No direct connection has been found between hydraulic fracturing and reports of groundwater contamination, according to a study released Thursday by the Energy Institute at The University of Texas of Austin.
Never fear. They’ll keep studying until they get it right.
This would only be important if liberals were at all swayed by facts.
Natural gas is not toxic, though it explodes when mixed with air. In Edmonton when I lived there in the `50s, and in Ottawa in the `60s, there was always a little, very little, of it around. It was not a problem in any way, least of all for soil.
Noone ever thought that fracking was harmful until various liberals came along.
I do wish the Americans would get on with their civil war. There will be no true peace until it is over.
The only good green is a dead green.
The greenies will never believe it, just like we believe nothing they embrace. Trench warfare in a modern setting. If we keep bombarding them with logic and rational thinking, I think they will surrender eventually. They have run out of reinforcements and General Gore is desperately trying to draft school children to fill the depleted ranks. General Suzuki is down to looking for a new home for Santa as the ice and snow will melt rapidly…..but the kids aren’t buying it because they learned that the North pole has had the heaviest snow fall and coldest weather in decades. His fallback position of dwindeling Polar Bears has been decimated in learning that they are breeding like flies. Their greatest weapons of taxing carbon, windmills, solar panels and bio fuels have been ineffective in steming attacks by pis*ed off taxpayers who know they are freezing their as*es off when they should be vacationing on the sunny beaches of New Jersey in Feb. by now. The darkest hour will pass, we will fight them on the beaches, we will fight them on the land, if god wills it we will have the troops home by December. We will NEVER SURRENDER.
Damn……one more glass of wine and I’ve got the start of a fine novel.
It isn’t unheard of in Alberta for farmers to have to dig a new water well when there’s drilling and fracking in the area. Not for natural gas necessarily, but the aquifers get disturbed and the wells silt-in…quite likely by the time you figure it out your pump is seized and your washing machine may be mudded up too.
The companies don’t like to cover those expenses, so, they probably have the study right already.
I like the oil patch and am not protesting, but as in every relationship there are realities.
@Peterj
I agree with the facts as you present them, but the watermelons do not concede so readily. If we read a newspaper, watch the tube or read a blog, the same old and discredited talking points are trotted out as fact.
We may be winning the battles but we appear to be losing the war.
@Leslie
Fraccing wells are several thousand feet deep, with multiple steel casings to separate surface water from groundwater and both from fraccing fluids and gas. Find me a local farmer with a water well two thousand feet deep and I may change my mind about the likelihood of fraccing silting up his well.
Most likely the farmer’s well wasn’t cased properly and was surface contaminated, or it was shallow enough to be effectively surface water in a dugout, or if the well was just set in a dirty aquifer. But however it happened, it didn’t silt up because of fraccing.
@ Doc at February 25, 2012 11:33 PM
The battle rages and our biggest opponent is the CBC and the nest of brainwashed lefties. If Harper cuts their funding it would be a great step in the right direction. At over a billion a year they could definately use some trimming.
“Energy Institute at The University of Texas of Austin.”
OhOh. There goes any grants for them.
Leslie. The facts are that fracking is done at least 3 THOUSAND feet BELOW the deepest aquaifer. There has never been a documented case of the procedure screwing up any well/aquaifer.And fracking has been going on for at least 30 years.It’s just that know the eco-cultists are trying to use ANY excuse to support their cAGW/anti conventional energy scam.
American regulations on casing and frack fluid disposal are extremely lax compared to those in Canada. Much more common to see contamination in the States. Hopefully Obama bans fracking when he wins in November, we will see the demand for Canadian gas skyrocket.
Doc
You beat me to it. They can’t comprehend that fracking happens 1000 meters minimum UNDER a known aquafier. But hey science is HHAARRDD.
D
1,000 ft of earth prevents water seepage?? Next thing you’ll be telling me is that fire melts steel.
Hey (insert fat ugly troll b1tch crack here)
Learn the difference B/W Meters and Feet.
1 meter = 3.2808399 feet (3 feet 3⅜ inches
Learn 2 Metric, already.
