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Fracking Our Way to a Toxic Planet
Posted by Ed (410 days ago)
More than 650 of products used in hydraulic fracturing contain chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens. Filmmaker Josh Fox embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination.
A recently drilled well near Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND.
Watch Interview http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/613/index.html
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Posted by Ed (408 days ago)
Fracking: A dehydrated UK, watered only by capitalism
London, United Kingdom - Fracking: environmental and human destruction at its very worst. Groundwater contamination, billions of gallons of fresh water squandered, small earthquakes, toxic air emissions, reports of radiation, and not even tap water going up in flames are enough to halt the decimation of our precious countryside, in an attempt to extract copious volumes of natural gas from the unearthed, sedimentary shale rocks below.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/2012514505415433.html
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by Ed (407 days ago)
How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets
The "Rogers" family signed a surface-use agreement with a fracking company in 2009 to close their 300-acre dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania. That's not the end of the Rogers' story, but the public, including the Rogers' own neighbors, may never learn what happened to the family and their land as drilling operations sprouted up in their area.
The Rogers did not realize they had signed a nondisclosure agreement with the gas company making the entire deal invalid if members of the family discussed the terms of the agreement, water or land disturbances resulting from fracking and other information with anyone other than the gas company and other signatories.
More http://truth-out.org/news/item/9004-silencing-communities-how-the-fracking-industry-keeps-its-secrets
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by val_y (400 days ago)
Ya, we live in a toxic world and there are lots of diseases linked with environmental toxins. That's why I have regular checkup with the naturopathic therapist to identify the heavy metals, pesticides, chemicals etc from my body systems and get rid of them.
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by Ed (380 days ago)
It would appear that fracking is mostly hype...
And that we are pumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into our groundwater leaving it contaminated for who know how long... for what?
A quick sugar buzz of energy....
In fracking, during the initial phase of production, high pressure blows a huge quantity of gas out the well—and the quantity of the first 24 hours, the “initial production,” is bandied about to investors and lenders, who are so impressed.
Alas, it’s the most the well will ever produce in a 24-hour period. As pressure drops, gas production drops precipitously. All wells have decline rates. But instead of declining gradually over decades, shale gas wells decline sharply over days, weeks, and months. After a year, production may be down by 80%, and after a year and a half by 90%. But the outsized production early in the lifecycle allows drillers to show a big upfront profit. To conceal the decline rates, they drill another well. And another well, and so on. The more they drill, the more they have to drill to hide the drop-off in production of the prior wells—ad infinitum! Which is impossible. But drillers kept it up long enough to get prices to collapse. And then, what caught up with them was ... reality.
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/5/23/the-natural-gas-massacre-gets-bloodier.html
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by Ed (295 days ago)
Natural gas has been sold as clean energy. But when the gas comes from fracturing bedrock with about five million gallons of toxic water per well, the word “clean” takes on a disturbingly Orwellian tone.
Don’t be fooled.
Fracking for shale gas is in truth dirty energy. It inevitably leaks toxic chemicals into the air and water. Industry studies show that 5 percent of wells can leak immediately, and 60 percent over 30 years. There is no such thing as pipes and concrete that won’t eventually break down. It releases a cocktail of chemicals from a menu of more than 600 toxic substances, climate-changing methane, radium and, of course, uranium.
Few people are aware that America’s Natural Gas Alliance has spent $80 million in a publicity campaign that includes the services of Hill and Knowlton — the public relations firm that through most of the ’50s and ’60s told America that tobacco had no verifiable links to cancer.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/opinion/sean-lennon-destroying-precious-land-for-gas.html
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by Ed (170 days ago)
Geologist and official from Anglo-European Energy:
After buying production for over 20 years, hopefully I know the characteristics of great wells (flat decline curves, low operating costs, large production), and as you know, the shale plays have none of these. The herd mentality into the shale will eventually end possibly like the sub-prime mortgage did. In the meantime it is very difficult to sell any kind of prospect that is not a shale play.
Analyst from PNC Wealth Management (2011):
Money is pouring in from investors even though shale gas is inherently unprofitable. Reminds you of dot-coms.
Analyst from IHS Drilling Data (2009):
The word in the world of independents is that the shale plays are just giant Ponzi schemes and the economics just do not work.
Retired geologist for major oil and gas company (2011):
As I think you would agree, we are looking at a bubble here with caveats. The caveats are how corporate hubris and bad science have caused a lot of folks to think that gas is nearly too cheap to meter. And now these corporate giants are having an Enron moment, they want to bend light to hide the truth. The bubble will burst, folks will get run over, reason will be restored, if only temporarily.
