Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

[DRumsfeld2000]

Very interesting and worth looking at:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phCibwj396I

[doom&gloom]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

watched boht. scary...

[World Traveler]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

The segments where homeowners who use well water in fracking areas...held lighters to running faucet water...which caused the water to explode in flame...incredible.


After watching Gasland, I wouldn't want ANY fracking near my water source. From what I've read a lot of the problem is due to careless fracking operators who have no legal liability for the damage they've caused...per a law pushed in 2005 by the Bush Administration and its oil/ gas industry friends.

[davidstvz]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

I saw the end of this on HBO a couple weeks ago. Fracking operations really reek of desperation. At some point you have to wonder if we wouldn't be better off just scaling back our standard of living a bit.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

The American way of life is NOT negotiable. Didn't you get the memo?

[don]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

The American way of life is NOT negotiable. Didn't you get the memo?

or the meme . . .

[DRumsfeld2000]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

Some more information on fracking. Maybe those who say that it poisons underground water have a real point.

http://blog.skytruth.org/

[c1ue]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

Point of order:

Fracking is done to free up hydrocarbons deep below the ground. The reasons these hydrocarbons are there are because they have been trapped by some sort of geological formation above them - otherwise they would have escaped before then.

Water levels are above the hydrocarbons, they sit there for similar but opposite reasons: many of the same geological formations which trap hydrocarbons below them support the water table above them.

So how exactly do fracking chemicals get into the water supply?

I'm not saying it cannot happen, but there needs to be some sort of at least remotely plausible mechanism. If the fracking fluids were dumped onto the surface, that would be one way. But in the ground, how does this fluid migrate through the geological barrier into the water supply?

[Shakespear]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

So how exactly do fracking chemicals get into the water supply?

Because when you initiate a fracture underground it is not as ideal as they would have appear in a simulation. On top of this we do not exactly know if theory is practice, so we are blind as to what is the end result of a frac operation (in a vertical communication perspective).

[tmicou]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

I am not posing an opinion here one way or another on whether fracking is good or bad, but I do think it's important to see both sides of the story. Here is a short 3 minute video showing that the water was reported to light on fire well before fracking ever started.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9CfUm0QeOk

[c1ue]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

Because when you initiate a fracture underground it is not as ideal as they would have appear in a simulation. On top of this we do not exactly know if theory is practice, so we are blind as to what is the end result of a frac operation (in a vertical communication perspective).

The fracking isn't of the geologic barrier layer. If that did happen, there'd be all sorts of measurable effects like the water table dropping. And while that certainly is possible, every example I've seen is where natural gas is showing up not the fracking chemicals themselves. This seems more than a little suspicious; if the fracking is in fact breaking the geologic barrier, then you'd think both would be present.

Thus while I fully agree that reality cannot be as neat as either a theoretical construct or the narrative being put forward by the fracking industry, at the same time it is inconsistent to not apply the same skeptical analysis of the claims being put forward by the anti-fracking crowd.

[DRumsfeld2000]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

Some more on fracking:-

http://www.forbes.com/sites/christop...up-regulation/

[don]

Re: Gas fracking:Gasland the movie

'enjoy' it while you can, pal . . .

In Tiny Bean, India’s Dirt-Poor Farmers Strike Gas-Drilling Gold

By GARDINER HARRIS

LORDI, India — Sohan Singh’s shoeless children have spent most of their lives hungry, dirty and hot. A farmer in a desert land, Mr. Singh could not afford anything better than a mud hut and a barely adequate diet for his family.

But it just so happens that when the hard little bean that Mr. Singh grows is ground up, it becomes an essential ingredient for mining oil and natural gas in a process called hydraulic fracturing.

Halfway around the world, earnings are down for an oil services giant, Halliburton, because prices have risen for guar, the bean that Mr. Singh and his fellow farmers raise.

Halliburton’s loss was, in a rather significant way, Mr. Singh’s gain — a rare victory for the littlest of the little guys in global trade. The increase in guar prices is helping to transform this part of the state of Rajasthan in northwestern India, one of the world’s poorest places. Tractor sales are soaring, land prices are increasing and weddings have grown even more colorful.

“Now we have enough food, and we have a house made of stone,” Mr. Singh said proudly while his rail-thin children stared in awe.
Guar, a modest bean so hard that it can crack teeth, has become an unlikely global player, and dirt-poor farmers like Mr. Singh have suddenly become a crucial link in the energy production of the United States.

