Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling On College Campuses 208
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this news from MotherJones: "Last year, when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett suggested offsetting college tuition fees by leasing parts of state-owned college campuses to natural gas drillers, more than a few Pennsylvanians were left blinking and rubbing their eyes. But it was no idle threat: After quietly moving through the state Senate and House, this week the governor signed into law a bill that opens up 14 of the state's public universities to fracking, oil drilling, and coal mining on campus. Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution."
Learn to spin news like this... (Score:5, Funny)
We're not opening up the college campuses to resource exploitation. We're expanding our engineering program and our geology program. New fields of study to include Mine Safety Engineer, Gas Well Engineer, Resource Geology, Mining and Mineral Engineering, and more! Internships right on campus! Sorry for the coal dust on the windows.
Re:Learn to spin news like this... (Score:5, Funny)
Medical pathology students could also benefit from this.
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I can just see it now:
"Classes canceled due to mine fire. All fraternity members are to report to campus police for questioning."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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It's not like they are going to be putting an oil derrick up in the quad. Universities own land all over the place, not just the primary campus. Lots of land too! Consider university land to be public land that the public didn't have to pay for. These are like large parks, only they are not parks.
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How about WILL leave students exposed to harm? This is what things look like with right wing lunatics in control.
Everybody in America who cares about their health should make it a point to live as far away from exploitable natural resources as possible, ...
Or live in a sensible state? New York State (just north of Pennsylvania) does not allow any of the new style fracking, it's still under study and will be very heavily regulated if it is eventually allowed. The same shale gas fields in PA also extend to southern NY.
What's the price? We have higher state taxes in NY, well worth it in many cases.
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What's the price? We have higher state taxes in NY, well worth it in many cases.
And an unemployment rate a full percent higher [bls.gov] than in PA.
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Everybody in America who cares about their health should make it a point to live as far away from exploitable natural resources as possible
I see you've chosen to live as far away from the natural resource of rationality as you can.
In third world countries, living near resources should be a boon--a ticket out of poverty. What usually happens though is some multinational corporation comes in, aided by a corrupt government
There we go. Complaining about tea partiers when the real problems you complain about are the same problems that the tea partiers are complaining about.
Re:Learn to spin news like this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everybody in America who cares about their health should make it a point to live as far away from exploitable natural resources as possible
I see you've chosen to live as far away from the natural resource of rationality as you can.
In third world countries, living near resources should be a boon--a ticket out of poverty. What usually happens though is some multinational corporation comes in, aided by a corrupt government
There we go. Complaining about tea partiers when the real problems you complain about are the same problems that the tea partiers are complaining about.
Advocating for no government as a solution for a corrupt government makes about as much sense as proposing decapitation to cure a headache.
The tea partiers are idiots who are going to solve government corruption by making it legal.
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Advocating for no government as a solution for a corrupt government makes about as much sense as proposing decapitation to cure a headache.
Well, it's good then that the tea party movement isn't advocating for no government. The basic planks of the platform are in no particular order, reduction in government extent and power, a return to law which respects the US Constitution, and at least reducing government spending to match income (often extended to reducing taxes as well).
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Advocating for no government as a solution for a corrupt government makes about as much sense as proposing decapitation to cure a headache.
Well, it's good then that the tea party movement isn't advocating for no government. The basic planks of the platform are in no particular order, reduction in government extent and power, a return to law which respects the US Constitution, and at least reducing government spending to match income (often extended to reducing taxes as well).
Again, I don't know how you think a reduction in the extent and power of the government is going to lead to less corruption. Your proposition is "limit the ability of the government to enforce the law".
Which is the same as "make corruption legal".
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Again, I don't know how you think a reduction in the extent and power of the government is going to lead to less corruption. Your proposition is "limit the ability of the government to enforce the law".
The first way is via a reduction in complexity. The less government there is, the less there is for the citizens of that country to keep track of and the harder it is for parts of the government or private world to break the law without being noticed.
It's also getting to be impossible to keep track of the law. In the US at the federal level alone, there's 200k pages of legislative law [wikipedia.org] (published in 2006). In addition, the regulatory agencies have put out a similar amount of material, almost 200k pages by
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You raise a number of legitimate concerns. It's my understanding that the Tea Party was originally founded out of reaction to those concerns, and as such, was a movement that, while I would not join it, would at least be working towards a number of goals that I would consider constructive.
However, shortly after its creation, the extreme right-wing movement ripped the wool off the Tea Party sheep and started wearing it, lest they look like the wolves that they are. They're no longer concerned about the siz
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However, shortly after its creation, the extreme right-wing movement ripped the wool off the Tea Party sheep and started wearing it, lest they look like the wolves that they are.
