Posted on 12/01/2011 5:20:19 PM PST by raptor22
New Energy: The latest salvo in the administration's war on energy may be new rules and permits to regulate a process to get oil and gas from porous rock, sacrificing jobs and economic growth while under review.
There are a few areas of the U.S. that are booming. Two of these are in North Dakota and Pennsylvania, states that sit atop two massive shale rock formations, the Bakken and the Marcellus.
Extraction of oil and natural gas from these formations have created jobs and economic growth in the midst of a stagnant and parched economy.
The oil and gas is extracted from this porous rock by a process called hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking."
The process involves the injection under high pressure of fluids, mainly water with a few chemical additives, to fracture the porous shale rock and allow the release and extraction of the oil and gas trapped inside the porous rock. Environmentalists contend these chemical additives contaminate groundwater supplies.
The fluid used in the process is 99.5% sand and water. There are other chemicals ranging from the citric acid found in soda to benzene, which are used to reduce friction and fight microbes.
Shale formations in which fracking is used are thousands of feet deep. Drinking water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There's solid rock between them.
Yet the Environmental Protection Agency, bowing to environmentalists' pressure and faithful to the administration mantra that fossil fuels are harmful and obsolete, is preparing to nip this economic boom in the bud by regulating it to death.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
They will try, but this will be their Donnybrook.
The EPA’s unstated mission objective is to strangle the United States of America and turn the joint into another turd world country. Unfortunately, they are the one government agency that IS doing its job.
Thanks raptor22.
Energy ping
Could you elaborate on that?
I hope you are right; but I don’t like the sound of this at all.
Anything you could offer by way of analysis would be very, very welcome.....
Try to stop it, A##hole. Public sentiment, a.k.a. Boeing in South Carolina, will prevail....and crush you in November.
So they can think they are saving us...
The EPA is in GE’s pocket, sell more of their wind generators.
Sell anybodies wind generators because GE can sell their combustion turbines to back those up.
Don’t tell anyone but those wind generators are full of copper wires.
Anyway, guess they have another court hearing next week. And so it goes...and goes.
Sounds innocent, but it is more complicated, secret formulas, contains radioactive materials and other nasty stuff. There are cases of accidental spills and contamination, people and animals getting sick.
Shale formations in which fracking is used are thousands of feet deep. Drinking water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There's solid rock between them.
Not so simple geology, guaranteed solid rock?
Cases of contaminated drinking water, some places in PA are sorry they allowed fracking. Pumping this stuff into ground under very high pressures is not so straight forward, possible disturbances in the geology causing earthquakes (LA)
Worth looking into accidents and coming up with solutions to avoid and minimize potential irreversible damage.
Sounds innocent, but it is more complicated, secret formulas, contains radioactive materials and other nasty stuff. There are cases of accidental spills and contamination, people and animals getting sick.
Shale formations in which fracking is used are thousands of feet deep. Drinking water aquifers are generally only a hundred feet deep. There's solid rock between them.
Not so simple geology, guaranteed solid rock?
Cases of contaminated drinking water, some places in PA are sorry they allowed fracking. Pumping this stuff into ground under very high pressures is not so straight forward, possible disturbances in the geology causing earthquakes (LA)
Worth looking into accidents and coming up with solutions to avoid and minimize potential irreversible damage.
Agree. There will be hard political blowback if they try and reach for it.
It's nothing do. They have been fracking vertical wells in Texas since the early fifties. We've got over sixty years experience with it.
Over that course of time there has never been one instance of groundwater contamination that traced to fracking. None.
Any problems that have occurred trace to spills and mismanagement -- which can (and do) happen in any industry. I'm not aware of any such event in the past sixty years that might be considered "a danger to the community", however.
Earthquakes happen. Even when there is no fracking. They're not commonplace in this part of the country...but they've been known to rattle our cage from time-to-time. There is no apparent connection to fracking -- though a lot of people (and the media) would like to find one.
Objecting to the process -- when the facts counter every single enviro argument -- only gets in the way of exploiting a valuable natural resource that will make money for the American economy, American industry and American labor -- while saving energy-consuming Americans big money.
The enviros and the media are feeding you a line of shit.
Sorry, can't think of any plainer way to say it.
Most of the fracking is being done miles down below any water table used for humans. When they actually investigate, rather than speculate - EPA science, all cases have shown that fracking didn’t contaminate anything. Ecco-freaks start the rumors and then the EPA freezes everything while they plod through speculation that they label investigation.
Haven’t read the article, but anything the epa sitters do is not conducive to any help to the American worker or industry. They use fake science to force businesses out of business and the employees out of work.
The epa is a group of non elected individuals making laws that are not constitutional. They have buffolowed our elected royals with one thing or another to curry their acceptance of anything the epa deems not to their liking. They are the forefront and nowfront of the nobama, soros destroying of the American idea.
We need to rid this country of the epa and nobama as soon as possible, or we’re burned toast.
If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!
I would still feel a hell of a lot better if there were full disclosure of exactly what these substances actually are that they are pumping at high pressure through these well pipes.
Leo, your claims are unsubstantiated assertions being made by the fools trying to make money on and who want we peasants to live like it’s 1825 with warnings on global warming, energy and mineral extraction, coatings inside food cans, child vaccines, gene modified seeds and animals, curing Michael Fox with fetal stem cells and other bad science claims. Hard data and good research is lacking or fudged due to an agenda.
The free bottled water was stopped as the gas was from a surface layer and not the fracked layer 1000s of feet below. Most companies are disclosing the frack formulas publicly or if proprietary, to regulators. Some frack spillage came from drilling blow back, but this is being addressed by drillers with holding ponds. The holding ponds are drained into tank later for safe water treatment. Fracking has created thousands of good paying jobs and will make us energy independent, without government subsidized projects like Solyndra scandal.
Including dish washing soap!
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