Official from Bold Minerals LLC (2010):
The ‘bait and switch’ where one massive set of capital outlays in the ‘best’ shale uncovered was soon to be eclipsed by the recognition of even better shales which required even more outlays before a thorough technical assessment of existing shale positions had been obtained could only be classified as a type of ‘mania’. It has no precedent in financial scale to any of the previous lease plays that experienced a speculative frenzy in domestic onshore petroleum history.
Official at Phoenix Canada Oil Company (2010):
It is my strong view that we will see a near collapse of that play, probably sooner rather than later. Perhaps we will see a repeat of the coal bed methane (CBM) play 'disappearance' -- where that 'exciting' development faded into history 'without a trace'!
Official from Schlumberger (2010):
All about making money. I'm working on a shale gas well that was just drilled in Europe. Looks like crap, but the operator will flip it based on ‘potential’ and make some money on it. Always a greater sucker....
http://theautomaticearth.com/Energy/the-second-uk-dash-for-gas-a-faustian-bargain.html
(I am based in Hong Kong)
Posted by Ed (105 days ago)
First, it is important to point out that despite industry claims that hydraulic fracking for natural gas has been in practice since 1947, the type of fracking used now is a new entity altogether. Ingraffea refers to it as unconventional hydraulic fracking because it combines four types of relatively new technologies to unlock unconventional gas shale.
Traditional hydraulic fracking involved one well that was drilled straight into the ground to tap a pocket of natural gas. The gas was trapped in a relatively permeable material such as sand or limestone. The new type of hydraulic fracking is trying to extract gas located in microscopic pockets and joints within relatively impermeable shale rock. In order to do this, there are two types of drills for each well: one that goes straight down for five to ten thousand feet to reach the shale, and another that drills horizontally through the shale for another five to ten thousand feet in multiple directions.
Unlike traditional gas fracking, shale gas fracking requires many wells and much larger areas of land. Ingraffea states that traditional hydraulic fracking required clearing a small area of land and drilling one well. But shale gas fracking must drill into as much of the shale in the area being extracted as possible. This means bulldozing an area of 10 to 20 acres and drilling 8 to 20 wells on that pad of land. This is repeated at other locations throughout the shale area. The Marcellus Shale Basin alone is expected to contain 400,000 wells.
Shale gas fracking requires substantially more energy and resources than conventional gas wells, too. In addition to the drilling rigs, each well requires a large generator to run the hydraulic pump, hundreds of truckloads of water and chemicals to provide 5 to 10 million gallons of fracking fluid, and traincar loads of sand. Each well consumes ten times the amount of water and produces ten times as much waste as a conventional well. When this is multiplied by the number of wells on a pad and the number of pads required to fully extract gas in an area, it becomes clear that the use of resources is exponentially greater in shale gas drilling - and waste continues to be produced over the multiple-year active life of the well.
The waste comes in three forms: liquid, solid and gas. Water and chemicals are injected into the well and they return to the surface carrying heavy metals, organic compounds and radiation picked up from the shale. Ideally, the fracking fluid is captured and safely transported to a storage facility. Mud from the well comes to the surface carrying toxins, too, and must be contained, transported and stored. Some of this waste is placed in open pools or landfills, or is spread on the land and roadways in areas that permit this. Some is injected into storage wells. And some is dumped into waterways illegally. Gas waste in the form of leakage to the atmosphere occurs. Ongoing research suggests that 3 to 8 percent of the methane produced from each shale gas well is emitted into the atmosphere.
According to Ingraffea, it is true that natural gas produces less carbon dioxide than other fuels when burned. What is not talked about enough is how fracking unleashes methane, which has devastating effects on climate change. Natural gas is primarily methane, and when methane is leaked into the atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide by a factor of 30 to hundreds, depending on the time period over which it is emitted and other factors. Every gas well leaks to some extent, but the current industry standard is that one out of every 20 wells leaks large amounts of methane before it is discovered to be failing.
It is known that shale oil wells release over 100 million of cubic feet of gas each day as the oil is collected. This gas is burned on site rather than captured because it does not make economic sense to capture it. Only recently have studies started to ask how much methane is leaking overall from shale gas fracking, and it looks like the answer is twice as high as initially anticipated. Rather than serving as a bridge to a clean energy future, Ingraffea states, natural gas will hasten climate change, and is a climate bomb with greater potential impact than the Alberta Tar Sands.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/14958-us-climate-bomb-is-ticking-what-the-gas-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know
(I am based in Hong Kong)
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