That's ok. Anyone is allowed to agree (or for that matter disagree) with the basic tenets of the tea party movement.
They still talk a good game about stopping corruption and lowering taxes, but once you elect a Tea Party-endorsed candidate, they immediately forget all about any of that and instead promote their social agenda.
Then I'll work to get them voted out. I know a lot of people seem unconcerned about whether a candidate will do what they promise (or position), but that's a pretty big deal for me.
Oh, and just to be pedantic, calling the ACA "unconstitutional" is black-letter wrong.
Given that it is a true statement, namely, that the individual mandate truly isn't supported by the Constitution as a valid means of collecting revenue and hence, is unconstitutional, then what's the point of saying
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I don't know how you think a reduction in the extent and power of the government is going to lead to less corruption/quote
Really? So you've never heard the truism "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely"?
The founders understood this. that is why the US government is supposed to have powers that are both Limited, and strictly enumerated. And anything left off is either assigned to the states, or remains with the individual.
Sadly, since about the turn of the previous century, the US government, via egregious and intentional misreadings the Commerce and General Welfare clauses of the Constitution, has been rapidly gathering power unto itself while straddling Americans with ponzi schemes like Social Security.
We have reached the tipping point on the size of our government. We must now either reduce it's size and scope back to what was originally intended, or travel down the path to insolvency and collapse.
Re:Learn to spin news like this... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, at least it is a good way to destroy science.
How? Does mining have reality warping properties that destroy consistency of observation? From what it sounds, the public universities of Pennsylvania have funding trouble and this is a way to get funding. There is a problem and there is a solution.
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Well, at least it is a good way to destroy science.
How? Does mining have reality warping properties that destroy consistency of observation? From what it sounds, the public universities of Pennsylvania have funding trouble and this is a way to get funding. There is a problem and there is a solution.
1)The problem was caused by Corbett himself when he cut funding for the schools.
2) It's not demonstrated that it's a solution. Who is to say that the money derived from this will be kept by the schools, or even if it is, that it will be enough to make a dent in their financial situation?
3) Even if it's an adequate funding solution, it causes other well-documented problems. You cannot solve problems in a vacuum; you must consider consequences.
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that's District 12 to you locals
[slow clap]
Someone has been watching the Simpsons. (Score:2)
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Or Beverly Hills 90210,
the BH high school has 19 wells on it, earning the school $300K a year since the 70s.
Only in the US (Score:5, Funny)
I can imagine how this conversation went.
"So, does anyone have any suggestions how we can fuck over the country's college students some more?"
"I don't know, we're already indebting them for most of their adult lives. How do you top that?"
"Hey, I have an idea, but it's kinda far-fetched..."
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Here's the deal:
"Where do you think those so-called "climate scientists" come from? They come from "college campuses"! Before they can turn into lab-coat wearing eggheads who are going to bust the balls of the patriotic energy industry, they have to start out right there on those campuses. If we can take care of those so-called "college campuses", which after all are nothing but a socialistic idea anyway
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Huh? The first time I saw any active wells when driving across Wyoming, I was surprised at how unobtrusive and innocuous they were.
But, that said its also surprising how innocuous missle silos are.
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A production well isn't a big deal. Making the production well is a bit bigger mess. Besides, what you're probably seeing are stripper wells [stripperwells.com] (amazing that there is an entire web site devoted to these things). You see them next to houses, schools, pretty much everywhere.
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My grand father has them all over his land. I was staying out there when they were building out a new site and holy shit did I want to kill someone. There was noise 24/7. At least he gets compensated for it.
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Any drilling would be far away from a campus, and there's never been any evidence that the water is harmful.
The biggest problem PA has with gas leasing is that former Gov. Rendell spent most of the lease money in one year trying to balance his budget.
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Dude, STFU [youtube.com] Exaggerated my ass.
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Really? That is all you have? Experts saying that the mining can cause health risks and ground water contamination, news articles stating that the water didn't start to burn till the fracking started, and a clear video of water on fire. People have been living in Dimock since the 1800s. Don't you think that, if they could light ground water on fire, they'd move? Jesus. Correlation does not equal causation does not mean that they are necessarily unrelated.
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Coal mining? (Score:2)
Drilling is one thing, but actual coal mining on campus? How would that even work?
Re:Coal mining? (Score:5, Informative)
Coal mining is completely different to seam gas extraction.
Coal mining removes the coal.
Seam gas extraction leaves the coal seam in-situ.
