Natural gas rush stirs environmental concerns

So what are the effects of burning 1 trillion dollars of natural gas into the atmosphere? Continuing pollution & warming, I'd predict.

Other solutions must be found. This suks big time!!!

"To put it in perspective, golf courses take about 50 million gallons a day, and nuclear power plants use 150 million gallons," Obleski said.

This is some seriously skewed justification. Just because someone else pollutes more than you doesn't make polluting okay. At least water from golf courses and nuclear power plants don't get contaminated with foreign chemicals (I still don't like the enormous amount of water they use, especially for frivolous purposes like golf).

...fracking fluid is no more toxic than what goes down the drain at a hair salon.

There is the skewed justification again. If you ask me, many Americans (no offense, ladies) probably go to great lengths to make themselves look better to boost their egos - that includes putting all sorts of toxic shit on their skin, in their hair, eyelashes, etc. I certainly wouldn't want 28 million gallons of hair-salon-like fluid being poured into the ground without a solid idea of a.) Where it will go and b.) How to clean it up and make the water reusable for generations to come.

This all sounds like a really bad idea.. Green energy is the future, and fossil fuels should be a thing of the past. This is like someone advertising vinyl records in an era of Blu-Ray discs.

So what are the effects of burning 1 trillion dollars of natural gas into the atmosphere? Continuing pollution & warming, I'd predict.

Other solutions must be found. This suks big time!!!

So? You want to sit in the dark and freeze?

New York and Pennsylvania regulators promise full disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking, which industry insiders say are not hazardous. John Pinkerton, chairman and CEO of Range Resources, said used fracking fluid is no more toxic than what goes down the drain at a hair salon.

Hair salon waste is pretty damn toxic, but there is not as much of it and it will be processed in the treatment plant before it ends up in the environment.
Its hard to compare that to pumping millions of gallons of toxic fluid directly underground.

But as word spread over the past year that a 54,000-square-mile shale field from southern New York to West Virginia promised to yield a trillion dollars worth of gas, making millionaires of local landowners, environmental alarms were sounded.

That paragraph right there tells you what it's all about.

It should read:

We don't want Americans to have money anymore. If they have money, they have choices.

They also don't mention that Nuclear plants don't "use" water. Most of that gets pumped it in, used it as coolant (actually as coolant for the coolant. The water itself never touches anything), and then pumped back out into rivers, slightly heated. The rest is pumped in, vapourized, and used to run steam power turbines. None of it is contaminated, and most of it isn't even turned into steam.

Either way the water doesn't get "used up" in the way they are planning to (to all intents and purposes) destroy this water. And saying that in the end it will be no more toxic than hair salon waste... heh. I dare anyone to drink the stuff that comes out of a hair salon. If you aren't dead in 30 minutes I'd be stunned.

"Green energy is the future, and fossil fuels should be a thing of the past. This is like someone advertising vinyl records in an era of Blu-Ray discs."

A conversation in the near future...

Daddy, I wish the wind would start blowing so we can watch this cool movie on blu-ray.

Shut up kid, and keep hanging up those wet clothes.

Uhhhh... Blu-Ray discs are made from fossil fuels, duhhh.

this is , in some ways , mirrors the ethanol boom. basically, this natural gas is expensive to extract and it requires so much water that it will fuck over everyone because the water will then be in scarce supply for our ordinary needs. stick to middle east oil...until we find a better way to use clean coal and nuclear ( and perhaps renewables in the o-not-so distant future ). t-boone pickens is a self serving crook. dont listen to this nonsenese and start digging up our landscape for 14 years worth of fuel when the results will be many decades worth of headache and remediation.

Dealing with the environmental extremists is a lose-lose situation. No matter how much you give in to their demands they always use the new situation as the starting point of how bad everything is and how the world is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions...

