fracking is not "the answer" to all out ills

[Dot Com]

in fact, it may, and prolly will, come back & bite us in the ass long after these corporate energy mavericks are dead & gone or out of business so YES, there is a downside to fracking which saddles future generations w/ toxic cesspools.

Fracking hell: what it's really like to live next to a shale gas well | Environment | The Guardian
(snip)

In north Texas, where Kronvall lives, the number of new oil and gas wells has gone up by nearly 800% since 2000. It's impossible to drive for any length of time without seeing the signs, even after the rigs have moved on elsewhere: the empty squares of flattened earth, the arrays of condensate tanks, the compressor stations and pipelines, and large open pits of waste water. Virtually no site is off limits. Energy companies have fracked wells on church property, school grounds and in gated developments. Last November, an oil company put a well on the campus of the University of North Texas in nearby Denton, right next to the tennis courts and across the road from the main sports stadium and a stand of giant wind turbines. In Texas, as in much of America, property owners do not always own the "mineral rights" – the rights to underground resources – so typically have limited say over how they are developed.

 

[Corrigendum]

I hate to respond to a semi-dead post, but anti-fracking sentiment is so common that it's worth addressing for anyone that might actually be looking for facts on the subject of hydraulic fracturing and its alleged ill effects.

To date, there have been no proved cases of contamination from the hydraulic fracturing process. Oil and gas operations, like any other industry, can cause pollution of various kinds, but the fracturing process itself has not once been shown to be a contributor. In fact, all alleged cases of contamination from hydraulic fracturing have been thoroughly debunked. One very popular video is a man lighting his faucet on fire, but naturally-occurring methane has been in water wells for as long as humans have been drilling water wells, and these have been cases of naturally-occurring gas seepage. (Protip: The first oil well was drilled in Oil Creek, PA because people could light the water on fire.)

There was a short-lived media frenzy around the EPA's announcement of water contamination in Pavillion, WY from hydraulic fracturing, but this was very quickly silenced as it became evident that the EPA had been humiliatingly negligent: They had drilled their monitor wells into hydrocarbon-bearing formations and made claims that the groundwater was contaminated, when it was actually the EPA that was causing the contamination. The EPA has since backed off its claims against hydraulic fracturing.

Lastly, if you want to regulate away oil industry tanks and pipelines just because they "look bad," you have a serious deficiency in priorities. The reality is that such equipment is necessary for industrial operations, and that you benefit immensely from them. If you would rather ban the operations than partake in their benefits because tanks are "ugly", then you have no business typing on a computer or using any other piece of technology that directly relies upon the oil industry for materials and energy.

But feel free to invent a liquid storage facility that is less ugly that you can sell to the oil and gas industry.

 

[Two Thumbs]

in fact, it may, and prolly will, come back & bite us in the ass long after these corporate energy mavericks are dead & gone or out of business so YES, there is a downside to fracking which saddles future generations w/ toxic cesspools.

Fracking hell: what it's really like to live next to a shale gas well | Environment | The Guardian
(snip)

In north Texas, where Kronvall lives, the number of new oil and gas wells has gone up by nearly 800% since 2000. It's impossible to drive for any length of time without seeing the signs, even after the rigs have moved on elsewhere: the empty squares of flattened earth, the arrays of condensate tanks, the compressor stations and pipelines, and large open pits of waste water. Virtually no site is off limits. Energy companies have fracked wells on church property, school grounds and in gated developments. Last November, an oil company put a well on the campus of the University of North Texas in nearby Denton, right next to the tennis courts and across the road from the main sports stadium and a stand of giant wind turbines. In Texas, as in much of America, property owners do not always own the "mineral rights" – the rights to underground resources – so typically have limited say over how they are developed.

you think that's ugly?

you should see detroit or all the closed steal mills in Bethlehem PA (before the casino saved them)

now those are eyesores