maiforpeace wrote:Seth wrote:maiforpeace wrote:
Do you pro-frackers honestly believe that pumping 596 different chemicals (many of which that are KNOWN carcinogens, in addition to some surfectants and lubricants) mixed with 1 to 7 million gallons of water, under enough pressure to essentially create a small earthquake that pulverizes solid bedrock 5000 ft underground is not going to have any negative effects?
Ooooh..."earthquakes!" Gives one visions of San Francisco in 1906...buildings collapsing, fires, mass destuction...
Utter horseshit. Where injection of fluids underground has been identified as the culprit in "earthquakes," they are virtually all tiny, harmless tremors that do no damage to homes on the surface.
And since the chemicals are being injected 5000 or more feet underground, as long as the cementing of the well is done properly, which is the goal of gas companies so that they can sell it, the chemicals are not a problem, and when the fracking fluid is extracted and properly disposed of it's still not a problem.
Are there "negative effects" from oil and gas drilling? Of course there are. But the question is whether or not the need for domestically produced energy outweighs the negative impacts. If you want to heat your house and have electricity, it's necessary to drill gas wells because the EPA has made it functionally impossible to build a new coal-fired powerplant in the US.
So, you can freeze in the dark, or you can put up with the short-term, temporary negative effects of gas well drilling and fracking, and the long term minor negative effects of having well heads in your area in return for cheap electricity and heating fuel. Take your pick because there's no such thing as a free lunch.
According to
21st Century Guide to Hydraulic Fracturing, Underground Injection, Fracking, Hydrofrac, Marcellus Shale Natural Gas Production Controversy, Environmental and Safety Risks, Water Pollution the amount of natural gas that is estimated that can be extracted from known sources amounts to no more than enough natural gas to supply the needs of the US for one year. At the rate we consume fossil fuels, that’s just a drop in the bucket of what we need in terms of energy. I am all for finding alternative energy sources that reduce our dependence on oil. But why the urgency to drill it all now before we are certain all the environmental protections are in place? And why aren't they pursuing other alternate sources of energy with the same urgency? Because they aren’t nearly as profitable as extraction sourced fuels, and with minimal regulations in place currently they are even more profitable, so they better make hay while the sun shines.
Bullshit propaganda. Do you have any idea what the break-even is on a single well? It's not one year, it's decades. No gas company is going to spend millions drilling a hole in the ground to get at one year's worth of gas.
As for "other alternative sources of energy"... well, the reason they aren't pursuing them is twofold: first, they are oil and gas exploration and extraction companies, and second THERE ARE NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES OTHER THAN NUCLEAR THAT CAN MEET THE DEMAND. Neither solar nor wind will EVER be able to economically replace fossil fuels for transportation fuel needs absent some miraculous breakthrough in both battery technology and vehicle design.
It's just that simple.
Seth wrote:
The environmental whackos who made "Gasland" don't give a flying fuck about energy needs, they are brainless Luddites who would have us living in wattle-and-daub huts and grubbing in the ground with sharpened sticks for nourishment, so who cares what they have to say?
Well you don’t, that’s certainly clear. But I wouldn’t underestimate those Neanderthal, long haired, pine nut eating, barefoot heches yet

. I am grateful to them for bringing fracking to the attention of the public.
I don't either, except that they are a bunch of hysterical fucking liars.
I have no problem with fracking if it's as safe as claimed, just prove to me that it’s being performed safely HERE IN THE US.
Do the research and you'll figure out that the econut Luddites are lying through their teeth. They find one frack pit that's overflowed or been left behind and characterize it as an industry-wide enormous environmental threat when it's not. Like any industrial operation, accidents happen, people do bad things, and contamination occurs. Vigilance, good regulation and forcing industry to clean up after itself is all entirely reasonable and proper, but THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY WANT. They want the whole thing shut down not because it's a terrible blight but because they are AGW zealots and they don't want the gas extracted AT ALL, EVER, BY ANYONE. They are using this stalking horse of the pretend dangers of fracking as just another attempt to garner public support for banning the use of fossil fuel carbon-based energy resources.
If the claims of no harm are true, then full disclosure, transparency and a clean bill of health by the EPA should be a walk in the park. But apparently that's not the case. From the report are numerous citings of violations by Halliburton in regards to the use of diesel in fracking operations. They are also the one corporation unwilling to provide the key information needed to finish an important and comprehensive report on fracking. They have yet to respond to the subpoena served for that information, basically holding the whole enchilada up.
Well, it wasn't illegal to use diesel in a fracking compound before. And why should Halliburton participate in an "important and comprehensive report on fracking" that's detrimental to their industry?
Seth wrote:maiforpeace wrote:Do you know how many wells there already are, and at what alarming rate they are being drilled at?
