Fracking and natural gas

[Ryuushin]

I learned about this not too long ago and I'm pretty sure a lot of people are clueless about this.

Fracking, hydraulic fracturing, is a method using many chemicals, water and sand to break apart deep buried rocks to release natural gas trapped in it.

This topic seems to be getting a little more attention because some politicians/companies are wanting or starting to do this.

News topic: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40135664...s-environment/

Here's a video of water lighting on fire due to the chemicals seeping into the water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRZ4LQSonXA

A documentary named GASLAND, 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZe1AeH0Qz8

[Atreides]

the real reason Fracking is so dangerous is that it's almost completely unregulated and not subject to most of the environmental protections put in place to limit other forms of energy extraction. Right now it's decently widespread but the fracking companies are poised to start doing it in even more areas, including parts of the water system that supplies the New York/Philadelphia area with most of its water (and is currently unfiltered).

Basically, if you're not afraid of fracking you're not paying attention. It's pretty safe to say that fracking has a strong possibility of becoming the worst environmental catastrophe in american history, since people didn't have to drink the water around deepwater horizon.

You can watch the full verison of Gasland for free online btw, I highly recommend it:
http://www.letmewatchthis.com/watch-351709-GasLand

[Kerberoz]

Fraking?

Spoiler: show

[Callisto]

lol @ the article, I don't care much about politics either way but that's some pretty laughable shit the new Republican congressman has going on there.

[Cephius]

http://www.financialaxis.com/wp-cont...0/03/frack.jpg

[Atreides]

lol @ the article, I don't care much about politics either way but that's some pretty laughable shit the new Republican congressman has going on there.

yeah it's pretty depressing, I mean the guy trying to circumvent term limits and be in charge of energy policy in the house is actually a former oil company executive who gets lots of money from the energy lobby. The new incoming republican class in the house is so virulently anti-environment it's sickening. In fact, the DAY after the election Karl Rove was at a dinner with PA (site of most of the fracking on the east coast, and most of the controversy over its environmental effects) gas drilling/fracking bigwigs and said this:

Rove said a new Republican House of Representatives supportive of the energy industry "sure as heck" would not pass climate-change legislation that the outgoing Democratic Congress had been unable to pass.

"Climate is gone," said Rove, the keynote speaker on the opening day of a two-day shale-gas conference sponsored by Hart Energy Publishing L.L.P. And Rove told the trade show, "I don't think you need to worry" the new Congress will consider proposed legislation to put the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing under federal rather than state regulation. The procedure, known as "fracking," is responsible for the dramatic growth of shale-gas drilling in formations such as Pennsylvania's vast Marcellus Shale.

That's really where the scary part of fracking lies, not that it's dangerous but that Republicans have been paid enough to ignore the dangers and are pretty obviously letting an environmental catastrophe unfold in exchange for lots of money

[Atreides]

to clarify, the guy trying to become the head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is Joe Barton from texas, who you may remember as famously apologizing to BP after the deepwater oil rig disaster, wants to get his term limit waived so he can head up the committee again.

There's even a republican congressman who thinks that global warming/environmental protection is something we can ignore because God will save us from it

'The Earth will end only when God declares it's time to be over. Man will not destroy this Earth'

edit: oh actually the guy who said that (Joe Shikmus, Illinois) is running to be chair of the committee too >_>
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11...ergy-committee

[Callisto]

I'm assuming he's from downstate, once you get to the politicians who come from south of Joliet they get a little iffy

edit: Ugh, yeah, he is. Central/Southern IL is basically the same as Kentucky, it's embarrassing to us northern residents.

[Atreides]

Illinois is also home to the 2 hottest congressmen, Aaron Schock and Adam Kinzinger. It's a pity both of them are republicans

[Cyn]

Illinois is also home to the 2 hottest congressmen, Aaron Schock and Adam Kinzinger. It's a pity both of them are republicans

Why? There's a better chance of them being closet gay that way.

[Atreides]

C'mon man, what's gay about this?:
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets..._schocking.jpg

I guess if you're going to be a republican and take hardline stances against gay marriage you shouldn't get blowjobs in the bathroom of a Boystown gay bar every time you go back to Chicago but hey, nobody's perfect

[Rocl]

is that Detective Bones?

[Cyn]

I guess if you're going to be a republican and take hardline stances against gay marriage you shouldn't get blowjobs in the bathroom of a Boystown gay bar every time you go back to Chicago but hey, nobody's perfect

Yes but republicans are officially allowed to stick their fingers in their ears and yell "LALALALALALALALALA I CAN'T HEEEAAAAR YOU" until you get bored and go away. Party policy and all.

[Priran]

is that Detective Bones?

what am I reading

[Callisto]

I guess if you're going to be a republican and take hardline stances against gay marriage you shouldn't get blowjobs in the bathroom of a Boystown gay bar every time you go back to Chicago but hey, nobody's perfect

Well then, there goes the idea of me going into politics.

[Atreides]

also in recent fracking news, Haliburton got subpoena'd by the EPA because they refused to disclose what chemicals were in the fracking fluid, which the EPA needs to study the effects of the process. Haliburton claims that fracking fluid is a "proprietary formula", which I suspect is just fancy talk for "this shit gives you cancer and we don't want to let the government know". Keep in mind the EPA study won't even be completed until 2012, by which point fracking will probably be a lot more commonplace (considering local governments have little power to control fracking and even if they did, republican governorship pickups will make that increasingly unlikely).

Of course that study probably hinges on the EPA being around in 2012, and considering a number of incoming republican house/senate members want to de-fund the EPA (and the Dept. of Energy) completely I'm guessing there's chance we might never find out about how bad fracking is until it's too late.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101109/...urton_subpoena

[Shibo]

This is going on all over the place here. The article picture is from Burlington on Route 6, which isn't far from where I go to college. It is happening in many location along Route 6 in PA, and they are trying to start in NY near the PA border apparently.

It's basically destroying the environment around here, and I am not attempting to sound like a hippie-liberal douche. The water in some rural areas around here is flammable, and it is starting to get into their drinking water as well. The brilliant people that run shit around here started allowing them to dump the chemicals on icy and dirt roads in order to help with the road condition, especially during the winter, but what I guess they were to retarded to realize is that the chemicals are getting thrown into the air for people to breathe in.

Yea some people are making some money by leasing the land for them to drill, but they have hardly been here a year and done some significant damage, with an estimated 49 years left to go.

[ZarakiKujata]

Michael Moore needs to get on this shit and start going to T.Boone Pickens and others and offering them glasses of this water to drink.

[Priran]

Michael Moore needs to get on this shit and start going to T.Boone Pickens and others and offering them glasses of this water to drink.

I believe Gasland covered that.

[Obev]

Something something CSI.