• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Hydraulic Fracturing

Democrat152

Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2013
Messages
238
Reaction score
41
Location
Kentucky
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Liberal
Personally, I think Natural Gas is much worse than traditional fossil fuels. It may be cleaner to burn, but it is extremely harmful to the environment during extraction. It would be better to keep using Oil and Coal as we switch to Renewable Energy. Now...Who wants to be the first to disagree with me? :)
 
Personally, I think Natural Gas is much worse than traditional fossil fuels. It may be cleaner to burn, but it is extremely harmful to the environment during extraction. It would be better to keep using Oil and Coal as we switch to Renewable Energy. Now...Who wants to be the first to disagree with me? :)



Do you have a link to the damaging effects of Fracturing? Please avoid the enviro whacko blogs for this.
 
Personally, I think Natural Gas is much worse than traditional fossil fuels. It may be cleaner to burn, but it is extremely harmful to the environment during extraction. It would be better to keep using Oil and Coal as we switch to Renewable Energy. Now...Who wants to be the first to disagree with me? :)


I've never really tried to find any information on this before, but here is an article that does not support your thesis.

<snip>
Drilling fluids tagged with unique markers were injected more than 8,000 feet below the surface at the gas well bore but weren't detected in a monitoring zone at a depth of 5,000 feet.

The researchers also tracked the maximum extent of the manmade fractures, and all were at least 6,000 feet below the surface.

That means the potentially dangerous substances stayed about a mile away from surface drinking water supplies, which usually are at depths of less than 500 feet.

“This is good news,” said Duke University scientist Rob Jackson, who wasn't involved with the study.
<snip>

Study indicates fracking doesn't taint aquifers - San Antonio Express-News
 
Personally, I think Natural Gas is much worse than traditional fossil fuels. It may be cleaner to burn, but it is extremely harmful to the environment during extraction. It would be better to keep using Oil and Coal as we switch to Renewable Energy. Now...Who wants to be the first to disagree with me? :)

i live in a former gas boom town that went bust about 15 years in. i bet we're a prime target for fracking. i'm not big on it, because breaking up all the bedrock and messing up the groundwater isn't good. some people have methane coming through their tap to the point where you can set the water on fire. seems like a poor solution.

i'd rather see nuclear and renewables than fracking.
 
Personally, I think Natural Gas is much worse than traditional fossil fuels. It may be cleaner to burn, but it is extremely harmful to the environment during extraction. It would be better to keep using Oil and Coal as we switch to Renewable Energy. Now...Who wants to be the first to disagree with me? :)

I think just about anyone with any common sense will want to disagree with you since there is no evidence at all that the extraction of natural gas harms the environment. The real problem for eco-activists is that natural gas is so clean and is becoming so cheap that it threatens to erase renewables from the market. Any projected transition to renewables requires high prices for fossil fuels to be economically feasible. Without that, renewables are dead for at least 100 years. Good for America, bad for the eco-activist agenda. They're sort of like Puritans, wanting us to suffer for redemption. Not buying.:peace:mrgreen:
 
i live in a former gas boom town that went bust about 15 years in. i bet we're a prime target for fracking. i'm not big on it, because breaking up all the bedrock and messing up the groundwater isn't good. some people have methane coming through their tap to the point where you can set the water on fire. seems like a poor solution.

i'd rather see nuclear and renewables than fracking.

Methane in the tap has nothing to do with fracking.:mrgreen:
 


The methane turned out to have nothing to do with the fracking. The real problem with fracking isn't what they put in the ground because it's so far below the aquifers that it's irrelevant. The real problem is that the solutions can be spilled during transport and/or not disposed of properly. But that's not a natural product of fracking. I understand why people who don't know anything about fracking, geology and aquifers could get all freaked out, but there's no real explanation why people who know something about those things would get freaked out. This is merely fear of the unknown combined with a deep distrust of industry, in general (whether warranted or not).
 
Blah blah blah. All of which are mere delivery systems for innuendo. Suitable only as sermons to the already-converted. There's not a dime's worth of causation in the whole lot.:lamo:lamo

you read fast.

anyway, have a good one. dismissing every peer reviewed study outright without reading any of them after claiming that there have been no peer reviewed studies is not the foundation of a fruitful debate.
 
you read fast.

anyway, have a good one. dismissing every peer reviewed study outright without reading any of them after claiming that there have been no peer reviewed studies is not the foundation of a fruitful debate.

You would be surprised (shocked, actually) how many I had read before this exchange. I dismissed them because I knew them, not because I had never seen them. They're trash.:mrgreen:
 
It doesn't always turn out that way, though ...

EPA releases results of Wyoming water well testing - CNN.com


Personally, I wish the idiots that aren't doing this correctly would stop their cheap-skate practices. It makes the whole industry look bad when it really isn't. I do agree we need to make sure the spoils are well treated, some of that fracking fluid is nasty stuff, but again that's the cheap-skates messing it up for the rest of the industry. :(
 
It doesn't always turn out that way, though ...

