Review of Frack Nation: A Journalist's Search for the Fracking Truth

A new documentary called Frack Nation premiers Tuesday at 9 p.m. on Mark Cuban's AXS tv channel. It is not boring, and it is important. It is a documentary about the dishonesty of another documentary. Stay awake and read.

Frack Nation: A Journalist's Search for the Fracking Truth, directed by Irish journalists Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, addresses the safety and world-changing benefits of fracking, the process that has greatly increased the known and recoverable reserves of natural gas and oil in the United States. This technology has destroyed the myth of limits to growth and an America running on empty. Much of what we "know" about American decline and rising energy costs and dependence on foreign nations for our energy need not be true.

But is fracking safe?

A previous documentary titled Gasland by Josh Fox made dramatic claims that fracking leads to flammable tap water. A resident shows how he can light the water from his kitchen faucet on fire. You would think the entire town was up in arms against those wishing to drill for natural gas through fracking. Or perhaps dead already from the pollution. Compelling television...

And completely dishonest.

Frack Nation follows our Irish-accented journalist Phelim McAleer as he fact-checks such assertions from Gasland. It turns out that fracking is an old technology that has been used for years and is now improved. We learn that methane gas released with well water is a common occurrence in many areas and has been for decades -- long before anyone fracked anything within a thousand miles. Josh Fox knew this and deliberately left it out of his "documentary."

Many of those with land over the shale deposits that have natural gas that can be released through fracking would like the economic benefits that flow from allowing drilling below their property. Fracking and horizontal drilling allow a much smaller footprint than previous methods of drilling for oil or natural gas. The environmental safety of fracking has been tested and proved repeatedly.

The claims of ecological ruin made in Gasland are exposed in Frack Nation as rejected by real scientists and the public servants working at the EPA.

An entire industry has grown up promoting the false claims of scarcity and inevitable declining energy sources and opportunities. They are threatened by yet another technology that has expanded our known reserves. Every generation there are those sad idiots who harass us, holding signs that proclaim that the world will end, or at least run out of energy by a date certain. The Mayans may have been first. Josh Fox is a modern plagiarizer of this "Chicken Little" dialogue. Josh Fox is caught on camera unable to defend his "work" and unwilling to answer the simplest questions about the accuracy of his film. The movie makes Josh Fox's decision to flee from debate understandable. He cannot defend what he did.

The 70-minute documentary destroys the claims made in Gasland. It eviscerates Gasland's credibility and makes clear that its director knowingly lied again and again. On the facts, the science, the conflicts of interest of its protagonists.

Frack Nation is worth seeing because it is a good film. It is funny in upending the pathetic lies of Gasland. It is fast-paced. (Is that legal in a documentary?) It is not heavy handed, self-congratulatory, or "full of itself." It breaks all the rules, or at least traditions, of the modern documentary.

It is worth watching. It has already changed the debate about our energy future for the better.

 

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Comments

[StreetDreams56]

08:01 PM on 02/06/2013

He did a fantastic job of discrediting that Fox fellow, but he only addressed the issues of air/water pollution and earthquakes. He failed to cover the immense amount of fresh water used in the fracking process. Also, the earthquakes being seen are occurring at the site of the waste water wells, not to be confused with the area around the rig.
The sympathy they tried to drum up for the local farms did not set in for me. I don't know how things work out east, but in Iowa, nobody makes a living with a dozen free range chickens and a handful of hogs. I feel bad that these small farmers aren't profitable enough without their checks from the gas companies, but maybe that's a sign that it's time to find a new means of living. I realize I sound heartless, but that's what both sides of my family did during the 80's Farm Crisis.
Back to the point, this DOES reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but it perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels. To me, this makes fracking a sidestep rather than a step forward.
I almost forgot; that scene labeling wind turbines as ruthless bird killing machines made me want to punch myself in the face. On the bright side, it did make me realize how much one has to scrounge to find an argument against wind power.

[Czerwony]

06:22 PM on 02/22/2013

I couldn't agree more, and with the two other responses below too. Both Fox's Gasland and Fracknation missed the point. Fracknation held no hard facts, only testimonies from some farmers hoping to make the case that their suffering is actually the suffering of all of America.

[tcepit]

07:09 PM on 02/06/2013

I have watched it twice, and I agree that he definitely damaged Josh Fox's credibility. However, I am still not convinced I know the whole story of what is really going on with fracking from either standpoint. I have some mistrust of the government's honesty in this as they are owned in many ways by the oil lobby. I also feel this movie was quite narrow in it's scope focusing mainly on farmers who are looking for a big pay day. I actually think he stumbled on to another movie - why do our farmers need oil to bail them out financially. Why can't the American farmer keep their business that their ancestors could for 100 years before them?