Seam gas extraction extracts water that is within the seam, this water contains gas, the gas is separated from the water.
The size of an exploration pad is nothing more than 30x30m, including all the equipment.
The size of a production drill pad for CSG extraction is nothing more than 2 basketball courts.
At least, this is how it works in my part of the world... and seriously, in Central Queensland (Australia) we have boat loads of the stuff.
Re:Coal mining? (Score:4, Funny)
The best part is, once the extraction is done, you have two new basketball courts!
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The best part is, once the extraction is done, you have two new basketball courts!
And a Super Fund site!
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"Always look on the bright side of life [youtube.com] ..."
"different to" (Score:2)
Coal mining is completely different to seam gas extraction.
Did I miss a memo?
When did it change from "different from" to "different to"?
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Here's an idea, how about reducing the costs of going to college to zero for the students?
No offense, but no one has made a good case for free education. College students can readily pay for an education, especially a cheaper public one. So have them do that. Consider it for most of them their first real lesson in life.
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Sure they can! Why that's why we have higher student defaults than ever before in history, because of all those non existent jobs they can use to pay off the crushing debt they find themselves in!
The student loan thing is insane. This is just an indication that a significant portion of current US college students shouldn't be in college. And that the US shouldn't be subsidizing the impoverishment of a generation.
I find it funny how the corps can just file bankruptcy and start again tomorrow under a new name but they will never allow anyone to escape the student loans, no matter how obvious that they'll never be able to pay them off with the ever dwindling number of jobs we have.
You have the federal government corp of the US to thank for that, both the onerous regulations on student loans and the dwindling of jobs.
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For example, Social Security adds about 15% to the cos
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Drilling is one thing, but actual coal mining on campus? How would that even work?
1) Compress the students until they're charcoal briquette sized chunks of mostly carbon
2) Profit
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hey, let's not be racist. it's all Soylent Green! now please pass the Soylent Green white meat.....
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Drilling is one thing, but actual coal mining on campus? How would that even work?
You know that film The Great Escape...
Isn't this the same state... (Score:5, Interesting)
If I recall correctly isn't PA the state with the ever burning coal mine fire? I think it was called Centrailia or something. Let's open up college campuses to mining as well. I'm sure putting a mine on the same property as drunk frat boys is a brilliant plan.
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If I recall correctly isn't PA the state with the ever burning coal mine fire? I think it was called Centrailia or something
It's Centralia [wikipedia.org] (and there's a whole bunch of Centralias in other states. So much states, so few city names to go around...)
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I never understood why they haven't built a geothermal power plant at Centralia. It's got a seemingly never ending supply of fuel and thus heat.
We can't put it out, we might as well take advantage of it.
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Underground coal fire fighting is actually a whole area of active research. There's a whole bunch of them in Indonesia, that they'd really like to put out because the heat periodically starts fires in the jungle above it.
Re:Isn't this the same state... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly the start of the Centralia coal fire had nothing to do with mining activities. The local town managers had the brainstorm that setting the local landfill on fire would be a positive clean-up step. Unfortunately there was a natural coal outcropping in the landfill which caught and spread underground, eventually making it into the mines.
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How big are the campuses anyways? (Score:2, Insightful)
seriously, How big of an area is the campus in any city, county ? why the fuck would the mining companies even be interested? this sounds like something a mining lobbyist mentioned as a joke and the politician took seriously.
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From Wikipedia, The Penn State system has 18,370 acres spread over 24 campuses across the state (including Special-mission campuses), or about 1.2 square miles per campus.
Mining companies would be interested because it could make them money.
Also, according to TFA, this isn't a new idea. There are already colleges in Ohio, Indiana, and Texas that are or are considering allowing mining on campus.
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Always a handout when it goes to a person, but a smart business decision when it goes to a company ay?
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I don't quite see why people are too worried at the moment. College campuses, at least on the local level, are tax exempt. So I'm betting colleges tried classifying all their land as "campus" decades back and are now kicking themselves for doing so. Drilling ideally takes an acre of land. So most campuses won't need to worry about a drill placed in their central commons or in their student housing flower gardens.
Now, you can get that acre down to something smaller. An acre is preferred as it means you
Battlestar Galactica. (Score:3)
Battlestar Galactica has a lot to answer for.
Referring to the "fracturing" of seams beneath the earth sounds much worse than it actually is when it is called "fracking".
The real question we should all be asking is: WHERE THE FRACK ARE YOU GOING TO GET ENERGY TO POWER YOUR NEW DIGITAL ECONOMY FROM?
