With 14 million Americans unemployed, buzz about a possible double dip recession reverberating in many ears and approval ratings at an all-time low, President Obama cannot afford to lose the support of any more of his constituents. Just last week, hundreds of concerned Americans descended on Philadelphia to speak out against the damages that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has already inflicted on communities throughout the region. Recent protests in Pennsylvania, New York, Washington, D.C. and elsewhere show that President Obama now has a fight over our nation's energy future to contend with, and the next battleground will be in the Delaware River Basin, where the Delaware River Basin Commission will vote next month on whether to approve new rules to open up wide areas of the Northeast to fracking.
Here President Obama still has an opportunity to salvage his approval ratings by blazing a new path in the burgeoning movement to protect our shared resources from the public health and environmental problems associated with fracking. President Obama can lend his considerable influence to the Delaware River Basin Commission's upcoming decision by voting against fracking. The stakes are high: 18,000 proposed natural gas wells are on the table, and the drinking water of 15 millions Americans is at stake. Given the many unanswered questions about the long-term public health and environmental impacts of fracking, it would be reckless to allow this industrial, dangerous practice to take place in the Delaware River Basin.
The process of injecting millions of gallons of water, chemicals and sand into shale rock formations at high pressures to release gas, fracking has earned plenty of opponents. Over the past 20 months, at least 10 studies by scientists, Congress, investigative journalists and public interest groups have documented serious environmental and public health problems associated with the practice, helping to further galvanize the movement for a nationwide ban.
The fervor against fracking, a widely and deeply felt issue affecting the very lifeblood of Americans--our precious water resources--is unlikely to subside any time soon, and so far, President Obama has failed to show a serious regard for it.
The Shale Gas Subcommittee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board was President Obama's first official foray into the thorny politics of fracking, but rather than assembling a team of experts committed to recommending policies that would safeguard our collective public health and our nation's treasured natural resources, he assembled a panel where six of its seven members maintain direct financial ties to the oil and gas industry. Unsurprisingly, their recommendations on fracking were widely lambasted for not going nearly far enough to protect consumers and the environment from the risks associated with the controversial energy practice.
The oil and gas industry has sold the promise that shale gas obtained through fracking will secure our nation's energy future. But U.S. natural gas consumption is actually expected to decline through 2015, while demand overseas increases--as much as 44 percent by 2035. Additionally, analysis by Food & Water Watch shows that the gas, along with the profits, will increasingly go abroad as many international players such as Reliance Industries, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and BP. So while the industry talking points about economic prosperity and energy security might be appealing on the surface, President Obama needs to take a deeper look at these claims, while assessing fracking's full impact on rural communities, our environment and public health.
President Obama can now either stand with the American public, and lead us down a path to a brighter, cleaner, more sustainable energy future, or he can side with an industry that has exploited every regulatory loophole possible to skirt clean air and water policies for the sake of a hefty profit. On September 13, thousands of concerned Americans will flood White House phone lines to remind him of this choice, joining with the almost 77,000 that have already taken action to ban the practice.
With the Shale Gas Subcommittee, President Obama chose the wrong bedfellows to help him determine fracking's place in our nation's energy future. But there is still time for him to do what's best for his constituents, starting with those in the Delaware River Basin. Then, he must work to ban fracking throughout the entire U.S. While job creation is essential to boosting our nation's economy, it should be attained through developing a clean, sustainable energy portfolio and investing in our essential water resources. Closing the gap in federal funding to community water systems could create as many as 750,000 new jobs, a promise the natural gas industry can't be trusted to deliver on.
Follow Wenonah Hauter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@foodandwater
http://www.plancanada.com/biochar_basics.pdf
2$ per watt bio char energy plant. 150 Gt/y waste bio mass, 100 GW electricity
http://www.fluxfarm.com/uploads/3/1/6/8/3168871/sustainable_biochar_to_mitigate_global_climate_change.pdf Tech estimate
http://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/biochar_paper.pdf
http://buildaroo.com/news/article/biofuel-from-human-waste-project-england/ 15% energy needs!
http://www.biochar-international.org/
There is no question that Fracking damages the environment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing#Environmental_and_health_effects
and Google it if you need more. Of course the Frackers deny that, surprise, but they refuse to chemical tag their wells so we can identify the source.
Combined with rooftop solar, off shore wind, Waste bio char makes a complete 24/7, forever, high capacity factor because distributed, safe, cleaner carbon, land and fresh waste negative energy system. There is many time the world energy and fuel requirements available from this green combination.
New solar wind and waste bio fuels are cheaper than new nukes, coal, and oil wars, and probably extreme drilling.
If you are going to take the cumulative cost of green energy, then take the cumulative cost of nuclear, coal and oil, don't forget the wars, disasters, cancers, cleanup, CO2 damage, mercury, and breaks and subsidies.
Find me some real geoscientists who'll look over the professors and academics on Steven Chu's panel and say "you can't trust these people because their industries ties render them untrustworthy".
Find just one tenured geoscience professor who'll say that.
Just. One.