They have been fracking gas wells in Texas for many, many, years, and there is not one water well contamination that I have ever heard of.
The post’s last line sums it up nicely, “They’ll keep studying until they get it right.” It was the first thing I thought of while reading the post. Scientific evidence showing the greenies are flat out wrong will always be met with “there need to be further studies”; pseudoscience supporting the greenies’ position is always presented as, “there is overwhelming evidence” and “the science is settled”.
So in summary, one’s greenspeak decoder ring tells one, “There need to be further studies” = The greenies are full of s#!t. “There is overwhelming evidence” and “The science is settled.” = The greenies are full of s#!t.
Its nice that we have evidence that fraccing is safe, but really it doesn’t matter. Its the same as the gun issue, the global warming issue, the immigration issue, and the tax issue.
Lefties are never going to allow you to confuse the issue with facts. The issue is they are good, loving and nice, and they know best. We are mean, hateful and bad, and the cold hard facts is all we have to keep us warm at night.
So you can see how the FACT that fraccing is safe doesn’t really impinge on the matter.
A boot to the side of the head, now that could be construed as some impingement.
Dwight,
I think you missed the sarcasm in the Rosie post….
Once CAGW (a four letter word) has been exposed to be the hoax it is, what is the next fraud the left will perpetuate on the lemmings?
P.S “It’s not easy being green.”
Kermit the frog
Theres a shallow natural gas zone around Vauxhall Ab. ,the milk river zone ,if I remember correctly where the natural gas actually pushes the water up to the surface , once you drill into it . No fracking required . It stank like sulphur and was kind of a blackish color . We used a hydrill in later years to prevent this in later years but I hated working there . The lease would flood in a couple of days and the engineers kept trying to figure out various idiotic ideas to keep their $300.00 lizard skin cowboy boots dry
There has never been a documented case of the procedure screwing up any well/aquaifer.
Yeah, there’s no such procedure as a remedial cement job. Tell us another one.
There are leaking wells right now in Calmar, AB. Of course, no one is to blame, they were abandoned years ago. Didn’t even show on the titles.
When there are problems, it should be admitted, and fixed.
Posted by: Stephen at February 26, 2012 9:31 AM
Agreed, that might of flown over my head. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m not young enough to go 30 hrs with no sleep without getting punchy.
d
Didn’t they get the memo: Hide the decline!
3000 ft under the aquifer magically managing to avoid any wiggling it on the way by from Point A through to Point B. Call me a greenie if you want. I’m not. A new well is a new well and the farmers drill again with little complaint. Like I said – realities.
I have had my well tested 3 times in 10 years by oil industry contractors at their expense, in order to verify its capacity prior to their doing work in the surrounding area. Seismic and coal-bed methane drilling, in this instance.
Testing the well beforehand protects both me and the oil operator. If the well does suffer any damage as a result of nearby work, we have a baseline with which to compare. And it’s always tested at 2 GPM, which isn’t much. Maybe I should have it fraced?
One question that always comes to mind when people imagine some sort of communication between the surface and oil/gas reservoirs hundreds or thousands of meters deep: why hasn’t it all leaked out over the course of the 65+ million years since it was emplaced there, given that water is denser than either oil or gas, and would flow down that conduit by force of gravity and displace the hydrocarbons which would then float upwards?
Natural oil and gas seeps do exist, mainly where you have recent active faulting. If you ever go to Los Angeles, a visit to the La Brea tar pits is well worth the few hours it takes to “do” the museum. Interesting to note, also, just how small the area of the seep is, and it has been active for several million years.
I was asked about the horrors of frac’ing by someone from Washington DC last year on vacation. I said nothing would give me more pleasure than to be able to take a frac out 3000 ft. up down or sideways. but it just cant be done.
fracs that end up in waterwells are due to mechanical pipe failures .
ps. my own personal frac record is 3900 meters MD. 6000tonnes and 15000m3 20 stages
did not come to surface or the aquafer
ps. my own personal frac record is 3900 meters MD. 6000tonnes and 15000m3 20 stages
did not come to surface or the aquafer