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Fracking Perils: A Dangerous Misstep on the Road to U.S. Energy Independence
The ongoing bonanza in the U.S. hydraulic fracturing industry marks a dangerous misstep on the road to U.S. energy independence.
Folks, I've got some good news and some bad news about the nation's ever-elusive quest for a sound energy policy. The good news: Finally there's some under-the-radar bipartisan consensus in Washington. The bad news: Both parties are dead wrong.
This consensus is so strong that it's chipping away at our freedom of speech. Consider this: Capitol Hill police officers dragged Josh Fox out of a House Energy and Environment subcommittee hearing on Feb. 1. They arrested Fox, the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary "Gasland," who by all accounts was simply trying to commit journalism. His charge? Unlawful entry to a public hearing on the environmental consequences of natural gas exploration. It turns out he wasn't alone. An ABC News team was also barred.
What's up? An ardent (and well-financed) belief on both sides of the aisle that hydraulic fracturing for natural gas — a process better known as "fracking" — is "cleaner" than coal and will result in greater U.S. energy independence. When President Barack Obama delivered his annual State of the Union address, he pledged his allegiance to continued exploration for natural "shale gas."
Fracking uses pressurized liquids to create cracks in shale deposits located deep underground to force pockets of natural gas to the surface. Recent discoveries in the Marcellus shale, a natural gas deposit that stretches from New York to West Virginia, suggest the U.S. could exploit this energy resource for what seems like an eternity by Washington standards: a century or more, if estimates prove accurate. But this seemingly endless form of energy will only be exploited rapidly and cheaply if critics and expensive regulations are kept at bay.
With mountaintop removal losing favor with the public, coal-fired power plants implicated in a host of health problems, and coal waste a burden no state wants to deal with, this "cleaner" form of energy — natural gas — has gotten a boost in the marketplace at a particularly auspicious time.
But it turns out gas has a host of environmental problems unique to fracking. Recent studies emerging from Cornell University suggest that gas could be far more heat-trapping than previously thought, and gas extracted by fracking could be twice as bad as coal from a climate perspective. This is because about 8 percent of the gas escapes into the atmosphere, where it is 105 times more potent than CO2 over its 20-year lifespan.
Then there's the groundwater contamination. Chemicals considered "trade secrets" for the gas industry (thanks to an energy policy developed in secret meetings by former Vice President Dick Cheney) are killing cattle and deer. Residents living near fracking wells complain of health problems. In some cases, they can literally light the water coming out of their taps on fire.
In addition, scientists have started to link earthquakes — such as the rare ones that have been shaking Ohio, New York, and Arkansas — with fracking.
It's frightening that only a handful of politicians are voicing strong concerns about this increasingly common gas extraction method, including Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Greg Ball, a Republican member of New York's state senate.
Why is this kind of courage so rare? In a word, money. The natural gas industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign contributions over the last decade to smother efforts to regulate fracking, as Common Cause has documented.
We need to stop relying on fossil fuels and instead embrace a bold "Green New Deal" that generates significant jobs for unemployed workers around the country while ramping up already booming investments in wind, solar, and geothermal electricity.
Let's invest in a grid that would allow us to drive electric cars and buses powered by the wind, to heat our homes with the sun, and to totally break our dependence on oil. Imagine full employment, with millions of public- and private-sector jobs developing this clean-energy infrastructure.
This kind of jobs program would both benefit our workers and our local economy — and cut the umbilical cord, finally and completely, from foreign oil. And, unlike fracked gas, these resources would be truly limitless, benefiting us and future generations.
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Show AllSOLAR POWER TO THE PEOPLE (TAKE STRESS OFF THE GRID AND ME) A TWO YEAR SUCCESS PLAN.
RENEWABLE ENERGY ECONOMY
transition to a low-carbon economy
Domestic Sustainability
Climate Emergency!
Check it out!
What's the alternative to Fracking? Dr. Gay Canough, ETM Solar Works explains...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSuRoa9Duco
Jeremy Rifkin - The Empathic Civilisation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-7BjeHepbA
Terry Gross Juliet Eilerpin Thursday, February 02, 2012
Clean-Tech Industry Facing Lean Times After Solyndra
http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146280685/clean-tech-industry-facing-lean-times-after-solyndra
http://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/
Solar Renewable Credit Program
http://open.nysenate.gov/legislation/bill/A5713-2011
Put our veterans to work in the renewable energy economy.
Why is Senator John DeFrancisco Voting Against this bill???????????
New York Solar Industry Development & Jobs Act of 2011 S.5713/S.4178
http://votesolar.org/new-york-solar-jobs-act-of-2011/
Put our veterans to work in the renewable energy economy.
