Industry Insider Says It's Time to Make Fracking Cool

Facebook, "South Park" and perhaps an image makeover are what the dirty gas industry needs to clean up its reputation.

Just a few short weeks ago the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission was described as having its collective "ass kicked" when it came to hydraulic fracturing. A Colorado natural gas executive said the problem with the industry is that it is not on Facebook and not watching enough South Park... Really.

During the conference, "Enhancing Shale Oil & Gas Development Strategies" in Denver, Tisha Conoly-Schuller the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA) outlined the reasons why the public has turned against hydraulic fracturing and ways to fix this public relations nightmare.

The solution, in her mind, was simple: Make fracking cool. Among the many recommendations was to "[reposition] the industry to appeal more broadly to young people."

NaturalGasWatch.org, which was the "official blogger" of the event, quoted Conoly-Schiller in saying, "people that like South Park are our audience." She then went on to say that one way of tapping into that audience is through social media. "Conoly-Schuller closed her remarks by urging each of the executives to get on Facebook," reported Natural Gas Watch.

It is quite interesting to suggestion that fracking is just not hip or edgy enough to be a winner in the eyes of the 18 through 35-year-old demographic. Perhaps the industry's next move can be a living social deal... or better yet they could give image makeovers to their talking heads: T. Boone Pickens could simply be the T. Boone, Chesapeake Electric CEO Aubrey McClendon shall hence forth be known as A-McClizzle, and the Williams Corporation could appeal to the hipster crowed dressing its CEO Steven J. Malcolm in some skinny jeans, thick glasses and a tasteful flannel. Malcolm will keep his name the same, but he will listen to some music that you have never heard of and make sure you know that everything you listen to is too main stream.

The Checks and Balances Project imagined what a fracking insider's Facebook profile might look like. As you can see below, it may solve all of the industry's public relations nightmares.

 

Follow Andrew Schenkel on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CandBP

Comments

[southingtonian]

04:46 AM on 10/24/2011

With fracking coming to this state, we'll have to change the state song to 'Beauty-fouled Ohio'.

[southingtonian]

04:23 AM on 10/24/2011

What could be cooler than being able to light your cig from a faucet. :-j

[Robert Finne]

04:54 PM on 10/21/2011

GasCo is a little late.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozarktroutbum/6152812699/in/photostream

[Genevieve Guzman]

12:35 PM on 10/21/2011

Hah. Yes, if they give us reason to laugh at them, we might get distracted by the horrors of fracking? For those pro-fracking: if it's not bad, then why do they refuse regulation by the clean air and water act?

You know what would be really "cool"? Legalizing industrial hemp for fuel. Not only does it not need pesticides, grow almost anywhere, and is clean, BUT it also helps clean up the environment (both air and soil).

[Chris Salmon]

03:33 PM on 10/21/2011

"For those pro-fracki­ng: if it's not bad, then why do they refuse regulation by the clean air and water act? "

What's the "clean air and water act" and what makes you think anyone "refuses" regulation?

When you tell everyone your solution for powering our economy is to grow cannabis, you just mark yourself as a hippie and no one takes you seriously after that. You know that right? It's just like saying, "I want absolutely no credibility and no voice at the table." It doesn't even matter whether you're right or wrong - but I have to point out you didn't present an actionable plan or any numbers for what it would take. Just kind of a "grow cannabis, man - it's the answer to all our needs" thing about like you'd hear in a late night college dorm discussion.

[Robert Finne]

04:56 PM on 10/21/2011

You do realize she's referring to cannabis ruderalis and not cannabis sativa?

2 different things.

[Genevieve Guzman]

07:01 PM on 10/21/2011

Sorry, paid their was out of it with over 300 million dollars.

When you say people will just mark me as a hippie, it just shows that ignorance is a HUGE problem. I am completely pro-cannabis. I don't consume "marijuana" myself. I will admit that I haven't researched hemp fuel so much. But I do know that it produces approximately ten times more fuel than corn. Cannabis could solve a lot of problems. What I have spent a lot of time researching is it's anti-tumor effects through the endocannabinoid system. I can tell you a lot about the science behind that subject. People don't want to hear the science either. It's not about being some crazy hippie. You can no a lot about it. It's the ignorance of society that holds things back.

[Chris Salmon]

11:12 AM on 10/21/2011

Actually, if you're into technology and science, hydraulic fracturing is VERY cool. Like the way you time to fluid to gel up right at a certain point so it carries the max amount of proppant, then the way you can break it down right when you've got max proppant penetration in the fractures so you leave the most proppant possible in the fractures. The way you calculate formation pressures and overburden pressure vs. frac pressure to constrain the frac propagation within the target, and use micro-seismic to observe and map propagated fractures - the whole thing is super-uber cool. The problem COGA and others are trying to address is that most people don't take the time to even TRY to understand the science and what is really going on. The anti-fracking industry presents a case that ignores any kind of science and is based on pure emotion, which is much easier for people and doesn't require thought. So you get these "true believers in a cause" type people whose entire world view is based on an appeal to emotion, and rational, logical, scientific thoughts just don't even reach them. They see everything through a filter of their "I'm saving the world" beliefs. It's very difficult to reach people with science and facts and well-reasoned arguments when they've become a bundle of emotion.