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No it isn't. It will never get old.
I admit, I'm kinda disappointed in the lack of posts saying things like "those college students are really getting fracked now", etc.
Look on the bright side... (Score:5, Funny)
This isn't the worst thing to happen on Pennsyvalnia college grounds.
This is nothing new (Score:5, Informative)
Probably not as bad as it sounds. (Score:2)
I doubt this would be happening in the middle of the dorms. More likely it would be on land that the universities aren't currently using.
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"More likely it would be on land that the universities aren't currently using."
Then why keep the land at all?
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Picture (Score:2)
I'm trying to imagine what a derrick draped in TP would look like.
I think the answer is "awesome, dude!".
Think of the Children! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why WOULDN'T we do this? (Score:2)
The question is, why WOULDN'T a state do this?
It's state land.
And it's not like it's some sort of inviolable sacred ground, is it? And they are CERTAINLY not entitled to any special consideration beyond that of any other citizen when it comes to 'exposure to pollutants, etc.'
No, I don't think they should plant the machinery right outside the door of classrooms, but to be legally able to slant-drill and access the minerals beneath any public property is just good common sense.
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So 'common sense' suggests you don't do it near where your future generations best and brightest are likely to be taught. Well not unless you're an old man who received a lot of election money from the fracking industry anyway.
Common sense also says that the problem should actually exist before you consider it a problem. As has been noted here before, fracking is just a variation of some well proven drilling techniques. When done wrong, yes, it can release pollutants. When done correctly and it usually is done correctly, it does not.
So there's cause to insure that drilling on university property is done correctly, but there isn't cause to keep the activity from being done at all.
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No, it's fracking and it's a problem because it includes fracturing the rock which is inevitably not a neat thing.
That has been done before. Which was my point.
I don't think going into denial about it fixes anything.
Then stop doing that.
He should not be taking donations from the fracking companies to get elected, then giving them permission to frack on college campuses when this is the known problem with fracking.
As I was saying, it's a fixed problem. Just inspect the wells in question to make sure they're doing anything dangerous.
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Fracking is breaking rock, to leak gas. The gas carries a bunch of toxins. The toxins dissolve in ground water, and leach out into the air. They cause cancers and are toxic.
They've broken rock before to leak oil (or just because some idiots overpumped a field). So it's not different from what's happened before. And you still have to have a mechanism for how those toxins get into ground water.
As to causing cancer and being toxic, a lot of things at a college do so. Perhaps we should get rid of agriculture, physics, and chemistry programs, for example. Or we could just insure that like the other stuff that's moderately risky, the operators of the well take the appropriate pre
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Quit your prissy hand wringing. If there's an engineering problem, engineers will solve it.
If this were the Stone Age, you'd be the faggot caveman whining, "ehhhhhh Fiiiiiiire noooo! It's too hot put it out! Fires are scary and might hurt the chiiiiiiildren! Think of the chiiiiiiiildren." Be shamed.
Ignitable Tap Water (Score:4, Informative)
And just for fun: here's a fun video showing what can happen when you live too close to it. [youtube.com]
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FYI, "fracking" has been verifiably linked [propublica.org] to flammable tap water.
No, it hasn't. The study found (in a very small number of samples, not really statistically significant) a measurable increase in methane above the baseline near a few wells, which they attribute to leaking well casings, not hydraulic fracturing. Sorry, no flaming tap water.
"Wrong in so many levels" (Score:3)
I think the closest thing I have seen close to this is the "Commitee to Nuke the Whales" - a troll operation set-up in one of late Robert Anton Wilson's novels.
Will they offer a TRADES based learning plan on dr (Score:2)
Will they offer a TRADES based learning plan on drilling if they put this in?
With teachers with real job skills and not just years of teaching in class room with little to no job experience.
Will they also make it a 2 year or less plan?? 4 years of mostly theory with the full load of fluff and filler classes is overkill.
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Mod parent up! The trades used in the oil and gas fields often pay very well.
Deliberate Misreading of the Law (Score:4, Informative)
If you read the acutal law, SB 367 [state.pa.us], it does not authorize natural gas drilling on college campuses. In fact it specifically exempts them, as well as all state nature preserves:
It does, however, permit the state to make a right of way through a state college to reach natural gas wells located some place else, but I guess "Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Roads on College Campuses" doesn't sound nearly as sentational.
public screwed again! (Score:3)
Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution.
Not to mention it permanently degrades public land and the mining companies will never undo the damage they did because it's not cost-effective (for them).