Otherwise, sod off. You're maligning the reputation of serious, dedicated, ethical people, without any basis in fact.
You're giving real environmentalists a bad name.
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/aboutus/members.html
I grant you that Holditch and Yergin are there to represent the oil and gas industry. That's their role, to advocate for oil and gas companies. It's a panel - it wouldn't be balanced without a few oil and gas advocates.
So, according to Wenonah, 4 out of remaining 5 are untrustworthy and corrupt.
So let's hash it out. Let's have some more details. Enough with this "6 out of 7" vagueness. Show a little courage and name specific people with specific crimes.
You're saying the 40 year MIT professor is a fraud?
That the EDF head is a sell out?
Who's the criminals here? Who's been bought out. Let's hear it - let's see if you have the guts to actually call out the people you're going to be seeing at conferences, the people who are going to be looking over your resume down the road?
What's that? Won't do it Wenonah? Didn't think so.
And here's why that might be hard to do
http://www.utwatch.org/oldnews/chroniclehighered_tenure_biotech_1_9_04.html "The University of California at Berkeley has denied tenure to Ignacio H. Chapela, an assistant professor of ecology and an outspoken critic of the university's ties to the biotechnology industry."
Even so, some scientists still have the courage to speak out:
http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/2011/08/11/scientists-slam-us-department-of-energy-fracking-panel-conflicts-of-interest/
Wow, corruption the new normal.
We don't have to find these unbought scientists to know, to state unequivocally that it is corrupt.
too bad you haven’t forgotten what corrupt means, what conflict of interest means.
As our Locke liberal founders knew:
"When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny." John Adams
"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands . . . the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard." Alexander Hamilton
"I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations." Thomas Jefferson
He's an ecologist.
And like I said, 2 of the 7 *are* advocates. It's not corruption that OJ hired a lawyer. A fair panel would have some advocates.
I want a response from Wenonah, who has to work with these people. I agree, Holditch and Yergin are advocates.
Let's hear the roll call on the other 4 criminals. The MIT chairman of the chemistry department - he's just a flunkey? The Environmental Defense Fund founder? The two former Clinton staffers?
Cmon, you made the accusation - **back it up**.
the issue is we need energy and wind and solar are decades away from competitive generation. we need gas and I personally prefer it to Coal power - and we need nuclear - or we live with more coal.
Issues associated with fracking have manageable technology solutions. Energy producing regions have been using them for 60 years -- people in NM and TX like clean water too. And there are alot of revenues being raised and jobs being created in PA -- her jobs numbers are ludicrous.
Finally gas demand is going up in the US and abroad. This is good if you really care about climate change. The only scalable, affordable, near term way to reduce CO2 emissions is substituting gas for coal in power generation. She needs to stop telling her fairy tales about renewables -- they are too expensive . She should tell a poor person in Africa they can't have electricity, a commodity that is directly correlated to quality of life. What an uninformed, ideological elitist.
Environemtnalists with expertise in real science do exist, but she's not one of them.
Preface, so you don't think this is tribal. I don';t like Obama Reaganomics GOP agenda. He's not alberal, the last liberal in power was Carter, Obama's not even a progressive.
He has increased drilling, massively increase 54B$ Nuclear power, and Solyndra created thousands of jobs years, 100MW of clean solar power, spent that money in the USA helping our country a whole lot more than wars of banksters.
They went out of business because solar and wind were too cheaper for them to compete in the market, because solar and wind are very ready, cheaper than new nuke or coal or oil wars, cheaper than they could every hope to compete with.
We need to spend more on feed in tarrifs for rooftop solar, offshore wind and waste bio fuels and dump all subsides for nukes and fossils.
Where do you get your opposite world glasses, anyway?
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/03/18/offshore-wind-energy-cheaper-than-nuclear-energy-eu-climate-chief-says/
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/08/01/solar-energy-cheaper-than-nuclear-energy/
Solyndra was a bad political decision. 350 Million wasted - for 1,100 jobs (you do the math). Its was rushed through and OMB even said so.
I have no problem with rooftop solar and believe this is where the big difference will come from. And frankly who cares where the solar cells come from. thay need to be installed and maintained in the US by US companies and workers - and the lowers our dependance on foreign sources.
Obama has, like others, not pushed hard for drilling offshore and in Alaska. He started to and then BP killed it. we are just too damn stupid to get our own oil and will be paying for that stupidity into the future...
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/09/germany-crunched-by-the-numbers/
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/05/15/solar-power-in-florida/#more-4588
This is the how manyeth time Obama has chosen to surround himself with representatives of the very industries in need of regulation, "panels" of industry execs or lobbyists, picked the very Rubinite economists/bankers/citigroup who were arguably responsible for the current so-called "economic downturn" (its not a "downturn" when criminal or near-criminality was responsible), Obama picked anti-environmentalist Ken Salazar for Interior Secretary, cozied-up with for-profit health care industry, big-pharma & Insurance parasites, & on & on; now it’s the fracking industry.
