Fracking - A Libertarian's Wet Dream

[Warren Dew]

Didn;t you ever wonder why there are no libby societies??.....there is a problem when their concepts are taken to a logical conclusion just as there is with "workers paradise"

The U.S. prior to Hoover was pretty much libertarian. It worked a lot better than what we have now.

I think the Nordic nations - reviled as socialists by Yank right wing strike a pretty good balance.

Nordic nations have a much more uniform ethnic and cultural makeup. As that changes, you'll see a lot more Breiviks.

[Woodbutcher]

http://coalseamgasnews.org/2011/switzerland-joins-worldwide-ban-on-gas-fracking/

[macdoc]

The U.S. prior to Hoover was pretty much libertarian. It worked a lot better than what we have now.

I'll bet if you asked

most women
african americans
jews
spanish americans
coal miners
most farmers
most labourers

to mention a few categories you'd be run out of town on a pole with feathers for that statement...

What you have there now is a predatory friendly near fascist state.
http://www.fascismusa.com/

so in that narrow sense some things might have been better.....but not much.

[macdoc]

Nordic nations have a much more uniform ethnic and cultural makeup. As that changes, you'll see a lot more Breiviks.

We have over 50% non-Causian in Toronto
252 languages spoken
One of the safest large cities in the world.
No Breiviks.

Pick your metric: In its survey of the “greatest cities in the world” last year, PriceWaterhouseCoopers ranked Toronto number two, behind New York and ahead of Paris, London, Tokyo, and Berlin.

A recent presentation given to the Toronto Board of Trade by U of T president David Naylor ran down a few more of our recent rankings in various global studies: We’re second in the Top 10 smart cities, third in quality of life, we have the fourth highest rate of entrepreneurship in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and are the 10th most attractive global innovation destination.

Not only that, The Grid recently ran a cover story about how our music scene—led by Drake, Feist, K’naan, The Weeknd, and ****ed Up—dominates global charts.

We have an astoundingly low crime rate for a city our size: Last year, the consulting firm Mercer rated Toronto the 17th safest place in the world to live—35 times safer than Chicago and San Francisco.

We likely have the most multicultural population in the world, home to almost twice as many immigrants, proportionally, as London and New York, and contend with almost none of the cultural tension and violence we read about in the news from Paris.

We have more tall buildings under construction than any other city in the world by a wide margin.

The Economist recently ranked Toronto the 12th most “globally competitive” city in the world for business, and placed us atop the scale in “financial maturity.” In another study, it ranked us the fourth most “livable” city in the world. The list of accolades could go on for pages.

http://www.thegridto.com/city/politics/ ... city-trap/

See we make multiculturalism a national priority ...not gun ownership. Oh yeah and universal healthcare not cruise missiles.

[maiforpeace]

The U.S. prior to Hoover was pretty much libertarian. It worked a lot better than what we have now.

I'll bet if you asked

most women
african americans
jews
spanish americans
coal miners
most farmers
most labourers

to mention a few categories you'd be run out of town on a pole with feathers for that statement...

What you have there now is a predatory friendly near fascist state.
http://www.fascismusa.com/

so in that narrow sense some things might have been better.....but not much.

And Asians...don't forget them.

[macdoc]

yup and I was going to stick a few others like Amerindians and forgot as I recall what our fine Canadian government did to the Chinese railway workers.

[Hermit]

libertarianism cannot have a central ideology, I always thought that they were for personal responsibility and freedom from oppressive Governance, am I wrong?

Yes, you are wrong. The central ideology of libertarianism is that they are for personal responsibility. Its policies flow from that.

[Pappa]

A UK review by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering has concluded that fracking can be undertaken safely, as long as "best practices are implemented and robustly enforced through regulation."

"There has been much speculation around the safety of shale gas extraction following examples of poor practice in the US," said Robert Mair, chair of the review's working group. "We found that the most common areas of concern, such as the causation of earthquakes with any significant impact or fractures reaching and contaminating drinking water, were very low risk."

Those findings are in line with previous reports. The US National Research Council found that earthquakes caused by fracking are rarely strong enough for people to feel. The British Geological survey said it was " extremely unlikely" that groundwater could be contaminated by the process.

The review also points out that open ponds for storing wastewater, which have been used in American fracking operations, carry a possible risk of leakage, but are not permitted in the UK.

One cause for concern is the integrity of wells, as poor cementation and casing failures can lead to leaks and environmental contamination. "Therefore, the review concludes that the priority must be to ensure the integrity of every well throughout its lifetime." Strict well inspections and integrity tests are standard practice are recommended.

The review also recommends providing additional resources as needed to UK regulators, enforcing Environmental Risk Assessments for all shale gas operations, and the robust monitoring of methane in groundwater, seismicity and methane leakages.

