Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com:
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I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses. You learn a lot from both sides. Specifically, Jerry, Don, Eric and "stormcrow" don't know your real name - sorry and others - thank you for your posts. I too am very sorry that five have left this board this round. The loss of their voices diminishes us all. ----- Original Message ----- From: stormcrow60@xmission.com To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 1:39:01 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com:
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There are far more people on this list that never post anything than do.
I do have to take exception with Jerry's assessment in Kane Co. The public record tells a very different story. A county budget of a little over 1 million with the feds paying most of it, tax dollars to pay taxes absurd really. Lets do some math the fed owns nearly half of western US does anyone really believe they (we) should pay the states $500 per acre. Mining barely there existed before the desgination and has never produced significant revenue there. Are Hunting permits being denied? Back Country Permits? Conversations with Rangers and the like have always been vague, you enter the backcountry at your own risk, they simply want to know where you are going and when you will be back. So they can save your ass if they need to. The claim that tourism has suffered there is most absurd. I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other
responses. You learn a lot from both sides. Specifically, Jerry, Don, Eric and "stormcrow" don't know your real name - sorry and others - thank you for your posts. I too am very sorry that five have left this board this round. The loss of their voices diminishes us all.
----- Original Message ----- From: stormcrow60@xmission.com To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 1:39:01 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements.
Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response.
My Three Cents, Jon
The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process.
However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking.
1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked.
2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals.
3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers.
4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir.
5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective.
6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them.
Don
Quoting utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com:
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On 12/8/11, jcarman6@q.com <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses.
This, from the woman who's last post was to award a "gold star". It's an astronomy list, Joan (or used to be), we award G0-type stars here. (posted with affection, and just a little crap...) ;-)
And this from the guy who got after me for thanking someone for posting about astronmy and not restaurants... (posted with equal affection,and just as little crap) ;-) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 4:41:38 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... On 12/8/11, jcarman6@q.com <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses.
This, from the woman who's last post was to award a "gold star". It's an astronomy list, Joan (or used to be), we award G0-type stars here. (posted with affection, and just a little crap...) ;-) _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php
Fair enough lol. Btw, Steve lives just down the street from me. I'll leave a flaming bag of stuff on his porch every day until he resubscribes... On Dec 8, 2011 11:11 PM, <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
And this from the guy who got after me for thanking someone for posting about astronmy and not restaurants... (posted with equal affection,and just as little crap) ;-)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 4:41:38 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
On 12/8/11, jcarman6@q.com <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses.
This, from the woman who's last post was to award a "gold star".
It's an astronomy list, Joan (or used to be), we award G0-type stars here.
(posted with affection, and just a little crap...) ;-)
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rofl I can see it in my mind. Hope it works ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, December 9, 2011 6:00:17 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... Fair enough lol. Btw, Steve lives just down the street from me. I'll leave a flaming bag of stuff on his porch every day until he resubscribes... On Dec 8, 2011 11:11 PM, <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
And this from the guy who got after me for thanking someone for posting about astronmy and not restaurants... (posted with equal affection,and just as little crap) ;-)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 4:41:38 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
On 12/8/11, jcarman6@q.com <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses.
This, from the woman who's last post was to award a "gold star".
It's an astronomy list, Joan (or used to be), we award G0-type stars here.
(posted with affection, and just a little crap...) ;-)
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php
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I am sorry people have left the list as well, it is ironic many of those contributed to the topic wandering way off. Winter is a slow time for Astronomy.
rofl I can see it in my mind. Hope it works
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Friday, December 9, 2011 6:00:17 AM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
Fair enough lol. Btw, Steve lives just down the street from me. I'll leave a flaming bag of stuff on his porch every day until he resubscribes... On Dec 8, 2011 11:11 PM, <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
And this from the guy who got after me for thanking someone for posting about astronmy and not restaurants... (posted with equal affection,and just as little crap) ;-)
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Hards" <chuck.hards@gmail.com> To: "Utah Astronomy" <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2011 4:41:38 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not...
On 12/8/11, jcarman6@q.com <jcarman6@q.com> wrote:
I appreciate this sort of "debate" MUCH MUCH more than many of the other responses.
This, from the woman who's last post was to award a "gold star".
It's an astronomy list, Joan (or used to be), we award G0-type stars here.
(posted with affection, and just a little crap...) ;-)
_______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Visit the Photo Gallery: http://www.slas.us/gallery2/main.php
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On 12/9/11, erikhansen@thebluezone.net <erikhansen@thebluezone.net> wrote:
I am sorry people have left the list as well, it is ironic many of those contributed to the topic wandering way off. Winter is a slow time for Astronomy.
Erik, I have to agree with you there. Some of those who left were contributors to the fiasco. Kind of makes one wonder. I also find it funny that many of my concerns, when expressed, were crapped-on up until Jerry echoed them. Suddenly the critics fell silent. Would that I carried his gravitas.
