This video is in response to those who say "Those people catching their water on fire was from naturallly occuring gas" And those that believe that fracking is safe and sound. It is not. Fracking is an environmental bombshell, that is incapable of being envinromently friendly. http://vimeo.com/44367635
Oh boy. Here we go. So....60 years of fracing, millions of wells, and environmentalists only noticed in the past couple years? Gee....if it is as bad as they say, what took them so long to notice?
Hint: Radionucleide are extremely expensive. Nobody is putting radionucleides down a gas well, no matter how rich that well might be. Hint #2: Ethylbenzene is a component of gasoline. Gasoline is expensive in case you haven't noticed. Nobody is putting gasoline down a gas well.
What frosts enviro-wackos about fracking is that it is a massive game-changer. $3/MMBTU natural gas destroys the energy-poverty assumption that enviro-wackos have held for four decades. It yanks the rug out from under Middle eastern tyrants. Five years ago, people in the US were talking about building ports to import LNG from the Middle East. Now they are seeking the permits to build ports to EXPORT LNG from fracked wells. For the foreseeable future the US can project natural gas in the $3-$4/MMBTU range. If we deduct the $1.05/gallon in taxes (varies from state to state but that is average) gasoline costs about $17/MMBTU. Even allowing a couple bucks per MMBTU for transportation and compression and that $1.05/gallon in taxation, CNG should sell for about $1.50/gallon (gasoline equivalent). Transportation fuel costing a third what it costs today is a game-changer, and people with a huge emotional investment in US energy poverty do not want to see the game changed.
The green crowd should be happy: 1. Methane outputs less CO2 per mile driven as is. 2. At 140 octane, small, high boost, turbo charged engines reduce CO2 even further. 3. It establishes an infrastructure that easily acceptes methane hydrates (renewable methane) when the harvesting problem has been solved But, the green crowd isn't happy - they never are.
I love how it takes 300 million gallons of fresh water to 'frack'... Nah, there are no water concerns in this country...and then no one cares where that water, plus the 150,000 chemicals in it, goes after the 'break'.. I love how the 'frac' actually cracks the freaking bedrock... but it doesn't harm the concrete well shafts in the least.. nope, no possible leakage here.. BTW, I also love how we're cracking the G'(*)(*)(*)(*) bedrock that supports ya know.. the earth.. but hey it's cheap natty gas so who cares.. I love how this is such a 'safe' thing to do that it's the only company in this country that doesn't have to follow EPA or Clean air/ water standards.. nor do they have to report just what's in their 'fracking juice'..and what they have reported are the likes we wouldn't put in a dirty bomb destined for our worse enemy because that would just be inhumane.. I'm all for using natty gas in this country.. in fact, I would love to see a gov't works program that retrofits all trains,police cars,fire truck,ambulances,mail carriers,buses,garbage trucks and long-haul semi-truck to run on natty gas..you want to see our oil consumption drop? but there has to be a safer way to do it.. the problem is, by letting these companies literally rape and pillage the land now...It prevents any kind of discovery of that safer process.. why should they spend the R&D millions when our government is not only happily allowing them to scorch the earth, but subsidizing and protecting them from any kinds of queries on it's safety? Sadly, I think we will have to hope the Europeans come up with the safer way to extract the gas because their laws on this kind of issue are a helluva more sane...and they hold to a slightly higher standard on this kind of stuff than we do.. the irony there is that only increases our production of the gas since we don't hold to high standards anymore and will crack the earth open for a dollar..and Europe will spend it.
it wasn't until 2000 that they started 'horizontal' fracking..up until then, it was only vertical and only one or two fracks per well .. but in 2005, their regulation was deleted.. they didn't have to live up to the EPA,Clean air or water Acts...could frack wells numerous times and the 'chem mix' became more complicated and that's when it all hit the fan.. so yeah, this new fracking w/o regulation got noticed and it's effects noticed as well..and all pretty quickly to..
I always love the pro energy pro drilling whatever the cost crowed. "I dont care if it ruins the environment and drinking water for 500,000 people! I dont care of it kills wildlife and causes cancer! I want cheap gas to fill up my 5MPG SUV!" Selfish people are just selfish people. They cant help it. They cant and dont want to look at the bigger picture. As long as they have cheap gas.
The "chemicals" used in fracking are: 1) Beach sand 2) Vegetable oil - to lubricate the high pressure pumps Thus far fracking has been done in areas where there is abundant surface water available. You are just bummed because your entire paradigm of US energy poverty has been blown away. Sour grapes. Nobody puts hyper-expensive radionucleides or gasoline into fracked wells.
It doesn't take 300 million gallons. A distribution of all Bakken wells stimulated in the past 5 years or so shows that the water used ranges from 2 to 9 million gallons. And there aren't 150,000 chemicals in any frac job I have ever designed, supervised, heard of or seen published in any literature in the industry in the past 20 years. You are perhaps unaware of the yield pressure of the formation, versus the primary cement job and the strength of the steel involved. I recommend a class in material sciences. Of course fracing companies have to follow EPA rules, the same as any industry which uses off road equipment, or moves around quantities of liquids and whatnot. As far as what gets disposed deep underground, of COURSE that isn't always known, the EPA created disposal well classifications, and exemptions, for exactly those reasons. There is a need to safely dispose of various types of waste material, and injecting it underground has been a time honored and tested method of doing just that. So why would you object to a proven method of safely disposing of nuclear waste, as though the procedure changes when the item is fresh water?
No, fracing in horizontal wells was happening before 2000, in the early 90's I was doing 3 frac per well and would have done more if needed (limited by equipment and daylight mostly), there isn't any regulation vintage 2005 which mattered much (considering the number of wells fractured both pre and post 2005), a chem mix on a frac I do today is no different than it was during the early 90's (proppants have changed though, but that has nothing to do with regulations), so yeah, not near as much has changed as the detractors want to pretend. So what is your answer? Why didn't the millions of wells fraced before Gasland came out not matter? Why all the NEW hysteria over a proven system which isn't much different now than then, except of course back then the companies used diesel fuel and gasoline and such alot more, and now use the horrifying chemical...water...instead?
That's because NIMBY has now morphed into B.A.N.A.N.A's... Build Absolutely Nothing, Anywhere, No Asterisks.
