In northern Europe a lot of cars are propelled through natural gas rather than oil. We should start adopt the same methods the gas rich northern European countries use. Instead of a gasoline tank they have a propane tank in the back and it burns much more efficiently. Edan Aharony
I was unsure of whether to be amused or dismayed to hear Aubrey McClendon speaking as if his ambitions carry any degree of altruism in helping with our energy future. The credibility of the man is questionable with even a cursory examination of his track record.
Mr. McClendon cares little for the environment or for any localities that get in his way. In the little community of Saugatuck, Michigan he's ambitious to develop a huge natural tract of land on the shores of Lake Michigan. Rather than adhere to the same rules as the rest of us, he's bypassing the normal processes and suing our township into bankruptcy to get our zoning laws changed to permit what he wants to do. The community's desires be damned if they're in the way of his plans. He cares little about what happens to our schools or infrastructure. With an annual income 160 times that of our township, he will sue us into submission.
We're far from the first community to be victimized by Mr. McClendon. There are small towns, and even Seattle, in the wake of his promises, threats and actions that are nothing but self serving.
Any community that sees Mr. McClendon coming with promises of a clean and conscientious pursuit of shale had best be very, very wary.
Unlike Louisiana, New York State has large areas of surface water, and near-surface groundwater, that are not yet compromised by gas drilling. Much of that resource lies over the Marcellus and other shale strata that are targets for gas drillers using hydrofracturing.
Please, CBS, ask for comment from
1. The City of New York, whose clean water supply would be threatened by gas drilling, and
2. the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, representing the Six Nations, Native American communities with territories lying within New York State.
A discussion must also be had about the pernicious pay-to-play system that defines the decision making process of the Federal and local level. Common Cause/NY has been tracking the amount of money natural gas companies have been pouring into both lobbying activities and through campaign contributions to legislators in New York in order to try and buy influence over the legislative process. From 2006 to 2009, natural gas industry lobbying expenditures jumped from $109,747 to $668,984, a more than 6-fold increase. Our research revealed three natural gas entities with lobbying expenditures: IOGA of NY, Fortuna Energy (now Talisman) and Chesapeake. While lobbying expenditures by the trade association, IOGA of NY, jumped from $30,000 in 2007 to $196,565 in 2009, the increase in spending by Chesapeake Energy was even more dramatic, increasing from $7,962 in 2007 to $383,708 in 2009, and totalling $658,273 in the first 4 months of 2010 alone. On the Federal level Karl Rove's American Crossroads contributed almost a half a million dollars in the 2nd half of October to try (unsuccessfully) to defeat Congressman Hinchey, who is the sponsor of the FRAC Act in Congress.
We need to be asking not only is fracking safe but how the decisions about fracking are being made. In the process of determining our state?s policies towards the use of hydro-fracking to extract natural gas from shale formations, elected representatives and appointed officials must weigh potential economic benefits against potential environmental catastrophe.If large lobbying expenditures by the natural gas industry and contributions from industry PACs and gas company executives to state legislatures? campaigns become a deciding factor in legislative action on shale drilling, it poses a serious problem for the state?s ability to impartially determine the best interests of the people.
To read more please see http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/DEEP%20DRILLING.PDF
Wake up America! There has been no such thing as real ?news? since the days of Walter Cronkite! If a ?story? does not make money for the network, it is ?tweaked? until it does. A ?story? is all it is; paid for by those who generate the most revenue to the organization that ?runs? it! Like ?Showbiz Tonight?, ?60 minutes? is merely entertainment!! CBS is a money making business and if a story does not make them money, they twist it until it does or they don?t run it! That is their job and mission! The purported documentary ?Gasland? falls into the same category!
As a 35+ year industry veteran, I can tell you there have been over 1 million frac jobs in Oklahoma alone in the last 75 years. If you count Texas and Louisiana, I suspect that number would more than quadruple. There have been instances of pollution from fraccing, but nothing widespread or disastrous. An old practice common in the teens up until WWII of not casing wells or not cementing them has caused far more damage to water tables than fraccing ever will. Deeper salt water and oil that has migrated up the wellbore to the water table has caused extensive damages in many areas of the country.
I can tell you that it is possible for frac fluid to invade water tables in three ways. Either runoff from flowback of frac fluid to tanks or pits to the surface (in most places the vast majority of it comes back that is injected with the gas), geologically up through faults (highly unlikely but I won?t get into rock sediment faulting and morphology and overburden pressure, etc., here) or up the ?back side? which is the annulus; being the space between the casing and drilled wellbore. The latter is the most unlikely in this era as it would take poor cement jobs of two strings of pipe, the surface casing which is cemented below the deepest fresh water, and the production casing with is cemented most of the way above the fracced zone.