I think there are so many personal interests involved in the opinions around fracking that I'd like to see a group of impartial scientists put together their own assessment and not limit us to just some anecdotal individual stories and opinions. Very interesting film and debate, and I am anxious to learn more.

[Sustainable2day]

01:18 PM on 02/06/2013

I watched FrackNation last night and was disturbed that Josh Fox totally misrepresented the local sentiment and the safety of the fracking process. However well intentioned, his credibility and that of the anti-big oil movement are damaged. However both films have missed the point. No matter how many years worth of gas is available in these shale deposits, that amount is still finite and as such the continued reliance upon it is unsustainable. As I understand it, the US has an adequate supply of gas resources, but the corporations who extract and sell it are hell bent on using it up as fast as possible. Why? Profit and greed. There is a lot of money at stake in keeping the world addicted to fossil fuels. These companies are in competition with Russia (as the film pointed out) to make huge profits by selling the resource to the highest bidder. In the case of the US, we are not the primary consumers of this energy, China is. We extract our finite resources, pack it onto LNG ships and send it away so that foreign countries can continue to grow and consume more and more.
Eventually the resource will be depleted, the farmers will go bankrupt because their livelihood depends on the gas contracts instead of farming. The smart thing to do would be to make the natural resource industries non-profi and incentivise them to invest in replacement technologies while sparingly distributing the ever shrinking resources to the domestic markets.

[Pam Bayer]

11:10 PM on 01/29/2013

why don't you disclose funding sources for the authors, that their other films were funded by mining companies. These are the same authors that deny climate change. They have a clear bias and agenda. They are aligned with the far right. They are not scientists or health professionals. I hope they drink the water, have their children exposed to the methane releases, and their neighbohood destroyed by the noise and pollution of this industry. I live on a farm in upstate NY, My 21 year old daughter has breast cancer-(not genetic) why don't they read what the Breast cancer specialists say about frackings impact - all have submitted opposition to the use of high volume horizonal fracking due to the dangers involved to women.

[Jason Snay]

09:30 PM on 02/04/2013

New York has a mortiturum against horizontal fracking. So you are lying that she got cancer from it when you can't even drill in New yourk State. Good try though !!!!1

[Pam Bayer]

10:10 PM on 02/04/2013

NO- new york has multiple wells- thousands that are not horizontally drilled at this juncture but are vertically drilled with no restrictions on use of fluids in many areas. I have 5 wells on my farm that are capped, and I never said her cancer was from fracking, I said she has breast cancer at age 21!!! And all of the breast cancer research grounds have submitted comments on this issue and indicate that the chemicals used in the fluid, the blow off from the wells sites, the truck emissions, etc create a significant risk for breast cancer, why don't you look at the Breast Fund website, but of coarse you are a male and THINK it can't effect you. ( you are wrong there too). Her cancer is hopefully in remission but it is estrogen sensitive, and therefore sensitive to endrocrine disruptors- look at the known fluid chemicals. So I hope your children are safe... I am hopeful my daughter will live and I hope other children are not exposed.

[Czerwony]

12:37 PM on 01/28/2013

All in all I like the movie, but it was completely a human-interest movie, rather than being factual/technical. Ann had said herself that they could have put in a lot of facts, technical information, etc., but she would rather people were emotionally connected than to "put them in a coma with information". She continued to say that "young people have no idea where their energy comes from", and yet, I can't help but feel that those coma-inducing-facts are what keep us informed about the process of recovering energy.
I find myself in a weird location with respect to the fracking industry. I'm confident in the process and the engineer's abilities to extract natural gas, and I have no doubt they take great pride in their work and even take great lengths to prevent ground water contamination. On the other hand: it was never mentioned about the millions of gallons of water used to perform fracking. Small percentage of random chemicals aside, there are many naturally occurring soluble compounds in the soil, like Arsenic to name one, which now have to be processed in the water to make it potable again.

[Czerwony]

12:37 PM on 01/28/2013

I was present at the premier showing last week in Denver, hosted by Ann herself. I was invited as a chemical engineer, but the majority of the persons present were from the Western Energy Alliance. It was not surprising to see Ann "preaching to the choir", I would be too.
I do agree with the message of the FrackNation documentary, as apparently Josh Fox's GasLand is riddled with fiction. However, my co-worker and I both agreed: we didn't know more about HydroFracturing after watching the film as we did before the film. There was only a brief blurb about the process. Ann and her husband, it seems, were hell-bent on refuting Josh Fox's entire movie rather than discuss the intricacies of the process of Fracking. Which is understandable, as the environmentalists would pin-point and concentrate on any single negatives of fracking; it's too bad because natural gas is slightly cleaner and efficient than burning coal/oil and would significantly alleviate US dependence on foreign gas.
Ann had also brought up the fact that they had asked Matt Damon (the video is present on YouTube, btw) if he knew that the movie Promised Land was sponsored in part by ImageNation, a United Arab Emirates funded movie company. Bringing into question the motive of filming the Promised Land movie in the first place. Who has more motive to demonize fracking in the US than an oil-rich middle eastern nation?