[Katherine Reed]

05:27 AM on 10/21/2011

Golly gee fracking is so cool I can light my tap water on fire with a match now! Yay!! :|

[kmmhike]

02:35 AM on 10/21/2011

Fracking IS cool if you understand enough about rock mechanics (i.e. physics) to know how and why it works. Fracking can be done with straight water or with various other liquid mixtures. It's the choice of ingredients in fracking fluids (and secrecy about it) that are cause for concern.

[southingtonian]

04:35 AM on 10/24/2011

It all sounds so simple as the industry explains it, but the paths released gases would take cannot be easily predicted. The ongoing program to trace water flow through the Mammoth Cave system presents a graphic example the complexity and ultimate impossibility of controlling passage of gases released by fracking. http://water.usgs.gov/ogw/karst/kigconference/jm_incavedye.htm

[Lou1123]

09:17 PM on 10/20/2011

I guess their hopes of making fracking "cool" are ruined. All the chemistry and environmental science classes in my high school have watched or are going to watch the movie Gasland. Fracking is definitely a huge problem for the watershed areas around the Marcellus and the local communities health and property value. Imagine if all the natural gas corporations put their money into creating projects and jobs in renewable energy sources of biofuels, biogas, solar, geothermal, wind, etc.?

[whysaduck]

08:06 PM on 10/20/2011

Cool? No Fracking way, Jose!

[dengal]

07:11 PM on 10/20/2011

ummm no, the problem with fracking is it rapes and pollutes the land. FB and SP cant help you with that.

[Malcolm Hensley]

06:17 PM on 10/20/2011

I'm thinking - Flash, BS, and Lies to counter Flash, BS, Lies is not the correct way to get to the bottom of this.

The Duke report which both sides point to as the smoking gun and say see we were right!

http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/methane-contamination-of-drinking-water-accompanying-gas-well-drilling

Read page 5!

Both sides conveniently miss the Conclusion where the Duke Scientist say we need to do a lot more testing. Want to know why? In the areas they were doing their studies other wells had been drilled before. How Many - don't know. We do know there was an estimated 184,000 wells drilled before they even started keeping track of their locations in PA alone!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/04/abandoned-oil-gas-wells-water_n_844662.html

More Testing before during and after!

Repeat after me, "More testing before during and after!"

Again!

Again!

[OneManRoaring]

03:03 PM on 10/20/2011

We saw fracking first-hand in Dimock, PA approximately two years ago. At one time we had a wonderful getaway cabin on 16 acres on a near pristine dirt, farm road. We returned about two years ago to see a wasteland where water ignites, the land has been raped and the lights and the clang-clang from the wells have destroyed the environment. We thank our lucky stars we no longer owned the now sorrowful cabin.

The water supply for many homes has been ruined and people are "stuck" as there is no program for "too foul to fail" for those who "trusted" the industry to take care of things.

How did Cheney get a rider passed in Congress exempting gas companies from EPA rules when fracking? That, my dear friends, is criminal! This is our land that the gas companies have ruined.

Support Fairness and the Common Good in Government­. Follow One Man Roaring on Twitter: http://twitter.com/omroaring

[Chris Salmon]

11:28 AM on 10/21/2011

Hydraulic fracturing was never thought to be the problem in Dimock. PA DEP never even mentioned hydraulic fracturing as an issue there. That's just FYI. If you're going to solve a problem you have to isolate the cause properly so you can fix that. Blaming something that is not the cause actually prevents solving the problem. Also this -

"the land has been raped and the lights and the clang-clan­g from the wells have destroyed the environmen­t"

This sounds like you may not understand that gas wells don't have lights and don't clang-clang. It sounds like you are talking about the appearance of a construction project in the middle of construction, and not about what the project will look like when it is finished. Constructing these multi-well drilling platforms and drilling these high-tech horizontal gas wells is a scientific and technical feat about on a par with a NASA satellite launch. You're constructing wells that are far larger than the largest skyscrapers, but they go down instead of up. Of COURSE the construction site is going to be a messy, noisy, muddy, dirty place during construction - just like constructing any valuable infrastructure for our country is. The construction phase lasts a few months, maybe if they drill a bunch of wells from that platform it lasts a year or more. But in the production phase, which lasts decades, a gas well is just a clean, quiet white pipe coming out of the ground with grass growing.

[southingtonian]

04:50 AM on 10/24/2011

clean quiet white pipe? http://www.gjfreepress.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=GJ&Date=20110210&Category=COMMUNITY_NEWS&ArtNo=110219995&Ref=AR&maxw=300&MaxH=300
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41495698/New_Drilling_Method_Opens_Vast_Oil_Fields_in_US

[southingtonian]

04:58 AM on 10/24/2011

http://blog.seattlepi.com/environment/2008/07/page/3/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=kjrmc&cp=5&gs_id=d&xhr=t&q=fracking&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=1024&bih=583&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi#q=fracking&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbm=isch&tbs=simg:CAQSEgnz2iH0o4vOiiFhKGggcwJp_1A&iact=hc&vpx=571&vpy=275&dur=6672&hovh=194&hovw=260&tx=122&ty=287&sig=116650259160978319225&ei=DyelTqXdDKrx0gHM7_n6BA&page=5&tbnh=106&tbnw=150&ved=1t:2220,r:3,s:53&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=81b1b30c725f4f7b&biw=1024&bih=583