Fracking ruining the world:

How can we accept the fact that the entire US government from the Presidency to congress to the Supreme court has been 100% bought off by the gas industry who now dictates what environmental laws say?

And now we see it is not just in the US where towns are being turned into Chernobles, abandoned homes, whole towns decimated.

Now it is being repeated all over the planet.

In Australia, shale fracking has already ruined farmland where water wells that were running for decades now, just coincidentally the gas companies say, can be lit with a match and a permanent flame shoots out.

Just watch the HBO documentary Gasland by Josh Fox and now Gasland II.

We are destroying the very ground we need to grow crops, entire towns depopulated.

Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

Originally posted by sonhouse
How can we accept the fact that the entire US government from the Presidency to congress to the Supreme court has been 100% bought off by the gas industry who now dictates what environmental laws say?

And now we see it is not just in the US where towns are being turned into Chernobles, abandoned homes, whole towns decimated.

Now it is being repeated a ...[text shortened]... we need to grow crops, entire towns depopulated.

Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

Here's another one, this is really scarey stuff:

fracknation.com

Originally posted by sonhouse
How can we accept the fact that the entire US government from the Presidency to congress to the Supreme court has been 100% bought off by the gas industry who now dictates what environmental laws say?

And now we see it is not just in the US where towns are being turned into Chernobles, abandoned homes, whole towns decimated.

Now it is being repeated a ...[text shortened]... we need to grow crops, entire towns depopulated.

Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

How could the US government have been bought out by the gas industry when they've already been bought out by Monsanto?!?! Is there no limit to the number of industries they can sell themselves out to???

Originally posted by sonhouse
How can we accept the fact that the entire US government from the Presidency to congress to the Supreme court has been 100% bought off by the gas industry who now dictates what environmental laws say?

And now we see it is not just in the US where towns are being turned into Chernobles, abandoned homes, whole towns decimated.

Now it is being repeated a ...[text shortened]... we need to grow crops, entire towns depopulated.

Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

I think you could possibly rephrase this in a slightly more melodramatic way.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
I think you could possibly rephrase this in a slightly more melodramatic way.

Let's see, how would RJ say it?

Did you by any chance watch the HBO documentaries Gasland or Gasland II?

Originally posted by sonhouse
How can we accept the fact that the entire US government from the Presidency to congress to the Supreme court has been 100% bought off by the gas industry who now dictates what environmental laws say?

And now we see it is not just in the US where towns are being turned into Chernobles, abandoned homes, whole towns decimated.

Now it is being repeated a ...[text shortened]... we need to grow crops, entire towns depopulated.

Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

Natural gas is the fossil fuel that has less carbon. Since you are so concerned with CO2 causing global warming I would think you would be in favor of burning natural gas in place of the other fossil fuels.

Aren't those that do fracking getting better at avoiding water well contamination?

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Natural gas is the fossil fuel that has less carbon. Since you are so concerned with CO2 causing global warming I would think you would be in favor of burning natural gas in place of the other fossil fuels.

Aren't those that do fracking getting better at avoiding water well contamination?

The statistic that jumped out at me was the one that said the concrete liners of fracking wells fail on day one at a 5 % rate. With 100,000 wells already in place in the US, including two of my home towns, one near Venice Beach Calif. and the others close to my present home in the Pocono Mountains (the Marcellus shale), that leaves (if that statistic is correct, 5000 wells spewing all the gasses and fracking chemicals into the ground water.
The story given out by the Frackers is the fracking takes place a mile or more underground while ground water is only down to 500 feet or so, just 10% of the depth.

But if the failure rate of 5% is correct, then the mile deep chemicals are now all of a sudden infiltrating the ground water miles up.

The other statistic I believe given by the gas companies themselves is the projection that after 30 years of fracking, 50% of the wells will have cracked concrete liners. Now we are up to 50,000 wells contaminating the ground water.

Of course 30 years from now there may be a million wells so you can project the damage stats for yourself.

Assuming that 5% number is correct of course.

It just sounds like a recipe for disaster with many Chernoble level towns totally unlivable.

Another thing I read, that the shales have reserves of radium and fracking releases that into the ground water where wells have broken concrete liners. That is another scary stat. My present 'home' town of Slatington Pa is so backwards they replaced the last WOODEN water pipes in 1978. Think how well they would be equipped to handle RADIUM contamination.

Originally posted by sonhouse
The statistic that jumped out at me was the one that said the concrete liners of fracking wells fail on day one at a 5 % rate. With 100,000 wells already in place in the US, including two of my home towns, one near Venice Beach Calif. and the others close to my present home in the Pocono Mountains (the Marcellus shale), that leaves (if that statistic is cor ...[text shortened]... DEN water pipes in 1978. Think how well they would be equipped to handle RADIUM contamination.

Here is an opinion piece from the New York Times. The author claims it is 1% to 2% rather than 5%. I'll leave it up to you to dispute the author's claims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/opinion/global/the-facts-on-fracking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Here is an opinion piece from the New York Times. The author claims it is 1% to 2% rather than 5%. I'll leave it up to you to dispute the author's claims.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/14/opinion/global/the-facts-on-fracking.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Sounds a bit chicken little to me. Even a 1% initial failure rate on day one would be disastrous, and it seems would make real news.

