pickens plan 3yrs later

[SwampDonkey]

China has been going gang busters building nuke plants.

[Al_Smith]

Well that seems odd .Two things they got ,people and coal .

[Ianab]

Well that seems odd .Two things they got ,people and coal .

Three things.. People, coal and pollution - Lots of pollution...

Ian

[WH_Conley]

And don't care about any of the above.

[SwampDonkey]

This week is an ongoing debate about fracking shale gas in NB. CBC website called Fractured Future.

[SwampDonkey]

In Wyoming, the EPA found benzene and fracking chemicals in ground water samples, with 65 wells drilled in the test area. A Calgary based company was doing the drilling.

http://www.chron.com/business/article/EPA-links-fracking-at-Wyoming-well-to-tainted-2391084.php

[doctorb]

I have tried to stay up on this media battle between the frackers and the no-frackers.  Has anybody got some non-biased stuff I can read about it?  This recent Wyoming case sounds pretty severe, but others have demonstrated minimal effect from the process.  Is this just a variable phenomenon dependent upon the locale or the way the fracking was done, or is each side trying to convict the other side in the court of public opinion?

On another note, my solar project was just finnished and seems to be working well.  As others have said, without subsidies and tax credits, it would not have happened.  Maryland is another state that expects to have 20% of its energy be green in the future.  So, I get some of my money back from the feds and the state, and have a barn roof covered with panels.  Payback for me is estimated to be 7 -8 years.

[SwampDonkey]

I can't say I'm really against it if it's found safe and sound and creates jobs. Some people in this province want to keep everyone poor. Those are the ones picking up their government social welfare cheques and blat'n that they haven't got enough. They are the ones that have nothing to do and still get paid. The sit-in at the legislature grounds is pretty much 100 % made up of this bunch. The ones out in the Stanley area causing mischief where some of the exact same bunch of bums.

[Brucer]

This recent Wyoming case sounds pretty severe, but others have demonstrated minimal effect from the process.  Is this just a variable phenomenon dependent upon the locale or the way the fracking was done, ...

It varies a lot.

The original fracing done by Haliburton involved pumping things like diesel fuel into oil wells. Let's see -- diesel mixing with crude oil -- nope, won't be a problem.

Encana has done a lot of fracing to recover coal bed methane in Alberta and several US states. There are several cases of contaminants showing up in aquifers shortly after the fracing activity started. They claim the contamination was there all along. The homeowners dispute it. But no one did any sampling before the fracing started, and the oil and gas companies claim their compounds are proprietary so it's pretty hard to do a comparison. Some of the complaints are pretty credible.

As some forumites have pointed out, it seems pretty obvious that if drilling companies wanted to avoid all the complaints, they should simply have 3rd party testing done in all the surrounding wells and aquifers before starting to fracture. Strangely enough they seem very reluctant to do this. The cynic in me says they are probably afraid of proving that fracing is a bigger problem then they let on.

I suspect most fracing operations have no ill effect on the public. But the industry is sticking to their guns -- there are no cases of ill effects. I don't buy that.

... or is each side trying to convict the other side in the court of public opinion?

Partly that. Some drilling companies have so many outstanding (and credible) complaints against them that if they ever lost a case they'd be buried in lawsuits.

One case I've been following is Jessica Ernst in Rosebud, Alberta. She's a complainant against Encana. She's also a scientist -- in fact, she's an oil industry consultant. I could give you some links but then I might be accused of bias. Google "Jessica Ernst Rosebud" and you'll get lots of information.

[Ianab]

I can see how Fracking could cause water contamination. Heck it can happen naturally in some geological structures. Getting in there with hydraulic pressure or explosive charges could easily increase this, or restart seepage that that naturally died out thousands of years ago. Heck some of the first oil well in the world were dug by hand on a local beach. The oil and gas was naturally seeping out and pooling on the beach. The first "drillers" dug a well by hand and collected the oil. No one knew what to do with it at the time, but eventually they found a market for it.  Now going back and fracking that formation is probably not a good idea unless you are willing to put up with oil and gas bubbling out on a city beach again.

Other formations are much deeper, and separated from groundwater by thousands of feet of impermeable sandstone and volcanic ash. Whatever they do down there has pretty much zero effect on the surface. The local fields usually use "re-injection". An old well starts to produce larger quantities of CO2 and water instead of gas and condensate. So they separate that stuff and pump it back down a played out well. This forces more gas from the formation to surface through the still producing wells. Eventually they get to the point where they are just recycling the same water and CO2 and not getting any useful amount of gas. Time to move on then.  I can see how this would cause problems in a shallower and permeable structure where it might force that residual gas up into the water table instead of the other wells.

So not ALL fracking is bad. But there are certainly places where it shouldn't be done.

Ian 

[AvT]

Has anybody got some non-biased stuff I can read about it?  This recent Wyoming case sounds pretty severe, but others have demonstrated minimal effect from the process.  Is this just a variable phenomenon dependent upon the locale or the way the fracking was done, or is each side trying to convict the other side in the court of public opinion?

One of my first jobs was on a frac crew back in the late seventies with BJ Hughes and I quit my job as an operator with the company in question (about fraccing) a few months ago.  I live very close (downwind) to a sour gas plant (where I worked) and near the terrorist bomber.  I think most of the wells surrounding my property have been fracced... can I give you an answer to your question...... no.  I am 56 yo lived here all my life... I have some clogging in my coronary arteries,  my well water makes ok coffee... dunno what else to say

[SwampDonkey]

The first mistake the province did just recently was to not issue a fine for breaking the regulations and within a town limit. That don't go over too good, I can tell ya that. It puts the mind set in the public that there is no real regulation at all to protect us. Which isn't hard to conclude.