"Mounting scientific evidence shows that fracking is not only inherently unsafe for both public health and ecosystems, but that fracking may actually drive global warming more than conventional fossil fuels due to methane leakage from oil and gas drilling operations and their attendant infrastructure. According to the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Synthesis report, methane from oil and gas is 87 times as powerful at trapping heat as carbon dioxide, pound for pound, over a 20-year period and 36 times more so over 100 years. So, while natural gas may burn relatively cleaner than oil or coal, the cumulative effect of extracting gas and building the necessary transport infrastructure is a greater threat to the planet. net."
Everywhere the frackers go, extensive groundwater contamination, air pollution, land fragmentation, property devaluation, road destruction, earthquakes, public health issues, soon follow. This includes contamination of drinking water by fracking fluid, massive water consumption (an average frack well requires 2 to 8 million US gallons of water over its lifetime), air pollution, fugitive methane emissions and lost habitat from thousands of roads, wells and pipelines.
The details of fracking's complex impact on geology and groundwater are the focus of a new independent technical review looking into the 2013 bitumen leak in northern Alberta which found hydraulic fracturing to be the main culprit. The panel, also documented that industry frack jobs, contrary to industry claims, can break caprock, shoot out of zone, link to natural fractures and penetrate into groundwater. The same paper added, "All hydraulic fracture models fail to predict fracture behaviour precisely, and in many cases, models fail completely, largely because of incorrect information and assumptions used in the models."
"In simple terms", as Andrew Nikiforuk says, "pressures created by the industrial injection of fluids in bitumen or shale rock can create a zig-zag of traveling fractures that resemble the cracking of ice on a frozen lake." As a consequence California recently halted the injection of fracking waste warning of contaminated aquifers.
Fracking is the dumbest idea yet in a long-term series of dumb moves, 'Frack Is Wack', but it makes rich people richer, so their govt. and media stooges line up to praise it. Tons of good vibes from The Mud Report to everyone who put out their energy to bring awareness to the stupidity of making things worse. Of course, each of those good vibeees will now be under surveillance as a probable terrorist, in fact a recent report says that just being opposed to fracking makes one a probable terrorist.
IMO it's not a change of energy sources we need, it's a change of lifestyles. The rich can only get richer when we buy the needless bangles their advertising stooges dangle. Frack is Wack, but it thrives in the cultural field of consumption as palliative. Conservation, as in simplicity, and efficiency can slow our demand for fossil fuels, creating energy [unused] with no footprint. None of this, or my other schemes, will make the rich richer, so they don't get much press but lottsa followers from .gov websites.
Fracking will lose its allure when the next even Free-er Lunch delusion comes along or, when the people stop consuming needless crap or when the bubble bursts. But in the meanwhile, everyday the fucking frackers blast unknown chemicals, and who knows what else, into the earth, fracturing it for short term profit at the expense of the non-renewable, clean fresh water our children will need. It's insane, it's dumb, it's capitalism and only terrorists are opposed.
