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Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

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Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#101

Post by rayiner »

lukifer wrote: post #85
rayiner wrote: 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…

Here's a radical idea: in today's day and age, do we really need Congress to be in a centralized location at all? Yes, there are practical and security obstacles to governance via permanent telepresence, but there are many upsides as well. Aside from the enourmous cost and disruption to existing practices, is there anything that makes it completely unfeasible? I imagine many representatives would much rather live in…

I personally think we should distribute the whole federal government. A side effect of the size of the federal government is that a ton of money flows into the Washington Metro area, which I don't think is fair.

Much of the infrastructure is already in place. The federal courts and the DOJ are already distributed. The SEC, EPA, etc, already have field offices in major cities across the country. Work could be pushed down from HQ into those field offices, giving them greater autonomy and moving jobs from DC to other parts of the country.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#102

Post by matthiasl »

ars wrote: post #72
johnward wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is interesting because the gas industry defends the fluid as harmless. A quick look at the ingredients and it doesn't seem that harmless. - hydrochloric acid: Concentrated hydrochloric acid (fuming hydrochloric acid) forms acidic mists. Both the mist and the solution have a corrosive effect on human tissue, with the potential to damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines irreversibly. Upon mixing hydr…

Very cute. I am not familiar with all of those, but hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol, and isopropyl alcohol will decompose to basic elements within days if not hours. The are only dangerous if you actually ate the concentrated solution. Put them in the ground, and they'll be harmless within days - really, days - hours even for some of them. I looked up the other two. Polyacrylamide is used in water treatment. Yes,…

Hydrochloric acid is HCl. You write that it "decompose[s] to basic elements". Are you saying that HCl turns into H_2 and Cl_2, i.e. hydrogen gas and chlorine gas? Can you explain this reaction?

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#103

Post by kaonashi »

hearty778 wrote: post #92
kaonashi wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

Number of deaths caused by contaminated groundwater due to fracking: ____?

Extremely loaded question. There's a documented increase in pollution, but trying to tie specific deaths to the increase is extremely difficult. We're talking about macro effects, not micro effects; so e.g. cancer deaths might increase by 20% or so, but cancer existed before the increase and will continue exist if fracking is stopped.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#104

Post by jgalt212 »

This is very much a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.

If you don't permit fracking, then you away large sums of money to support the following regimes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_gas_fields

If you do, you may be literally sh1tting where you eat.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#105

Post by ars »

matthiasl wrote: post #102
ars wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very cute. I am not familiar with all of those, but hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol, and isopropyl alcohol will decompose to basic elements within days if not hours. The are only dangerous if you actually ate the concentrated solution. Put them in the ground, and they'll be harmless within days - really, days - hours even for some of them. I looked up the other two. Polyacrylamide is used in water treatment. Yes,…

Hydrochloric acid is HCl. You write that it "decompose[s] to basic elements". Are you saying that HCl turns into H_2 and Cl_2, i.e. hydrogen gas and chlorine gas? Can you explain this reaction?

No, I don't mean the physical elements. I mean the basic building blocks of the ground, salt, metal oxides, organics, things like that.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#106

Post by ars »

smky80 wrote: post #81
ars wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quantities we are talking about are pretty minimal though, and definitely worth the tradeoff with less coal (or oil for that matter).

I don't have a source handy, but I remember reading something to effect that when you figured in all the transportation costs for the fracking fluid and gas production, it really wasn't so clean.

Can you look? I would like to read this source please.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#107

Post by specialist »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #14
bitteralmond wrote: post #10

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:…

What level of proof do you require to believe that fracking very often contaminates ground water?

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#108

Post by specialist »

rayiner wrote: post #56
ssharp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost any faith in these companies doing any sort of sound geological work when a company disposing of fracking water placed their injection well near a fault and caused a rash of earthquakes in the area the well was built. I'm not inherently against the idea of increased natural gas production, including fracking, but the lack of effort put forth by the industry to recognize and mitigate the risks involved has comp…

It costs money to recognize and mitigate the risks. Under the current legal regime, it costs very little money to let the negative effects happen because other people will bear the costs of those effects. I.e. it's totally rational for companies under the existing regime to fail to take adequate precautions.

... because other people will bear the costs of those effects.

Yup.

Environmental protection is an accounting problem. Convert those externalities into line items on a company's profit & loss statement, voila, no more exploitation.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#109

Post by thatswrong0 »

specialist wrote: post #107
thatswrong0 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

What level of proof do you require to believe that fracking very often contaminates ground water?

Loaded question.

Re: Groundwater Contamination May End the Gas-Fracking Boom

#110

Post by e40 »

Game_Ender wrote: post #93
e40 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are over 500 chemicals used in the process, and I'm guessing many of them get into the ground water.

You would guess? You have to make decision based on more than guesses, at minimum you should analyze the physics behind the exact process going on.

First, some of them do,clearly, get into the water. See the documentary Gasland. Second, the companies that pump these chemicals into the ground have made it very difficult to do actual science on the situation. Also, see Gasland for lots of examples of that.

EDIT: also, since many of the chemicals are liquids and they are injected into an aquifer that feeds wells, the only thing we really need to know is: are any of the chemicals lighter than water. Even if they are not, once the water is pumped out, the remaining liquids will certainly be next.

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