Mair adds, "this review is not an exhaustive analysis of all the issues associated with shale gas and we have highlighted a number of issues that we believe merit further consideration, including the climate risks associated with the extraction and subsequent use of shale gas, and the public acceptability of hydraulic fracturing."

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/201 ... cking-good

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/s ... NewsID=771

[Clinton Huxley]

So fracking in the UK will be fine, because we will follow the rules and not try to cut corners to increase profit? Huzzah!

[mistermack]

So fracking in the UK will be fine, because we will follow the rules and not try to cut corners to increase profit? Huzzah!

I think if the gas is there, you've got to go for it. Of course it needs stringent regulation, but if you can enforce that, and still make money, then it's got to be a good thing.

The government should be encouraging it with incentives, like they do for wind power. Because after all, it has the potential to reduce our vulnerability to foreign suppliers, and the jobs in extracting the gas, in regulating the safety of it, and the cleanup jobs, will all be here in the UK, adding to our economy, instead of in Iran or Saudi, draining money from our economy.

As far as earthquakes go, they only happen as a result of strain that is already there in the rocks.
If fracking triggers a quake, it's going to be small, and it would have happened anyway, possibly bigger, because the strains would have built up bigger in the meantime.
Small earthquakes are a GOOD thing, they prevent big quakes.

[Warren Dew]

The government should be encouraging it with incentives, like they do for wind power. Because after all, it has the potential to reduce our vulnerability to foreign suppliers, and the jobs in extracting the gas, in regulating the safety of it, and the cleanup jobs, will all be here in the UK, adding to our economy, instead of in Iran or Saudi, draining money from our economy.

Why couldn't the government discourage the 'bad' sources of energy instead, for example by taxing that oil imported from Iran and Saudi Arabia?

[mistermack]

The government should be encouraging it with incentives, like they do for wind power. Because after all, it has the potential to reduce our vulnerability to foreign suppliers, and the jobs in extracting the gas, in regulating the safety of it, and the cleanup jobs, will all be here in the UK, adding to our economy, instead of in Iran or Saudi, draining money from our economy.

Why couldn't the government discourage the 'bad' sources of energy instead, for example by taxing that oil imported from Iran and Saudi Arabia?

Well, they do. Very heavily. If they tax it any more, it will just penalise the poor, as with most indirect taxes. I don't think the sources are bad. Jut that home-produced is better.

[rainbow]

So what's happening to that sheer volume of water? Does it disappear into thin air? Or is it going back into the aquifers? If it's back into the aquifer, I can't see the problem. It gets filtered and is still available downstream.

Filtered??? How??
More like evaporated

60% of it stays in the fractured shale so not much use.

40% comes up for air and that's where the problem lies. It's seriously toxic at that point

and people are against nukes -

You say it is "seriously toxic", but you cannot tell us what the toxic components are, and at what concentration they will be.


How do you come to your conclusion, then?

[macdoc]

a) there is good reason that the industry invokes the "proprietary clause" and
b) you did not read the article did you?

start with benzene which is seriously toxic and ANY concentration and many others ...in fact 100s of others...

A New York Times report last year found a number of waste-water wells to be radioactive, and a House of Representatives study of the same year claimed that of 750 compounds used, 680 contained possible carcinogens.

Here is one test from one town

The community-funded test results, which detected twenty-six chemicals, also showed carbon disulfide, a neurotoxin at twice the state level for short-term exposure. Benzene, a known carcinogen, and Naphthalene, a suspected carcinogen, were both over state long-term exposure levels by more than 9 times and more than 7 times, respectively. Carbonyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide and Pyridine were all detected above safe limits for long-term exposure.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/155 ... chemicals/

Now every bore hole is going to be different and the waste in the holding pits will simply get more concentrated for non-volatiles. Some regions are considering mandating metal tanks.
The risk of open holding pits is overflow into the local watershed when it rains.

There are hundreds of operations each day and thousands in various stages. I don't know if you have driven through a fracking area but it's not something to look forward to and yet Allegheny State forest has many covered here.
Lovely place to camp

or not.
http://alleghenydefenseproject.wordpres ... watershed/


Once a well has been fracked, 50% of fracking wastewater (water, chemicals and sand) are regurgitated into open, sometimes lined, pits. Credit: Laurel Peltier

These are watershed areas critical to millions of people downstream.....

and people worry about nukes

[mistermack]

Is that it? That poxy little pond?
That's fuck-all.
I remember travelling through Sudbury Ontario, in 1971, and there wasn't a blade of vegetation growing for 15 miles before we got there, and 15 miles out the other side. It was as close to the surface of the moon as you could get on Earth. THAT'S what I call polluted.

And mentioning radioactivity, without specifying levels, is just stupid. There are background levels everywhere. In England, the whole county of Cornwall is radioactive, it's in the granite rocks. It's the LEVEL that counts.

And the same applies to the list of chemicals mentioned. It's meaningless without concentrations.