Many, and not nearly fast enough. We need to exploit ALL of our available oil and gas reserves and reduce our dependence on foreign oil sources as a matter of national security and economic common sense.
Again, why the hurry, especially when these resources are actually quite limited?
Because there's demand for the energy, of course. Oil and gas companies don't drill ten thousand foot deep holes in the ground for fun.
Seth wrote:maiforpeace wrote:Do you know that only half of the "cocktail" of chemicals and water pumped in is actually reclaimed for purification?
Did you know that the other half remains 5000 or more feet underground and is utterly harmless to shallow aquifers?
Not according to
industry reports. There's enough migration of fracking fluid to aquifers to be of valid concern.
Rolling Stone as a source of reliable information on fracking?
As I said, there has been only ONE EPA verified "migration of fracking fluid to aquifers." It occurred in Wyoming. And while it's a valid concern, it's not at this point a valid reason to shut down fracking, which is what the activists are demanding. This is about preventing extraction of carbon-based mineral resources and very little else.
Seth wrote:maiforpeace wrote:
And, for the purification that occurs, there are little, if any measures in place should there flooding in areas where the percolation ponds exist?
Lie. Such facilities are closely regulated by the EPA against water quality violations. They are permitted and licensed by state governments and are required to have mitigation and protection plans. You're relying on information that is no longer valid for your argument. In the past, frac pits were simply buried and they did not have mandatory liners. Today, pits must have liners, the frac fluid must be recycled or properly disposed of, and the pit liners must be removed and disposed of and all contaminated soil remediated.
I was referring specifically to disaster situations, like for example, the flooding in
New Orleans due to Katrina The fracking pollution ended up becoming part of the larger mix of the toxic soup that poisoned New Orleans in the aftermath but it was there and just made it ultra toxic.
Who the fuck cares what happens to New Orleans? Live in a sewage basin below sea level, get covered with sewage. Note that the article you cite has a title that demonstrates the true intent of the anti-fracking zealots: preventing oil and gas extraction because it is a "bridge to more global warming." That's what this is actually about. It's a mountain made out of a molehill with a completely different and concealed agenda. They are fucking liars who are using propaganda to stir up the ignorant lumpen proletariat, nothing more.
Seth wrote:maiforpeace wrote:But hey, the industry has copped to 6% leakage which was voluntary, and it sounds good and honest so here you go folks, here's a pig in a poke. We promise that the benefits realized will far outweigh the cons. What they failed to add at the end of that last sentence was FOR THE INDUSTRY.
How, exactly, do you think it's beneficial to the "industry" if it's not beneficial to consumers. "The industry" sells oil and gas to meet the needs of consumers for gasoline, oil products, heating fuel, tratnsportation fuel and electrical production. How the fuck do you expect all those demands to be met without oil and gas exploration and extraction?
Not bearing the true costs of production when they don't clean up properly after themselves and then that cost gets passed onto the public in immediate, and long term costs. As long as they are exempt from the same rules all other industries have to comply to, we have to just trust them? To be thorough, 100% honest and ethical? With their track record? Show me the full process, show me exhaustive reports of years of testing, and show me all the safety measures in place.
It's none of your business. If they pollute something, THEN you can get them fined. But their business practices are "private papers" and are protected by the Constitution just like yours are.
Here's a novel idea: Why don't you go to college and become a petroleum engineer with a master's degree and go to work for the oil and gas industry for a couple of decades to research how they do stuff and THEN you can comment upon it with authority.
We need the energy. The regulatory burden is already so large that entire segments of the industry find it uneconomical to proceed. A good friend of mine who works welding pipe for a gas contractor just got laid off because the field he was working has been shut down. Regulatory compliance has a lot to do with whether or not the gas can be economically extracted. The more regulatory burdens you impose, the less profitable it is, and the less likely it is that the energy will be available when YOU need it.
Oil and gas exploration are speculative. It takes YEARS to drill and produce from a field, and hundreds of millions or billions in long-term investment in the costs of getting at and then producing the oil. Obama's eco-zealot shutdown of the Gulf drilling will cost Americans billions in unnecessary fuel costs because many of the rigs that were shut down were moved to places like Venezuela, where they are drilling in water twice as deep as the Gulf, using OUR TAX MONEY given to them by Obama, for the benefit of Petrobras, George Soros, and Venezuela, not the people of the United States.
It will be many years before those rigs come back to drill OUR oil and gas, and we'll pay the price with higher gas and oil prices for energy imported from the fucking communists of Venezuela. And that's exactly what Obama wants... to shut down US domestic production and beggar our economy so as to bring us in line with his socialist/progressive agenda for one-world government.
Fuck that. I'd rather have frack fluid in a few wells. We can always have the gas companies put in potable domestic water systems for those affected.
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