Military going green to save lives, money
By Phyllis Cuttino, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Phyllis Cuttino directs clean energy and national security programs for the Pew Environment Group and led development of the recently released Pew report "From Barracks to Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces."
(CNN) -- In 2010 alone, there were roughly 1,100 attacks on U.S. fuel convoys. This has cost the men and women of our armed forces dearly.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/22/opinion/cuttino-military-green/index.html
Put our veterans to work in the renewable energy economy.
Navy Solar Farm Construction Underway
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=64845
Fracking is undoubtedly contaminating communities all over the Unied States but it is making enormous profits for an industry that has purchased its part of congress and thus will not be stopped. The corporations and the politicians that work for them do not care one iota about the environment. This is typical American extremism in favor of a greedy elite.
I am currently reading Greg Palast's Vulture's Picnic, which details ways that leaders of smaller countries were bribed to sell out their oil on the cheap. These countries then become "US allies." In the US, too many in both political parties have embraced fracking because they have been bribed to do so. Their attitude seems to be, "please don't confuse me with facts."
Fracking is indeed a Vulture's Picnic, and the really bitter irony may be that very little natural gas will actually be produced -- even tho' we've poisoned our water to get at it. Even the NY Times last year reported gov't officials talking about a fracking Ponzi scheme; fact is that the wells stop producing very quickly. At any rate, the 100 year supply that Obama touted in his SOTU address is pure magical thinking -- many geologists now think it's more like 20 years... So we poison all our drinking water for 20 years of gas... Check out the interview linked below, for example:
http://www.energybulletin.net/media/2012-02-06/arthur-e-berman-petroleum-geologist
The only- ONLY- way to stop this kind of resource exploitation is for most of us to USE MUCH LESS ENERGY. It is a falsehood and a danger to fantasize that we can find some other source of energy that will replace oil and keep us living our accustumed lifestyle. We are like the worst kind of heroin addicts, only addicted to energy- and we are willing to sacrifice our children's and grandchildren's futures, in an insane, frantic scrabbling for any kind of energy, just to keep us living like kings for a few more years.
Solar, wind, algae, and any other kind of non-fossil energy will not- WILL NOT PEOPLE- ever replace the amount of energy we now enjoy through oil! The days of cheap energy are OVER! Why do you think the global economies and the US economy are slowly toppling? They have to grow to exist and they can't grow without cheap energy and THERE IS NO MORE CHEAP ENERGY.
Please- I don't know how many ways it can be said- we must, individually and collectively, restructure our lives and communities to meet our basic needs with much less energy. Its so simple.
Thank you, blueskykate1, for saying what needs to be said!
Yep, we need to retool most everything, which ain't easy. For too many people, comfort and ease is an addiction. That many will acquiesce and thus change their ways is delusional. Thus the deliberateness of Transition Towns and efforts taken by Community Solutions and Post Carbon. I've Powerdowned, but no other family members have. Almost all of the decline in US enegy use has come from demand destruction, meaning unwillingly. Imagine what needs to be done to halve US enegy use, and then to halve that again, which gets close to where we must go.
Speaking of "comfort and ease" as an addiction:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UE6OFx9Prsk/TOzVCS7bkmI/AAAAAAAAATI/g50YXnHqm1g/s1600/take-the-stairs.jpg
(or) http://tinyurl.com/gym-escalator-jpg
I have a long list of other "marvels" of the modern world, such as patio heaters, which were sought to be banned in the EU countries, upsetting some people:
"EU bid to freeze out patio heaters"
www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jan/30/eu.greenpolitics
It does not have to be that hard if we ACTUALLY TRY, something we have not done to date. Not with car emissions. Not with coal emissions. Not with home heating efficiencies. We have yet to actually try. Our governments are in the pockets of those selling the bad stuff, and that is what is wrong.
I have seen an analysis on what we would have to do to meet emission targets. Once you appreciate that the majority of emissions are actually created by the few, everything becomes doable without that much pain.
Fracking is protected pollution.
Why else did BIG OIL write and pay for laws protecting this process from any analysis, control, restriction 20-30 years ago?
One can never become energy independent, except upon death, as one is always dependent upon enegy, particularly when it comes to food energy. I highly suggest folks read this item about fracking, and gas/oil drilling in general, especially the discussion in the comments section, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8859
Also from today's oildrum we have an updated item that does further examination of the fracking/natgas issue and the bust that will follow the current boom, which is probably an easier to understand item than the one I linked to above, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8900
"This is because about 8 percent of the gas escapes into the atmosphere, where it is 105 times more potent than CO2 over its 20-year lifespan." That's a lot of gas..It would be interesting to know how this stacks up against Arctic Methane releases.
Recent studies nascent from Cornell Lincoln inform that gas could be far much heat-trapping than previously content