Methane ejected from cows and naturally occurring seeps is a greater global warming gas than CO2, but methane from natural gas wells is burned and not emitted into the atmosphere and produces much less CO2 than either burning coal or oil. I believe that global warming over the last 400 years is primarily due to natural causes, but you will find that many people who believe mankind is primarily responsible believe that natural gas is the most preferable of all fossil fuels and must be used with wind power and solar power to provide uninterrupted service. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of stormcrow60@xmission.com Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 1:39 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com:
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Utah-Astronomy digest..."
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One more thing, the greatest global warming gas of all which swamps the others by several orders of magnitude is water vapor. Warm air hold more water vapor than cold air and water holds less CO2 when warm than when cold. So as the earth warms from natural causes (or manmade causes) there is a multiplier effect as the oceans expel CO2 and more water evaporates into the atmosphere. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Don J. Colton Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 2:42 PM To: 'Utah Astronomy' Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... Methane ejected from cows and naturally occurring seeps is a greater global warming gas than CO2, but methane from natural gas wells is burned and not emitted into the atmosphere and produces much less CO2 than either burning coal or oil. I believe that global warming over the last 400 years is primarily due to natural causes, but you will find that many people who believe mankind is primarily responsible believe that natural gas is the most preferable of all fossil fuels and must be used with wind power and solar power to provide uninterrupted service. -----Original Message----- From: utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com [mailto:utah-astronomy-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of stormcrow60@xmission.com Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2011 1:39 PM To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Alton Mine and what not... Hi Folks, After my initial response to this thread, I laid low, not wanting to contribute to the fact that some are leaving this list. But, I have to respond to Don's statements. Don, I don't know where you get your information, but to say natural gas has no pollutants is absurd. Natural gas is primarily made of methane, which, as a global warming pollutant, is 20x worse than carbon dioxide. There are several reasons, based on fact that make the effort to "frack" unjustifiable. One, vast amounts of water need to be used. We can not afford to waste our most precious resource on this planet for dirty fuels. Two, having methane, as opposed to fracking fluid in your drinking water is not anymore desirable. Would you drink it? Three, just because "fracking fluid" has not leaked into water tables now, does not mean it will not happen in the future. How many times have we heard the oil companies say oil spills can not happen and they would bear all the cleanup responsibilities? False and false. Besides, I would dispute the thought that fracking fluids have not contaminated water tables. Four, fracking has been proven to cause earthquakes, although they are small. But whats happens in the future? Five, huge federal subsidies are needed to make any fracking projects economically viable, as all fossil fuel is subsidized. If Americans really paid the true cost of producing fossil fuels, we would be paying $5/liter. Six, if these subsidies were put into green technology, we would not need to "frack". Seven, saying the Sierra Club is impartial is true. But, not having billions of dollars at stake, I tend to believe they are being more open and honest regarding their stance on fracking than the fossil fuel industry. Eight, obviously, fossil fuel industries are not impartial either. To quote a line in a TOOL song.... They "Lie, cheat and steal." We can go on and on as to why fracking is not a good energy policy. I am sure I will never convince you of my beliefs in the realm of fracking, the environment and political philosophies, but there is no way I could let your last statements go without a response. My Three Cents, Jon The situation I mentioned is just reinjection of water from one producing formation into another depleted formation. A very routine process. However, I need to respond to some of the things you may have heard about fracking. 1. The technology is not new and is well understood. The first fracs were done in the late 40's and early 50's. During the 1980's several thousand fracs were performed and during the 1990's and up to the present day several hundred thousand wells have been fracked. 2. During this whole period there is not one documented case of frac fluid getting into a water aquifer. Some of the reasons for this are that the formations fracked are almost always deeper than 5,000 feet, well below most fresh water aquifers, and government agencies require that the fresh water zones, which are typically 1500 feet or shallower, be sealed off by cementing surface casing through them. Frac fluids are not flammable and some fracs consist only of fresh water and sand. Others contain cross-linked gels and other chemicals. 3. There are cases of methane getting into drinking water. This can be caused by not having proper integrity in the surface casing and a leak developing in the production casing and gas leaking into the aquifer but this has nothing to do with the frac. Another common cause of methane in drinking water is caused by culinary water wells that are drilled in areas of shallow coals. After producing gas free water for a period the coals "dewater" and produce methane which gets into the water supply. This is a very common occurrence particularly in areas like Wyoming, Utah, Pennsylvania and West Virginia which have shallow coals associated with fresh water aquifers. 4. The frac basically enhances the producibility of gas from the existing gas reservoir. 5. Much of the hysteria about fracking has been promoted by organizations like the Sierra Club which opposes the drilling of ANY new wells ANYWHERE in the U. S. They can hardly be objective. 6. Natural gas contains no pollutants and is far preferable to coal or oil from any environmental viewpoint. It also has the smallest production footprint. The United States has sufficient natural gas resources to become energy independent and I believe it is the height of folly not to develop them. Don Quoting utah-astronomy-request@mailman.xmission.com:
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participants (5)
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Chuck Hards -
Don J. Colton -
erikhansen＠thebluezone.net -
jcarman6＠q.com -
stormcrow60＠xmission.com