Fracking for ‘tight oil’..huge toxic boom in US.

note. posts on ‘NH3 the CO2-Free fuel’ now have their own blog HERE.. http://co2freefuelexistsnow.wordpress.com/

 

Fracking for gas is declinng in the US, not because of permamently poisoning the groundwater, they couldnt give a shit, but because the gas price has fallen through the floor.

Fracking for oil is the new craze, and over 20,000 wells have already  been drilled.

The reserves of this ‘tight oil‘ are gigantic, peak oil theory has been proved wrong for now, as the US is set to raise its production to 8 million barrels a day  in 2 years(but they consume 19m barrels a day).

Far from declining there’s enough oil available to skyroclet CO2

levela and fry us all, leaving the planet as sterile as Venus.

” We were wrong about peak oil: there’s enough in the ground to deep-fry the planet.”

See George Monbiot‘s  article here http://www.monbiot.com/2012/07/02/false-summit/

The fact that local and national politicians are ‘bought and paid for’ by the obscenely predatory world criminal US corporations make any significant resistance unlikely, and to be heavily repressed.

In Europe however the reserves , even for gas, look limited, would cost a huge battle to exploit, and would hardly dent the problem of plummeting gas reserves and growing consumption. Here we  may have a good chance of saving the environment at least from this toxic curse.

here’s an extract from the National Geographic article

Roaring early success has led to outsize projections that shale oil, also known as “tight oil,” that could boost U.S. production significantly over the coming decades. “There’s potential for it to be a game changer,” says Hill Vaden, an energy analyst at the consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

But he cautions, “It’s still in its early days, and there are a lot of questions.”

(Related: “Methane on Tap: Study Links Pollution to Gas Drilling” and “New Brunswick Seeks Natural Gas, and a Safer Way“)

Enthusiasm is spurred by production in another shale formation, the Bakken, which lies under North Dakota and Montana and stretches into Canada. Oil production in the U.S. portion of the Bakken went from 3,000 barrels a day in 2005 to about 400,000 now. The Bakken contains about 3.6 billion barrels of recoverable oil, making it the largest U.S. oil play since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska was identified in the 1960s, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates.

Last year, U.S. oil production reached its highest level since 2004, about 5.5 million barrels per day, with North Dakota the state posting the largest increase in oil output.

North America’s oil resources are “proving to be much larger than previously thought,” thanks in part to shale oil, said a report this month from the U.S. National Petroleum Council (NPC)

,……..ETC

The boom has allowed the state to boost spending while enacting a $500 million tax cut for North Dakota residents, and officials predict another 20,000 wells over the next 20 years.Similar success descended on the Eagle Ford shale in southern Texas, along a basin that stretches more than 300 miles (480 kilometers) from the Mexico border south of San Antonio to ortheast of Austin. Companies there are drilling some 3,000 wells, and analysts forecast production could reach 400,000 http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2011/09/110928-shale-oil-boom-colorado-great-plains/n

barrels per day in a few years. Double-digit unemployment is history in the region, and county governments find themselves flush with new revenue…ETC

See the shocking  move HERE     Gasland

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Environmental Impacts of Fracking for gas.

An unavoidable impact of shale gasand tight oil extraction is a high land occupation due to drilling pads, parking and manouvering areas for trucks, equipment, gas processing and transporting facilities as well as access roads.

Major possible impacts are air emissions of pollutants, groundwater contamination due to uncontrolled gas or fluid flows due to blowouts or spills, leaking fracturing fluid, and uncontrolled waste water discharge. Fracturing fluids contain hazardous substances, and flow-back in addition contains heavy metals and radioactive materials from the deposit. Experience from the USA shows that many accidents happen, which can be harmful to the environment and to human health. The recorded violations of legal requirements amount to about 1-2 percent of all drilling permits. Many of these accidents are due to improper handling or leaking equipment.

Furthermore, groundwater contamination by methane, in extreme cases leading to explosion of residential buildings, and potassium chloride leading to salinization of drinking water is reported in the vicinity of gas wells. The impacts add up as shale formations are developed with a high well density of up to six well pads per km². GHG Emissions Fugitive Methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing processes can have a huge impact on the greenhouse gas balance. Existing assessments give a range of 18 to 23 g CO2- equivalent per MJ from the development and production of unconventional natural gas. The emissions due to methane intrusion of aquifers are not yet assessed. However, project specific emissions might vary up to a factor of ten, depending on the methane production of the well. Depending on several factors, greenhouse gas emissions of shale gas relative to its energy content are as low as those of conventional gas transported over long distances or as high as those of hard coal over the entire life cycle from extraction to combustion.

Wikipedia

Related articles

• “Largest Fracking Companies Cashing in on New Oil Drilling Technology,” Says AbsoluteWealth.com Article (prweb.com)
• How Fracking Feeds Tar Sands Production (ecowatch.org)
• North Dakota: riding the oil rush (guardian.co.uk)
• We were wrong on peak oil. There’s enough to fry us all | George Monbiot (guardian.co.uk)
• Treehugger, Monbiot and Is Peak Oil Over? [Casaubon’s Book] (scienceblogs.com)
• The Guardian Is Ignoring The Critical Paradox Of Peak Oil (businessinsider.com)
• Meet The Oil Shale Eighty Times Bigger Than The Bakken (forbes.com)
• Exxon SpurtsTo $94 Aided By Fracking In Siberia (seekingalpha.com)

Meanwhile cheaper non toxic ‘green petrol’ has incredibly existed all along  see the blog HERE  http://co2freefuelexistsnow.wordpress.com/Benefits of Green NH3  (ammonia) over other fuels

• costs less and zero emissions,

• no CO2, helps reverse global warming

• no air pollution.. saves 2.4 million air pollution deaths a year, plus all the painful, degrading suffering, wilfully caused by the oil companies with zero compensation

• no need to transport fuel (used where it is made)

• less traffic congestion and fuel tanker accidents.

• less need for oil wars ( oil is now not worth the fight )

• less chance of “oil” terrorism ( harder to attack a million wide spread green fuel machines than one or two oil refineries.)   ETC

• no pollution from oil/gas extraction

• can be made on the spot with air, water and cheap renewable energy