As natural gas exploration expands throughout our energy-starved nation -- from the West and now into the South and Northeast -- many folks living in drilling country are rightfully expressing concern that their groundwater may be susceptible to pollution from the fracking fluids that are central to drilling operations. These are very legitimate fears, as HBO's critically acclaimed documentary Gasland so graphically shows. And yet, to date, the Republican Party has expressed a rather callous "drill first, never ask questions later" attitude -- callous, even for the GOP.
During the Bush years, Republicans managed to legislate an exemption for fracking fluid into the Clean Water Act. Then, Republicans in Congress blocked the proposed FRAC Act, which wouldn't even ban fracking fluid -- it would simply require drilling companies to disclose what's in the fluids they are pumping into the earth near critical groundwater supplies. And now, in perhaps the most extreme step yet, Republicans here in Colorado (a state with one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the world) are demanding the Environmental Protection Agency never regulate fracking, regardless of whether or not the agency discovers that fracking is poisoning people.
As the Colorado Independent reports, you just can't make this up:
Eighteen Republican members of the Colorado State Legislature Monday sent a letter (pdf) to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) demanding the federal agency refrain from regulating the natural gas drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," no matter what a two-year EPA study of the process reveals.
In a coincidence that highlights just how extreme the GOP position is, notice that the GOP letter was sent two days after this disturbing dispatch from the Grand Junction Sentinel:
Energy giant agrees to pay record fineBy Dennis Webb
Friday, July 23, 2010Williams has agreed to pay a record $423,300 fine to resolve a state investigation into a spring-contamination case in which a De Beque man drank benzene-tainted water...
The fine would be the highest ever imposed by the commission for a single incident. The current record is a $390,000 fine handed down by the commission in April against Oxy USA for another case of spring contamination, also northwest of Parachute.
State regulators should be applauded for this catch, but with state budgets so strapped across the country, they clearly should not be the only regulators on the job. Do we really need more Civil Action-like tragedies to teach us that?
According to Republicans who know about the issue (which, incredibly, does not include one proudly ignorant leading Senate candidate), we do. And that cavalier attitude is both immoral and politically dangerous for the GOP. Though the national media has tended to portray debates over drilling as "liberal environmentalists" versus "pro-business conservatives," the fact is that these issues can cut in very unpredictable ways. As I reported back in 2008 for the New York Times magazine, someone living in drilling company may like the energy industry and be a cultural conservative -- but that person probably doesn't like the thought of being able to light their tap water on fire, and might not want to vote for politicians who do.
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Hirsch is supposedly coming out with a book on the subject this September/fall. James Schlesinger is forwarding it but Schlesinger doesn't agree with Hirsch's optimistic ending.
would you like to listen to an interview with him? www.netcastdaily.com/broadcast/fsn2009-1114-3a.mp3
Better yet, think of it this way: The IEA is saying we need 30 mb/d of new capacity is needed by 2015 http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/11/iea-world-energy-outlook-2008.html
Just to offset declines we need a new Saudi Arabia coming online every 5 years (same link) or capacity will be halved by 2030. At 86.4 M/bbl per day of consumption (a 1000bb/sec) you could fill 2,044,000 Olympic pools of oil each year. Those pools would stretch 2 1/2 around the earth...and half that volume could be gone within 20 years.
U.S. JOINT OPERATING ENVIRONMENT REPORT 2010
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2010/04/united-states-joint-forces-command-us.html
Solar potential 200 to 2000 times world use. .
near offshore wind, 5 times the world energy.
Waste Bio fuels. twice the total world energy needs.
together,
the real solution,
and cheaper in the long run,
cheap enough now/.
get over it.
or is 22015 the "actual" 2012?
http://www.financials
http://www.lifeaftert
Dear Reader
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, bankers, and investors in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil." => .........
German Energy Politician, Astrid Schneider, interview with IEA's Chief Economist, Fatih Birol
"The Sirens Shrill"
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/04/what-follows-is-english-translation.html
The Long Emergency – James Howard Kunstler
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4878856748297910182
A Crude Awakening
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-665674869982904386#
Prof Rick Smalley - Our Energy Challenge
Columbia University Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center presents "Our Energy Challenge" by Nobel laureate Professor Richard Smalley of Rice University.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4626573768558163231
Caltech
Dr David Goodstein: Running out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil
http://today.caltech.edu/theater/5602_bb.ram
The Crash Course
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
maybe, in in case we need to shift to rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels.
It's the only choice that can be implemented within 5 years.
Save money, cut the deficit, employ everyone, cut energy dependence:
Immediately order energy retrofits for all gov buildings.