Originally posted by normbenign
Sounds a bit chicken little to me. Even a 1% initial failure rate on day one would be disastrous, and it seems would make real news.

100,000 pumps, 1000 leaks, even at 1%. But the gas company's own literature puts it at 5% and the same company stat says in 30 years 50% of wells will leak. A frigging time bomb. Lets hope there is someplace left that has pure water 30 years from now. Doesn't sound like it though. I don't want to be within a hundred miles of a frigging fracker. Unfortunately I live right in the middle of the Marcellus shale. Nice, eh.

Originally posted by sonhouse
100,000 pumps, 1000 leaks, even at 1%. But the gas company's own literature puts it at 5% and the same company stat says in 30 years 50% of wells will leak. A frigging time bomb. Lets hope there is someplace left that has pure water 30 years from now. Doesn't sound like it though. I don't want to be within a hundred miles of a frigging fracker. Unfortunately I live right in the middle of the Marcellus shale. Nice, eh.

That was my point. A 1% first day failure rate would not be acceptable in any business. That sort of thing gets my Taurus scat meter jumping. There is considerable oversight on the process, and since energy companies will be completely reliant on those resources in the future, it is not in their interest to be cavalier about the safety of the process.

Metal Brain, are there accidents in your neighborhood?

There is an association with earthquakes. In the UK the only fracking sites are in the North West, cunningly near this great big nuclear reprocessing plant called Sellafield.

Originally posted by normbenign
That was my point. A 1% first day failure rate would not be acceptable in any business. That sort of thing gets my Taurus scat meter jumping. There is considerable oversight on the process, and since energy companies will be completely reliant on those resources in the future, it is not in their interest to be cavalier about the safety of the process.

Metal Brain, are there accidents in your neighborhood?

There have not been any fracking in my area yet but that will probably change in the future. Exploration was done on my land last fall and my family (siblings including myself) own the mineral rights collectively. For this reason I am very interested in this subject. I have the potential to profit from it if natural gas prices reach a certain level to create an incentive for recovery, but I might also risk water contamination under my land.

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20130324/NEWS/303249962/hydraulic-fracturing-in-michigan-waiting-for-the-boom#

When I read the link below I found this excerpt of the article interesting:

Sierra Club, interestingly, has received criticism for accepting donations from a natural gas interest - the money reportedly to be used to support campaigns against coal interests. Seems practical to me; but; I'm sure activists were taken aback by the news in February 2011 that

Several days ago national Sierra Club’s executive director Michael Brune finally revealed in Time magazine that the organization — one of the biggest and most well known “environmental” groups — took $26 million from gas company Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey McClendon. The windfall was to be used for Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign — which includes heavy promotion of the gas industry.

I say it is logical and acceptable for Sierra Club to do that because, Cheap Natural Gas [Is] Reshaping Power Generation and Home Heating: Coal Will Take The Loss.

http://www.treehugger.com/fossil-fuels/michigan-has-vast-shale-gas-reserves.html

What do you think?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Is this the best way to grow all our crops?

Its all a question of balance. The problem is you seem to be painting it very one sided and ignoring the benefits of energy from gas.
The real problem is whether or not the long term costs are being ignored for short term gain, and who pays the long term cost. This is a problem throughout human development and applies to everything from agricultural methods to energy production, and the main reason very little is being done about global warming.

But your obvious bias does not help the situation. Instead it leads to decision making based on emotional reasons not based on an actual evaluation of the costs/benefits.
I see this bias problem a lot when it comes to environmental issues. In Zambia we often have foreigners complaining about the destruction of the environment and the wildlife etc, but apparently not caring about the people. If I could cure AIDs by wiping out all the rhinos and elephants, I would do it. Many environmentalists would not. Of course the solution is to find methods that benefit everyone.
With fracking the solution is to ensure that the frackers pay the full environmental costs and don't leave it to someone else to foot the bill. But when you have a government that is run by lobbying, its not going to happen. Its simply cheaper to change the law than to pay the costs.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Its all a question of balance. The problem is you seem to be painting it very one sided and ignoring the benefits of energy from gas.
The real problem is whether or not the long term costs are being ignored for short term gain, and who pays the long term cost. This is a problem throughout human development and applies to everything from agricultural meth lobbying, its not going to happen. Its simply cheaper to change the law than to pay the costs.

So its ok that the world has all the energy it needs as long as we put up with mini chernobles all over the world where whole towns are now uninhabitable? Is that just the price we have to pay? Why not pursue other energy sources like wind power, which is forever and there are plenty of places where wind can generate all the energy the entire world needs.

Yes there are big time problems with that, one being transmitting the energy from where it is generated to where it is needed, so big power grids maybe world wide shared grids or something.

Wouldn't that be superior to ruining our habitat in our mad rush for energy?

Did you get the stat that says half of ALL frack wells will be leaking within 30 years? That was from the gas companies own analysis, not lefty tree huggers.