Berry College (Score:3)
Ask Berry College(located in Rome, GA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_College [wikipedia.org] ) how their college campus ended up when Florida Rock dug a huge hole on campus property. Though the site was out of site to people on campus, one of the lakes on campus(Victory Lake) almost completely dried up(sink hole) and buildings, some very old(Ford Buildings, paid for by Henry Ford and given continued assistance by the Ford Corporation), started having problems from sink holes, the watertable started to be displaced, and it hurt the college far more than the help Berry College got from Florida Rock.
The rock quarry is now a large lake, which is also extremely deep. Would you fall in(which you should survive the fall), and cannot get out, you will drown and never have your body retrieved. Sadly, this place is well known to be an excellent place(one of a few in the area) to dump a body, or other items you do not want found, or ever retrieved by anyone(including the person that dump the body or item). Yes, Martha Berry would be proud.
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011SE/finalprogram/abstract_183994.htm [confex.com]
There are other buildings that have had problems from the bad decision of Berry Colege's administration. These colleges may end up in a similar situation.
I'm against it (Score:2)
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No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
Re:LOL, welcome to united states of hurrdurr (Score:5, Informative)
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
I won't argue what "campus" means but, the bill never mentions "campus". here' the text of the bill:
Senate Bill 367 (P.N. 2349) – This bill establishes the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, allowing the Department of General Services to make and execute contracts or leases for the mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.
In other words, the article from Mother Jones was entirely misleading making people think of gas rigs next to dormitories when, in reality, the bill opened up all state lands pending government approval. Typical Mother Jones scare tactics.
Re:LOL, welcome to united states of hurrdurr (Score:4, Interesting)
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Are you skimming on your reading of SB 367 a little bit?
This law absolutely allows drilling and fracking on campuses next to (or under) dorms.
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All this hand-wringing about fracking is a mirage from the looney anti-fossil-fuel greens. There have never been any proven detrimental impacts from fracking when done with modern techniques. Fracking, our golden chance for energy independence, is being attacked as if these dangers were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, as opposed to lacking a shred of hard evidence behind them.
If the greens succeed in killing this opportunity to end our dependence on foreign oil, I hope they will be proud the next time we go to war to defend our oil lifeline.
...except for seismic events when faults slip due to increased lubrication, contamination of groundwater and increased hydrocarbon emissions from the fracking sites. But I guess you can hand out disposable dust masks and BRITA water filters. Problem solved ?
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Fracking with modern techniques is what is of concern here, in addition to the fact that it's being done on the east coast, an area more densely populated than where fracking has traditionally been done.
The modern techniques are not a safer, more efficient version of older techniques. Modern techniques involve drilling down and then snaking sideways to get at the gas. This has only been going on in populated areas since 2006, which isn't a whole lot of time to study effects. And since it's being done aro
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Nonsense. Fracking, including 'slantwise drilling' has been used in the oil industry for 80 years. It's a well proven, safe technology when it is practiced with modern engineering principles.
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Oil drilling is not gas drilling. Modern fracking for gas in particular uses much higher pressures than oil drilling and even older gas drilling operations. It's not the slantwise drilling itself that is the issue; it's the high-pressure fracking in that kind of well structure (and also possibly in the kind of geological formations that are gas-bearing) that is new and unstudied.
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Some more concrete data from WP:
The first use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947 but the modern fracking technique, called horizontal slickwater fracking, that made the extraction of shale gas economical was first used in 1998 in the Barnett Shale in Texas.
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Fracking compositions known as slickwater have been around for a lot longer than 1998 - I know Halliburton had a key patent on that expire in 1968. Generally the term 'slickwater' refers to adding some type of polymer - either natural or synthetic that suppresses formation of vortexes in the fluid flow making it easier to pump. This makes the fluid 'slick'.
WP also got the 1947 date wrong. Fracking has been used a lot longer than that. Some forms involving pumping nitrogylcerine into wells were used as early
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The need for energy is increasing exponentially and fracking will in the end be a blip on the radar in terms of energy supply.
Well, the need for energy isn't going to increase exponentially forever.
It is merely prolonging the time spent burning carbon and will only be harmful in the long run as it puts off real long term (the definition of sustainable, as so many people seem to forget) solutions.
Show there will be harm rather than merely saying it.. Let's consider another painful transition, death. By your rhetoric above, since we're all going to die anyway, it'd be "less harmful" for us to die now since otherwise we're putting off the real long term solution.
The point here is that just because there are transitions that we'll need to face, it doesn't mean that it is a good idea for us to embrace those transitions now. Procr
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On campus? Our health department would shut it down.
The general public isn't even allowed into our city watershed.