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Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

scientificamerican.com

21–30 of 110 posts

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#21
post #15

Nothing will stop the fraking. It's simply too profitable for Congress to do something about it (one of the few bright areas in a dismal economy), and the courts have gutted the environmental laws too much for the courts to do anything about it. It's an intrinsically attractive business: the product is something (energy) that's extremely valuable and has exploding demand, and many of the inherent costs of creating th…

Great summary!

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#23
Methane is a natural contaminant of groundwater and is commonplace in water wells. A simple solution is to run the well water into a holding tank; the methane readily comes out of solution.

Venting methane from well water is less a problem than Joe Mulroy's farts at a beer-soused Friday night card game. Either will produce a flare if a match is put to them.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#24
I don't think it's cynical to suggest that groundwater contamination is a non-issue as far as the gas fracking boom is concerned. We've already seen that demonstrable contamination in the form of oil spills is legally and financially viable for energy companies, why would natural gas be any different?

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#25

For anyone interested, I'd recommend Gasland. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ This "new" evidence of contamination will not end it. People will be paid in quiet settlements, sell their houses at a fraction of what they paid for them, and move somewhere else. This will probably continue until the oil/bitumen/gas is gone.

I would not. If you're going to watch Gasland, then you also need to read the opposing side. There are some parts of it that are incredibly misleading, such as the tap water on fire. http://energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Debunkin... http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/08/01/gasla... Edit: Admittedly, these sources suck. Here's a NYTimes article that should hopefully be more palatable: http:…

Without having seen Gasland, my impression is that if it's the "opposing side" of those websites, it must be a work of genius. If JimmaDaRustia wept for humanity after seeing Gasland, well, I do the same when I see how easily people are manipulated by really dumb political lobbying materials.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#26

For anyone interested, I'd recommend Gasland. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ This "new" evidence of contamination will not end it. People will be paid in quiet settlements, sell their houses at a fraction of what they paid for them, and move somewhere else. This will probably continue until the oil/bitumen/gas is gone.

I would not. If you're going to watch Gasland, then you also need to read the opposing side. There are some parts of it that are incredibly misleading, such as the tap water on fire. http://energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Debunkin... http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/08/01/gasla... Edit: Admittedly, these sources suck. Here's a NYTimes article that should hopefully be more palatable: http:…

When the "opposing side" (the heartland institute) also deny the existence of global warming and second-hand smoke, I think your choice of references does more to harm that viewpoint than support it.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#27
post #2

Aside from money (which is pretty motivating), I don't understand why the gas companies simply continue to deny that there is contamination and that there are negative outcomes to the environment for doing this (let's put it this way, its almost certainly not a positive impact. Its unlikely to be a neutral impact.) Its like what cigarette companies used to do- just constantly deny what's completely obvious.

The other thing to consider is that simply not getting natural gas at all is also a terrible idea.

A lot of the power infrastructure that handles peaks in demand (and averts rolling blackouts) uses natural gas. The question we need to be asking ourselves is which is the least bad alternative, because they're all bad.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#28
post #15

Nothing will stop the fraking. It's simply too profitable for Congress to do something about it (one of the few bright areas in a dismal economy), and the courts have gutted the environmental laws too much for the courts to do anything about it. It's an intrinsically attractive business: the product is something (energy) that's extremely valuable and has exploding demand, and many of the inherent costs of creating th…

This is basically what happened in the rust belt with steel. Now another "boom" is happening with fracking. The people still haven't learned. You wouldn't believe how many gas workers are driving new trucks, buying toys, etc. I bet very few are putting any of this money in savings. When the fracking leaves we'll be in the same place we were when the steel mills shut down. Just waiting for the next economic boom to come.

What are left of the mills are pretty much rusty wastelands but I don't think quite as much pollution (at least in the ground) as we will see from fracking.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#30

For anyone interested, I'd recommend Gasland. http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/ This "new" evidence of contamination will not end it. People will be paid in quiet settlements, sell their houses at a fraction of what they paid for them, and move somewhere else. This will probably continue until the oil/bitumen/gas is gone.

I would not. If you're going to watch Gasland, then you also need to read the opposing side. There are some parts of it that are incredibly misleading, such as the tap water on fire. http://energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Debunkin... http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/08/01/gasla... Edit: Admittedly, these sources suck. Here's a NYTimes article that should hopefully be more palatable: http:…

The 'opposing side' is the PR shills hired by the gas industry (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/alyssa-carducci/2a/148/889) (http://heartland.org/alyssa-carducci) (http://energyindepth.org/about/).

"Government Relations" is a nice euphemism for propagandist.

In 50 years when the Midwest is a toxic wasteland, many of those responsible might be able to move to Dubai, but our children and grandchildren are going to have to somehow live in it.

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