For centuries, farmers here used guar to feed their families and their cattle. There are better sources of nutrition, but few that grow in the Rajasthani desert, a land rich in culture but poor in rain. Broader commercial interest in guar first developed when food companies found that it absorbs water like a souped-up cornstarch, and a powdered form of the bean is now widely used to thicken ice cream and keep pastries crisp.

But much more important to farmers here was the recent discovery that guar could stiffen water so much that a mixture is able to carry sand sideways into wells drilled by horizontal fracturing, also known as fracking.

The fracking boom in the United States has led to a surge in natural gas production, a decline in oil imports and a gradual transition away from coal-fired power plants. Fracking may also have spoiled some rural water supplies and caused environmental damage in parts of the United States, but it is hard to find anyone in Rajasthan who sees fracking as anything but a blessing.

“Without guar, you cannot have fracturing fluids,” said Michael J. Economides, a professor of engineering at the University of Houston who is a fracking expert. “And what everybody is worried about is that there is virtually no guar out there now.”

India produces about 85 percent of the world’s guar. As worries rose about the prospects for this year’s monsoon, which is vital for an adequate crop, speculation over guar production built to a frenzy. Trading in guar futures was even suspended, and with the monsoon still behind schedule, it remains postponed. Ramesh Abhishek, India’s chief commodities market regulator, said guar trading would resume when supplies proved adequate.

“If the physical market doesn’t provide enough supplies, then the futures market causes more harm than good,” Mr. Abhishek said.
Now, an international effort is under way to ensure that guar supplies come closer to meeting the soaring demand, and hundreds of thousands of small farmers here have been recruited in the effort. Leading the way is Vikas WSP, an Indian company that specializes in the production of guar powders.

Many farmers sold their seed stock last year when prices shot up, so Vikas has held rallies in small towns to pass out free seeds, including new high-production hybrids. The company persuaded farmers with irrigated land in the state of Punjab, north of Rajasthan, to plant guar in the spring instead of cotton. That crop is now coming to market.

And Vikas signed contracts with farmers guaranteeing a return of nearly $800 per acre if they planted guar, no matter what this year’s monsoon brought.

“Whatever they produce, we will buy,” said Sanjay Pareek, a Vikas vice president.

Anticipating a heavy crop, Vikas is more than doubling its processing capacity by building two new plants in Jodhpur, the second-largest city in Rajasthan. By next year, the company will be able to produce 86,400 tons of guar powder each day, it said. Smaller producers are taking similar steps.

“Last year was an extraordinary year,” said S. K. Sharma, managing director of Lotus Gums and Chemicals in Jodhpur. “In 35 years in this business, I’ve never seen that.”

Mr. Sharma said his company would soon open a second plant dedicated entirely to serving gas companies, adding that he was cautiously optimistic that guar prices would remain robust. “But we know there are efforts to grow guar in China, Australia, California and elsewhere, and it has us worried,” he said.

Despite the expanding supply, many analysts believe that guar prices will remain high for the foreseeable future. Neil Beveridge, an oil analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, said demand for fracking services should continue to grow rapidly as the industry expanded outside North America. “We’re already starting to see a big increase in Eastern Europe, Argentina, Australia, China and India itself,” he said.

Susan L. Sakmar, an energy analyst in San Francisco, cautioned that the fracking boom could slow and that guar alternatives could be developed. But Mr. Economides, the Houston fracking expert, dismissed such talk. “There are no easy or cheap alternatives to guar,” he said.

That is good news for guar producers. Farmers, traders and processors around Jodhpur admitted fulfilling some long-held dreams with the profits they made last year. Some took trips to Europe; some bought gold; others got married.

At a Massey Ferguson tractor dealership in Jodhpur, where sales have doubled in recent years, Nathu Parjapat of Haripura was buying a tractor for his father-in-law, whose own profits from farming guar allowed him to provide a dowry of 12 grams of gold and half a kilogram of silver when Mr. Parjapat married his daughter.

“So now I’m buying a tractor for him,” Mr. Parjapat said as his father-in-law stood next to him, nodding with grave approval.
Mr. Singh, the farmer with the new house, said he would plant his entire field with guar this year instead of spreading his risk among other crops. His family is able to sleep on the stone roof, where a constant breeze keeps them cool. His old mud house, now occupied by goats, has a roof made of sticks that did not allow such a luxury.

Mr. Singh’s sister, Issa Rathore, showed off a silver ankle bracelet and a toe ring, both bought with guar profits. But her smile quickly vanished when she was asked whether she expected a similar windfall in the coming months. She glanced at the sky, and the children around her grew hushed. “Will the monsoon be enough this year?” she asked. “Who knows?”

Sruthi Gottipati contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/wo...pagewanted=all