Dealing with the environmental extremists is a lose-lose situation. No matter how much you give in to their demands they always use the new situation as the starting point of how bad everything is and how the world is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions...

while there is some truth in this, there is also justification for this attitutde. there were plenty of 'crazies' screaming for years about the demise of the wall street bubble before it finally burst this year. read michael luis' article in the times magazine about this. collapses do occur and there is ample reason now to consider the possibility that if america, and possibly the world, doesnt get its energy act together within the next 20 years, we might be in for a serious social collapse.

no one is saying dont tap a single natural gas field, its just that people are saying we cannot allow industry to choose where to put too many of our eggs, because industry will seek the shortest term profit , which is exactly the mentality we must avoid at this particular point. OF COURSE, this is not to say they cannot profit from energy production. The opposite is true; industry must profit from our energy consumption. However, they must do so in a way that is best for the longer term needs of society for a stabile and cheap source of relatively less toxic energy. In the end, if society collapses due to a miscalculated energy infrastructure, so to will our capitalist energy industries.

Hence the need for a new NATION ENERGY COUNCIL to spearhead the issue of coordinating private and public needs in this sphere. if we do not use government responsibly and intelligently, we will wind up annointing an energy council in 20 years with the absurd black check authorities that we have just handed to our treasury. CLINTON AND GEORGE BUSH did more to create a socialist banking authority in the country than anyone has for years. and when the bubble finally burst , bush had no choice but to crown the treasury owner of our banking system. if our society collapses due to energy production failure, we will be forced into an even more socialist situation. if we head things off now, and spank our industries straight, perhaps capitalism can thrive for quite some more time.

Zevkirsh, I'm impressed. Intelligent, non-partisan arguments that are completely in line with forward-thinking public and private policy.

Post more.

Yup, agreed Velanarris. Good post Zevkirsh:).

The problem is that corporations *have* to think short term. Any corporation that attempts to enact a longterm plan at the expense of its short-term profits WILL FAIL. That's just the way the market works. All companies *must* concentrate on short term profits.

And you know what? That isn't a bad thing. But it is something we have to be careful of. It means that they can't, by their very nature, think about our longterm welfare. That is our job and, through the application of our collective political pressure, the job of our governments as well. Hence the need for longterm government research funding, and for industry regulations.

Yup, agreed Velanarris. Good post Zevkirsh:).

The problem is that corporations *have* to think short term. Any corporation that attempts to enact a longterm plan at the expense of its short-term profits WILL FAIL. That's just the way the market works. All companies *must* concentrate on short term profits.

And you know what? That isn't a bad thing. But it is something we have to be careful of. It means that they can't, by their very nature, think about our longterm welfare. That is our job and, through the application of our collective political pressure, the job of our governments as well. Hence the need for longterm government research funding, and for industry regulations.

I disagree with this view. Not all companies are short sighted. I can see why one would think that. You never hear about the businesses that plan long term and do well. You hear about the Enrons and AIGs of the world, where thinking past the next profit statement isn't done whatsoever.

Yeah, you certainly hear more about the bad companies, that's true:).

But I think that any publicly traded company falls into this trap to one degree or another. Sure a company can think longish-term (10 years) instead of thinking from quarter to quarter. The best public companies do that, and they are an important part of the R&D cycle.

However, 10 years isn't that long a time. I mean, think about fusion power. It's been in development for what.... 90 years now (hmmm, almost exactly 90 years)? And it will be another 40 before we see a real benefit from that research.

Could any publicly traded research company afford to take 130 years of losses? Nope. But governments... governments can.

...Hence the need for a new NATION ENERGY COUNCIL to spearhead the issue of coordinating private and public needs in this sphere.

Isn't going to happen. Figure any public institution will do that which is in it's best interests (financial or power) instead of the common good.

if we do not use government responsibly and intelligently, we will wind up annointing an energy council in 20 years with the absurd black check authorities that we have just handed to our treasury.

"use government responsibly and intelligently"???
If you can figure out how to do that you deserve the Nobel Peace prize for the next thousand years.

CLINTON AND GEORGE BUSH did more to create a socialist banking authority in the country than anyone has for years.

That's why I don't see any difference between Republicans and Democrats. They are both entrenched and are owned by the same elites/companies.