How much longer will we lament his "poor" choices & ask, hat in hand, that he modify his actions; his actions are the very ones he wants that will deliver the required policy that will deliver the campaign contributions our subverted political system demands & has descended into. For mercy's sake, this man, everybody sez is a "really smart guy", must know exactly what he's doing. He is NOT the Prez we needed, sold himself as, or phony rhetoric portrayed; he is NOT The One, & all the wishing & calls to the WH hopefully pleading will not change that.
If consulting on a part time basis renders your opinion suspect, then we must throw out the opinions of all the leading geoscientists on the planet. The MIT professors, the Caltech professors, etc. They all must go, apparently.
And we can then learn about geoscience how exactly? By watching a silly movie on HBO?
Is a direct finical ties to that industry.
Fact.
No, not all the MIT and caltech professors get their money from the oil and gas companies.
The ones that do are tainted.
Legal fact.
Get over it.
Stop defending corruption.
I used the opprotunity to call the White House number you listed, and spoke out "in favor" of natural gas development, and "against" professional fear mongers such as yourself.
Now, if you wanted to protest mountaintop coal mining removal, that would be a different story. But I suspect your fixation on shale gas and fracking is not because it's worse than coal mining (or, in fact, anywhere near as dangerous as coal mining), but because it has the media's favor at the moment, and there was a neato HBO movie on the subject, and because the word "fracking" makes you snigger.
After Obama loses the election, and Perry (who was governor while Texas was pioneer shale gas drilling techniques) assumes the White House, you might want to ponder that there soliciting donations through hysteria didn't really advance your groups long term interests at all.
Funny how your industry buddies are so against that.
Fracturing the substrata is asking for water table contamination.
It still a huge water waster.
It causes earthquakes,
google Fracking problems
or read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing#Environmental_and_health_effects
http://www.shalegas.energy.gov/aboutus/members.html
If there should be any complaints about the make up of the committee it should be the natural gas industry!
I left the link read the bios yourself!
Or have we become so used to corruption, we think it's normal.
Just think of how many "unanswered questions" there have been since the beginning of time. Some thought the explosion of the first nuclear bomb in 1945 would set off a firestorm that would instantly vaporize the entire planet. In fact the energy needs of the world are on the same level of importance as WWII.
There is a handful of bad groundwater wells. Since groundwater wells go bad, all the time, anyway, there are 0.01% more bad groundwater wells than there would be had fracking never been invented (60 years ago).
At any rate, who are you going to believe? These unacreddited self appointed fear mongers, or the Blue Ribbon MIT panel convened specifically to study natural gas development. The MIT panel's conclusion - fraking containimation "doesn't appear to be happening".
http://tinyurl.com/3pa9tls
The pumping of millions of gallons of toxic/carcinogenic chemicals, over 32 million gallons of diesel fuel http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/01/31/31greenwire-fracking-companies-injected-32m-gallons-of-die-24135.html?pagewanted=all , millions of gallons of our limited clean water that is then contaminated beyond use, must be seen for what it is; a criminal act that affects millions of residents around where the hydro-fracking is taking place. The criminal acts affect millions & our healthcare costs, water pollution, air pollution & any future attempts to “clean-up” this intentional pollution will be born by the taxpayers, as usual, NOT the gas companies who have committed the crime, or their shills who try to calm the public with disinformation.
http://www.propublica.org/series/buried-secrets-gas-drillings-environmental-threat
The fix is in.
Solar wind and waste are already cheaper than nukes, new coal, oil wars and even natural gas used for peaking.
panels lasting longer and better than predicted http://solar.gwu.edu/Research/EnergyPolicy_Zweibel2010.pdf Great article about price of solar now 3$/W installed. last 100 years, 1-2 cents pwer KWH after the first 20 years and the loan is paid off.
http://cleantechnica.com/2011/06/10/solar-power-graphs-to-make-you-smile/
Great chart of energy source amounts: http://cleantechnica.com/2011/08/23/solar-power-intro-3-key-solar-power-points-top-solar-power-news/
http://www.sunelec.com/ 75 cents per Wp.
Elect the Kucinich dean Grayson CPC progressive folks in the dem primaries if you really want green energy and citizens reps.
add to that NIMBY and its a loser
Nuclear kills 12 people per plant per year when it works well. The NRC acknowledged that 12 people are expected to die as a direct result of normal operation and releases for each commercial nuclear reactor that is granted a license extension of 20 years. http://www.rockthecapital.com/03/14/wrong-nrcs-fact-sheet-tmi-accident/
Nuclear power has killed thousand if not millions of people by radiation induced cancers.
You forgot that cenrs again, didn't you?
Solar pay off is 1 to 3 years. Nukes is Never.
Solar energy payback 1-3 years:http://www.motherearthnews.com/energy-matters/dispelling-the-myths-of-solar-electricity-energy-payback.aspx
http://www.solar-photovoltaic.info/payback/siemens-solar-panels-energy-payback-time-is-one-to-three-years/
So, why do you keep repeating these falsehoods, and without links to prove it? (well that parts obvious, you can't prove it because it's false.)