Fracking your water supply - Gasland

[Brian4Liberty]

Anyone see the documentary "Gasland"? Interesting stuff. Goes really well with the oil spill in the Gulf. Will add to environmental panic.

Basic story: Natural gas drilling techniques are polluting water supplies, especially a technique called "fracking". People have water that catches fire and is full of unusual chemicals (a lot from drilling "mud" injected into the water supply). Wonder what T. Boone Pickens has to say about this?

There's a 23 minute summary at this link:

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/613/index.html

 

[Brian4Liberty]

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

Hydraulic fracturing is a process that results in the creation of fractures in rocks. This petroleum engineering method has been used over the past 60 years (though high-volume horizontal processes are much more recent) in more than one million wells by the worldwide natural gas and oil exploration and production industry to create fractures that extend from a wellbore drilled into targeted rock formations to enhance oil and natural gas recovery.

Hydraulic fractures may be natural or man-made and are extended by internal fluid pressure which opens the fracture and causes it to grow into the rock. Man-made fluid-driven fractures are formed at depth in a borehole and extend into targeted rock formations. The fracture width is typically maintained after the injection by introducing a proppant into the injected fluid. Proppant is a material, such as grains of sand, ceramic, or other particulates, that prevent the fractures from closing when the injection is stopped. The method is informally called fracing or hydrofracing. Natural hydraulic fractures include volcanic dikes, sills and fracturing by ice as in frost weathering.

Considerable controversy surrounds the current implementation of hydraulic fracturing technology in the United States. Significant environmental safety and health concerns have emerged and are being debated at the state and national levels

 

[Brian4Liberty]

FYI, this documentary is currently on HBO...

 

[dannno]

All the while they burn the natural gas coming out of smaller oil wells because it is too expensive to capture.. you'll see a flame on a rig out in the ocean, or on land, they are literally just burning the natural gas coming out. Maybe if they weren't polluting the water with these methods, natural gas would cost a little more and it would be worth capturing it out of more of the oil wells.

 

[buck000]

Jon Stewart had the GasLand guy on his show this week, interesting stuff.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-june-21-2010/josh-fox

It's too bad more citizens didn't do what Fox did, and question the lease that was being offered to them (IIRC, Josh Fox's dad got an offer for a gas company to lease his land, and wondered what it was all about).

 

[pmbug]

Is GasLand just Michael Moore style sensationalism?

http://www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/debunking-gasland/

http://www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/no-second-acts-for-gasland/

 

[Brian4Liberty]

It's too bad more citizens didn't do what Fox did, and question the lease that was being offered to them (IIRC, Josh Fox's dad got an offer for a gas company to lease his land, and wondered what it was all about).

Yeah, many people don't read the fine print. Although I believe that there were some people who knew that the ground water would be ruined. They didn't care, because they planned on moving after getting enough money from the gas companies. With a polluted water table, that land will permanently lose a lot of it's value.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Is GasLand just Michael Moore style sensationalism?

That's a distinct possibility.

What is absolutely certain is that the Gas interests will counter this with their own propaganda, no matter if they are 100% right, 100% wrong or anywhere in between.

 

[dannno]

Is GasLand just Michael Moore style sensationalism?

http://www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/debunking-gasland/

http://www.energyindepth.org/2010/06/no-second-acts-for-gasland/

Hmm... these kind of sites tend to be complete bs...