Unless you live in an area of geologic sinkholes, the runoff of frac fluids on the surface can usually can only pollute surface water. Frac chemicals, like septic fluids and waste, get ?halted? after a few feet into the soil and underlying sediments. Unlike septic wastes, the chemicals may be around forever, but unless you go out and dig up soil and eat it, it should not be a problem for anyone.
Fraccing does use tremendous volumes of water these days but it is predominately now being recycled (used again). While some of the chemicals may get locked up in situ in the formation, the vast majority of the chemicals flow back with the frac fluid recovery during the initial production period of the well.
Like any human endeavour, there is the risk of accident, and they have happened before and will happen again. However, unless people want to live life as a caveman or Indian and burn wood and hunt and fish for subsistence, (which also makes one prone to accidents) life without serious BTU?s (energy) cannot continue in its modern form. If you like and use plastic, cars, metals, etc., we currently need and use and are a hydrocarbon based world and short of nuclear energy becoming common place, we need to live with the "inconveniences" of trucks and road damage.
Wow where to begin?
First off I live in a poor area of Johnson County Texas where the Barnett shale is thick. They drill 5 wells at each well site in My neighborhood.They have been drilling and destroying our way of life for 4 years now. They have destroyed all of our rural roads with the constant truck traffic. They have destroyed the peace and quiet of a rural life. There is so much noise it feels like we live inside a industrial factory not in a rural area outside of a city. We got ripped off on the signing bonus, getting ripped of on the royalty checks. And we have to pay the taxes to build and maintain the roads they are using to get the gas from under our houses. We are having earthquakes now. I think just the damage to my car from the destroyed roads consumes the bonus check and the royalties. Now what do I have? Noise poor air quality and constant flow of 18 wheel diesel trucks in our rural neighborhood. I call that a RIPOFF not a blessing from God! The only ones getting rich off this are the big land owners that were rich before! Shame on you CBS I will never watch 60 Minutes of lies and manipulations again!(I was a faithful watcher for 20 years)
I?m very disappointed with 60 Minutes? segment on Natural Gas Shale Drilling and Fracking. You have the responsibility for editing a balanced show and instead we were treated to an infomercial with a fracking great performance by Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon. The issue is water, plain and simple. As you can see from your own map, natural gas drilling will affect a significant portion of the United States. The horde of gas wells soon to cover our landscape will require trillions of gallons of water. In a nation with chronic water deficits, where is the water coming from? And why no mention of the herculean task of cleaning up this ocean of toxic water ? removing toxic chemicals, brine salts, and dealing with the naturally occurring, but no less harmfully radioactivity? No mention of Pittsburgh?s Monongahela water supply being shut down due to being overwhelmed by the brine in fracking water waste. Not a word about taxpayers footing the $12 million bill for a pipeline to supply clean water to Dimock, PA, after the drillers moved in and denied any responsibility. No talk of what happens after the boom is over. In NY State, older forms of oil & gas drilling have left thousands of orphan wells and contaminated sites that must be cleaned up at taxpayer expense. And as far as gas being better for Climate Change, I quote the following from a recent Cornell University study, ?Using the best available science, we conclude that natural gas is no better than coal and may in fact be worse than coal in terms of its greenhouse gas footprint when evaluated over the time course of the next several decades.? Finally, it may be poetic justice that after despoiling the environments of foreign nations for our energy, greedy Americans will make a quick buck and convert a good portion of our nation to an industrial, ruined landscape. And we worry about terrorists?
There is an environmentally friendly solution. This company uses NO WATER so you have no pollution. Sales will be 300% higher in 2011 & big nat gas companies are interested in the patented technology. Here is their website: Website: http://www.gasfrac.com
Quele surprise? Halliburton and the evil Dick Cheney have struck again. After what they did for us in Iraq? And surprise, surprise, they were in the middle of the Gulf Oil spill. Now they've brought flammible water to rural America? What could go wrong? With Dick's help, the NG industry isn't subject to the same regulations as other polluters?
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Mr. McClendon cares little for the environment or for any localities that get in his way. In the little community of Saugatuck, Michigan he's ambitious to develop a huge natural tract of land on the shores of Lake Michigan. Rather than adhere to the same rules as the rest of us, he's bypassing the normal processes and suing our township into bankruptcy to get our zoning laws changed to permit what he wants to do. The community's desires be damned if they're in the way of his plans. He cares little about what happens to our schools or infrastructure. With an annual income 160 times that of our township, he will sue us into submission.
We're far from the first community to be victimized by Mr. McClendon. There are small towns, and even Seattle, in the wake of his promises, threats and actions that are nothing but self serving.