[teragramus]

11:19 PM on 01/27/2013

How about some of THAT in your groundwater?? Drink up!

[MrBIgp]

02:19 PM on 01/29/2013

First, most of these chemicals are pretty benign, second they don't go into the ground water, they go into the shale thousands of feet below the water table.

[Patrickjp93]

10:35 PM on 02/14/2013

Wrong, do you have any idea the explosive backforce caused by the rock fracturing and the gas allowing free range under kilotons of pressure? 93% of the fracturing fluid comes back up, permanently toxified by arsenic, mercury, nuclear isotopes, purines, and other very nasty volatile stuff. Gasland may have been biased, but the tests on the water brought up from fracturing revealed over 1000 chemicals, over 800 of them toxic to the human body.

[teragramus]

11:18 PM on 01/27/2013

partial list of fracking chemicals:

II

Sodium Tetraborate 001303-96-4
Boric Acid 001333-73-9
Zirconium Complex 113184-20-6
Borate Salts N/A
Ethylene Glycol 000107-21-1
Methanol 000067-56-1
Polyacrylamide 009003-05-8
Petroleum Distillate 064741-85-1
Hydrotreated Light Petroleum Distillate 064742-47-8
Guar Gum 009000-30-0
Petroleum Distillate 064741-85-1
Polysaccharide Blend 068130-15-4
Citric Acid 000077-92-9l
Acetic Acid 000064-19-7
Thioglycolic Acid 000068-11-1
Sodium Erythorbate 006381-77-7
Lauryl Sulfate 000151-21-3
Isopropanol 000067-63-0
Sodium Hydroxide 001310-73-2
Potassium Hydroxide 001310-58-3
Acetic Acid 000064-19-7
Sodium Carbonate 000497-19-8
Potassium Carbonate 000584-08-7
Copolymer of Acrylamide and Sodium Acrylate 025987-30-8
Sodium Polycarboxylate N/A
Phosphonic Acid Salt N/A
Lauryl Sulfate 000151-21-3
Ethanol 000064-17-5
Naphthalene 000091-20-3
Isopropyl Alcohol 000067-63-0
2-Butoxyethanol 000111-76-2

[teragramus]

11:17 PM on 01/27/2013

Partial list of fracking chemicals (from http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used)

I

Hydrochloric Acid 007647-01-0
Glutaraldehyde 000111-30-8
Quaternary Ammonium Chloride 012125-02-9
Quaternary Ammonium Chloride 061789-71-1
Tetrakis Hydroxymethyl-Phosphonium Sulfate 055566-30-8
Ammonium Persulfate 007727-54-0
Sodium Chloride 007647-14-5
Magnesium Peroxide 014452-57-4
Magnesium Oxide 001309-48-4
Calcium Chloride 010043-52-4
Choline Chloride 000067-48-1
Tetramethyl ammonium chloride 000075-57-0
Sodium Chloride 007647-14-5
Isopropanol 000067-63-0
Methanol 000067-56-1
Formic Acid 000064-18-6
Acetaldehyde 000075-07-0
Petroleum Distillate 064741-85-1
Hydrotreated Light Petroleum Distillate 064742-47-8
Potassium Metaborate 013709-94-9
Triethanolamine Zirconate 101033-44-7

[dougscott]

07:10 PM on 01/27/2013

The Failure of The Truth About Gasland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiuQmqCHAIU

[green2013]

03:21 PM on 01/27/2013

Is this what Pres. Obama meant when he said to Putin that he "can be more flexiable after the election ?"?

[Zariana]

10:37 AM on 01/27/2013

Haliburton has a fracture fluid that they claim is made entirely from chemicals that the food industry uses.

Now I'm scared.

[KALM]

04:07 PM on 02/13/2013

You would be amazed and completely disgusted at the chemicals used by the food industry in the U.S. Many of those same companies manufacture the same food products without the toxic chemicals for the European and Australian market because those chemicals are outlawed there for consumption. So I am not surprised that the Fracking fluid could be made up of chemicals the food industry uses.

[freegeg]

03:38 PM on 01/26/2013

Just watched it. I can't believe all the lies they exposed in gasland. LOL...u have to see the Guy who sued the gas company flipping out when the EPA tells him his water is safe.

[dougscott]

12:17 PM on 01/26/2013

Shale Gas- Hydraulic Fracturing process explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM8Lh7SAm6A

[OutToLunch]

11:34 AM on 01/25/2013

i am SO in the wrong business. wish i had thought to become a shill when I grew up....