Rooftop PV Solar, Offshore wind, and Waste Bio char, can supply the worlds energy and fuel needs: cleanly, safely, Forever, within 12 years and cheaper in the long run 2-6 cents now, and 26$ per barrel bio oils.
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/solar_panels.htm
about 1$ per Wp solar panels, new.
install solar plants for about $1.30 per watt, compared with an industry average of about $1.75, according to Hardy." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20602099&sid=a7K1FZoNgJ0w
Wind: “between two and six cents today, depending on location.12 Wind power approaches competitiveness with conventional generation at this price point. “
http://www.repp.org/articles/static/1/binaries/wind%20issue%20brief_FINAL.pdf
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/publ/BiofBioproBioref%203,%20547-562,%202009%20Laird.pdf
26$ per barrel bio oil from waste bio char.
We must STOP all breaks and subsides for fossils and nukes,
but of course they are the largest multinationals in the world, and green energy has 1% of the money needed to buy congress.
Chu hates green energy, and buries and misrepresents it in his newest gov report.
The fix is in.
Fracking is an environmental disaster, as proven by the industries evasion of the clean water act and secret formulas, and known toxins. .
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2010/04/united-states-joint-forces-command-us.html
http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/joe2010.pdf
aspo-usa.com/2009proceedings/Skrebowski
The world requires a new Saudi Arabia every 5 years simply to keep oil production constant. To also meet increasing demand it needs a new Saudi Arabia every 3.8 years. My source? The IEA http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2008/11/iea-world-energy-outlook-2008.html
To put that into perspective, a 10 M/bbl shortfall by would be like having every gas station in the US going dry. Think about it, no autos moving on any US roadways in any state, roads going vacant. In 2007 the US used a record amount of gasoline requiring 9.29 M/bbl per day http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/infosheets/petroleump
In the US we consume 10 calories of oil to produce 1 calorie of the food Americans eat. That's why you aren't forced to grow your own food to survive.....yet.
So while you guys are complaining about an imagined crisis from fracing the real crisis started with the stock market collapse two years ago. That was the beginning of the decline to your world.
Oil *is* the life blood of the economy (NG is just the best substitute to buy us time). Why do think the 1990s was such an economic boom? Because Clinton was the president. Not hardly. Clinton was blessed with low oil prices. Price was under $20/bbl and at one point $8/bbl. http://www.farmdoc.illinois.edu/manage/newsletters/fefo07_11/fefo07_11_
When oil prices climb recessions are triggered http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7vGDwGLU7s
Price aside, over a longer view GDP growth tracked oil supply.
http://www.incrediblecharts.com/tradingdiary/images/20080814_oil_gdp.png
Global supply, however, is rolling over and turning down.
Using 55-gallon steel drums try to image just how much oil the world uses each day, each year.
http://oildepletiondebate.blogspot.com/2009/07/steel-drum-pipeline-of-oil-encircling.html
The IEA says half that volume could be gone by 2030. Do you believe we can replace that vol with biomass oil and still feed the planet?
http://www2.allenpress.com/pdf/1551-501X-31.6.pdf
The Guardian: Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency
So knowing what I know about peaking of world oil production and how that's going to affect global stability and my believing Obama knows this too since becoming president (he's been briefed), I have no doubt that your frac fears will fall on deaf ears in the end. The administration will put up front to placate their base of voters but drilling and fracing shale gas plays will continue.
That's how to think clearly?
Wake up!
The prices will rise, efficiency will rise, and alternative will rapidly take over.
Clean potable water in one thing that is a vital requirement for animal survival CLEAN WATER GONE ALL MAMMALIAN LIFE - - GONE It won"t matter a pinch of poop if you are rich as god you won't survive either.
People need to suffer first, cancers, unexplained illness, etc., then litagation, small token settlements, then superfund status, then taxpayers pay to clean it up. Someone makes a movie, Perpetrators laugh all the way to the bank. Stockholders get their dividend, Everyone forgets the deaths and destruction, it becomes one more place you don't want to visit or move to.
Been the American Way since my childhood swimming hole past into history 50 years ago.
Why?
Oh wait I answered my own question....they know next to nothing.....from an objective POV. And if there is any objective science refuting their subjective/emotional belief they dismiss it out of hand based upon it source. And then never dismiss their own bias sources.
Now, since that report was in the hands of the landowner and available online to the producer of Gasland the question is who is lying about the well's gas source.
But hey, don't let facts get in the way of your cherished political beliefs.
Then there is a remote possibility that you will have flammable gas coming out your faucet when you turn it on to get a drink.
You show that you may know next to nothing if you continue to generalize about people concerned about the citizenry as a whole and the results of oil and gas companies dodging regulations and creating bad results.. . . BP jog your memory? ? ?
Fracking With Food: How the Natural Gas Industry Poisons Cows and Crops