[ExI] Hydraulic Fracturing [WAS Re: Cephalization, proles...]

[Damien Sullivan]

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 08:58:14PM +0200, Tomaz Kristan wrote:
>    Not everybody is crazy, fortunately.
> 
>    [1]http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/us-britain-shale-gas-repor
>    t-idUSTRE74N3CR20110524
> 
>    There is no evidence that fracking, a process that involves injecting
>    water, sand and chemicals into shale rock formations to extract trapped
>    gas, is directly harmful to the environment, the Energy and Climate
>    Change Committee said in a report published late on Monday. [UK]
>    1. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/24/us-britain-shale-gas-report-idUSTRE74N3CR20110524

Fracking isn't the problem, drilling is:

http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/05/13/13greenwire-baffled-about-fracking-youre-not-alone-44383.html

But by the definition of industry, along with most everyone who followed
oil and gas issues before the current shale drilling boom, fracturing
didn't cause those problems.

That is because the companies are saying, specifically, that no one has
ever proven that hydraulic fracturing fluid rises up a mile or so from
the production zone, through layers of rock, to pollute drinking water
aquifers.

They rarely, if ever, clarify that regulators have repeatedly linked
water contamination and other environmental problems to other aspects of
drilling. 

For example, a well blowout during fracturing last month in
Pennsylvania, sent fluid to a nearby stream, threatening surface water,
not groundwater (Greenwire, May 4). And a well-known contamination case
in Dimock, Pa., involved methane -- not fracturing fluid -- in local
water wells (Greenwire, Dec. 16, 2010). 

Environmentalists and other industry critics consider this distinction
to be nothing more than word games concocted by oil and gas lobbyists.
Whatever you call it, they say, gas production is fouling air and water. 

...
But state regulators concluded that hydraulic fracturing was not to
blame for the problems with Amos' water well. They suggested that if
Amos had been exposed to 2-BE it may have come from household cleaning
fluids, such as Windex, rather than her groundwater. 
...
A 2004 EPA study found that fracturing posed "little or no threat" of
groundwater contamination, except perhaps when diesel is used. But the
agency never tested the water itself. Instead it relied on a survey of
state regulators. Critics like Fox rejoin that it is hard to prove the
absence of something without looking for it. 

Jackson and his fellow researchers at Duke do not completely exonerate
fracturing from problems, either. He said more research is needed into
whether the intense pressure used to crack open shales, much higher than
in conventional drilling, might be the cause of those leaky pipes
allowing methane into well water. 

...
"It surprised me that there was so little systemic work on this,"
Jackson said. "We don't know much about the fracking."