Any community that sees Mr. McClendon coming with promises of a clean and conscientious pursuit of shale had best be very, very wary.
Please, CBS, ask for comment from
1. The City of New York, whose clean water supply would be threatened by gas drilling, and
2. the Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force, representing the Six Nations, Native American communities with territories lying within New York State.
$668,984, a more than 6-fold increase. Our research revealed three natural gas entities with lobbying expenditures: IOGA of NY, Fortuna Energy (now Talisman) and Chesapeake.
While lobbying expenditures by the trade association, IOGA of NY, jumped from $30,000 in 2007 to $196,565 in 2009, the increase in spending by Chesapeake Energy was even more dramatic, increasing from $7,962 in 2007 to $383,708 in 2009, and totalling $658,273 in the first
4 months of 2010 alone. On the Federal level Karl Rove's American Crossroads contributed almost a half a million dollars in the 2nd half of October to try (unsuccessfully) to defeat Congressman Hinchey, who is the sponsor of the FRAC Act in Congress.
We need to be asking not only is fracking safe but how the decisions about fracking are being made. In the process of determining our state?s policies towards the use of hydro-fracking to extract
natural gas from shale formations, elected representatives and appointed officials must weigh potential economic benefits against potential environmental catastrophe.If large lobbying expenditures by the natural gas industry and contributions from industry PACs and gas company executives to state legislatures? campaigns become a deciding
factor in legislative action on shale drilling, it poses a serious problem for the state?s ability to impartially determine the best interests of the people.
To read more please see http://www.commoncause.org/atf/cf/%7Bfb3c17e2-cdd1-4df6-92be-bd4429893665%7D/DEEP%20DRILLING.PDF
As a 35+ year industry veteran, I can tell you there have been over 1 million frac jobs in Oklahoma alone in the last 75 years. If you count Texas and Louisiana, I suspect that number would more than quadruple. There have been instances of pollution from fraccing, but nothing widespread or disastrous. An old practice common in the teens up until WWII of not casing wells or not cementing them has caused far more damage to water tables than fraccing ever will. Deeper salt water and oil that has migrated up the wellbore to the water table has caused extensive damages in many areas of the country.
I can tell you that it is possible for frac fluid to invade water tables in three ways. Either runoff from flowback of frac fluid to tanks or pits to the surface (in most places the vast majority of it comes back that is injected with the gas), geologically up through faults (highly unlikely but I won?t get into rock sediment faulting and morphology and overburden pressure, etc., here) or up the ?back side? which is the annulus; being the space between the casing and drilled wellbore. The latter is the most unlikely in this era as it would take poor cement jobs of two strings of pipe, the surface casing which is cemented below the deepest fresh water, and the production casing with is cemented most of the way above the fracced zone.
Unless you live in an area of geologic sinkholes, the runoff of frac fluids on the surface can usually can only pollute surface water. Frac chemicals, like septic fluids and waste, get ?halted? after a few feet into the soil and underlying sediments. Unlike septic wastes, the chemicals may be around forever, but unless you go out and dig up soil and eat it, it should not be a problem for anyone.
Fraccing does use tremendous volumes of water these days but it is predominately now being recycled (used again). While some of the chemicals may get locked up in situ in the formation, the vast majority of the chemicals flow back with the frac fluid recovery during the initial production period of the well.
Like any human endeavour, there is the risk of accident, and they have happened before and will happen again. However, unless people want to live life as a caveman or Indian and burn wood and hunt and fish for subsistence, (which also makes one prone to accidents) life without serious BTU?s (energy) cannot continue in its modern form. If you like and use plastic, cars, metals, etc., we currently need and use and are a hydrocarbon based world and short of nuclear energy becoming common place, we need to live with the "inconveniences" of trucks and road damage.
First off I live in a poor area of Johnson County Texas where the Barnett shale is thick. They drill 5 wells at each well site in My neighborhood.They have been drilling and destroying our way of life for 4 years now. They have destroyed all of our rural roads with the constant truck traffic. They have destroyed the peace and quiet of a rural life. There is so much noise it feels like we live inside a industrial factory not in a rural area outside of a city. We got ripped off on the signing bonus, getting ripped of on the royalty checks. And we have to pay the taxes to build and maintain the roads they are using to get the gas from under our houses. We are having earthquakes now. I think just the damage to my car from the destroyed roads consumes the bonus check and the royalties. Now what do I have? Noise poor air quality and constant flow of 18 wheel diesel trucks in our rural neighborhood. I call that a RIPOFF not a blessing from God! The only ones getting rich off this are the big land owners that were rich before! Shame on you CBS I will never watch 60 Minutes of lies and manipulations again!(I was a faithful watcher for 20 years)
What could go wrong!!