EPA releases results of Wyoming water well testing - CNN.com



Personally, I wish the idiots that aren't doing this correctly would stop their cheap-skate practices. It makes the whole industry look bad when it really isn't. I do agree we need to make sure the spoils are well treated, some of that fracking fluid is nasty stuff, but again that's the cheap-skates messing it up for the rest of the industry. :(

From 2010, and reached no conclusion as to source.
 
From 2010, and reached no conclusion as to source.
Are YOUR search skills inadequate? All I needed was "epa wyoming water 2010" to get this:

News Releases from Region 8
EPA releases results of Pavillion, Wyo. water well testing

09/01/2010: EPA releases results of Pavillion, Wyo. water well testing


But like I said, it's most likely someone being a cheap ass instead of doing it right. There's nothing inherently safe about any kind of mining. It's all a matter of how conscientious the company is at following good industry practices.
 
Last edited:
Are YOUR search skills inadequate? All I needed was "epa wyoming water 2010" to get this:

News Releases from Region 8
EPA releases results of Pavillion, Wyo. water well testing

09/01/2010: EPA releases results of Pavillion, Wyo. water well testing


But like I said, it's most likely someone being a cheap ass instead of doing it right. There's nothing inherently safe about any kind of mining. It's all a matter of how conscientious the company is at following good industry practices.

Nothing about the source of contamination.
 
Fracking isn't subject to Clean Water Act. That alone makes me distrust it.

If it doesn't hurt the water - put it under the act.

I think it will have long-term consequences if it isn't regulated more. What in the stuff they are using to frack? And what about the earthquakes? looks like there is some connection to the reinjection of waste stuff and earthquakes.
USGS Study Connects Earthquake Risk To Wastewater Injection, Fracking Advocates Say, "Who Cares?" | DeSmogBlog

Fracking and energy exploration connected to earthquakes, say studies - NBC News.com

So not really excited about it here in California.

May be places where it's ok to do it; but put it under the Clean Water Act, put regulations around what can be used in the fracking liquid and around where the wastewater goes.

Or we can just let oil companies ruin another piece of our environment and try to clean it up later.
 
i live in a former gas boom town that went bust about 15 years in. i bet we're a prime target for fracking. i'm not big on it, because breaking up all the bedrock and messing up the groundwater isn't good. some people have methane coming through their tap to the point where you can set the water on fire. seems like a poor solution.

i'd rather see nuclear and renewables than fracking.



To be clear, you are saying that the methane is coming through the taps today and no fracking has been conducted in your area to date?
 
To be clear, you are saying that the methane is coming through the taps today and no fracking has been conducted in your area to date?

no. no fracking has been done here, and no flammable water is coming from my tap.

i don't really have a problem with natural gas, but i don't think it's the panacea that T Boone wants it to be. it makes good heat, and we should use it to keep heating a cheap as possible. for electricity and transportation, though, we should use something else.
 
Fracking isn't subject to Clean Water Act. That alone makes me distrust it.

If it doesn't hurt the water - put it under the act.

I think it will have long-term consequences if it isn't regulated more. What in the stuff they are using to frack? And what about the earthquakes? looks like there is some connection to the reinjection of waste stuff and earthquakes.
USGS Study Connects Earthquake Risk To Wastewater Injection, Fracking Advocates Say, "Who Cares?" | DeSmogBlog

Fracking and energy exploration connected to earthquakes, say studies - NBC News.com

So not really excited about it here in California.

May be places where it's ok to do it; but put it under the Clean Water Act, put regulations around what can be used in the fracking liquid and around where the wastewater goes.

Or we can just let oil companies ruin another piece of our environment and try to clean it up later.




Your link says that the possiblity of this triggering a quake are extremely small:


<snip>
Most of the earthquakes at the Salton Sea geothermal field are tiny, but there is "a very small probability, extremely small but nonzero probability, of triggering the 'big one'" on the San Andreas fault, Emily Brodsky, a geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told NBC News.

The papers "continue the dialogue on induced seismicity, which is great," Julie Shemeta, founder and president of MEQ Geo, a consulting firm on seismic hazards with various clients in the petroleum industry, told NBC News. But, she added, "I don't think this is a huge red light."

Shemeta was a member of a Natural Research Council committee that issued a report in 2012 finding that the practice of fracking poses scant risk of triggering damaging earthquakes, but called for further research into the issue.
<snip>
 
no. no fracking has been done here, and no flammable water is coming from my tap.

i don't really have a problem with natural gas, but i don't think it's the panacea that T Boone wants it to be. it makes good heat, and we should use it to keep heating a cheap as possible. for electricity and transportation, though, we should use something else.

Why? ........
 
Back
Top Bottom