deep wells
2. Impermeable layer between shale and aquifer
3. Close monitoring of site and disposal of chemicals.
By the way, a similar thing has bee done for decades in oil fields [wikipedia.org] where hot water is injected down one well to increase production on others. The difference with fracking is the chemicals used to create and hold open the cracks so the natural gas can flow.