Recent Fracking News
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:48AM Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:42AM
Reuters) - With mounting evidence linking hundreds of small earthquakes from Oklahoma to Ohio to the energy industry's growing use of fracking technology, scientists say there is one way to minimize risks of even minor temblors.
Only, it costs about $10 million a pop.
A thorough seismic survey to assess tracts of rock below where oil and gas drilling fluid is disposed of could help detect quake prone areas.
But that would be far more costly than the traditional method of drilling a bore hole, which takes a limited sample of a rock formation but gives no hint of faults lines or plates.
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:38AM PITTSBURGH — One of the government's top scientists says much more research is needed to determine the possible impacts of shale gas drilling on human health and the environment.
"Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as through air, water, soil, plants and animals," Dr. Christopher Portier wrote to The Associated Press in an email.
Portier is director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
WSJ.com
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:23AM According to Kasich’s logic there’s no reason to slow down on the expansion of fracking since the fracking process and fracking wells are completely safe, it’s only the millions of gallons of toxic waste the process produces that’s a problem. So hey, full speed ahead!
Gas and Oil industry groups, not surprisingly, are pushing the exact same story. And they’ve formed a new group to help promote their message, hiring a Kasich ally to lead the effort.
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:15AM Today, the American Petroleum Institute unveiled its 2012 Vote 4 Energy astroturf campaign, centered around a major election-linked CNN advertising package that PolluterWatch helped expose last month with audio recordings from inside the studio.Vote 4 Energy attempts to show 'real Americans' who are 'energy voters,' meaning they are committing to vote for whichever politicians support Big Oil's dirty agenda in this election year. Typical. API also bought the back page of the A section of the Washington Post with a Vote 4 Energy ad, space that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to normal people.
Anticipating this new misinformation campaign, PolluterWatch created a mock commercial to show how API and it's oil company members (Exxon, BP, Shell, Chevron and all the usual suspects) have to fake citizen support for the oil industry:
http://www.polluterwatch.com/blog/mock-commercial-undermines-new-vote-4-energy-oil-advertisement
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is Big Oil's top lobbying firm, using a $200 million budget to push dirty energy incentives and tax handouts for oil companies into our national laws. They have been caught in the past staging rallies for their Energy Citizens astroturf campaign, as revealed by Greenpeace in a confidential API memo to oil executives. Why do they fake citizen support? Probably because Americans overwhelmingly support clean energy over dirty oil development.
Knowing that API is rolling out the astroturf on cable TV, we decided to roll out actual astroturf at the location of their press conference today, literally making attendees walk down a long astroturf 'green carpet' shrouded by Big Oil logos as they entered the event. The K St lobbyists seemed downright confused by seeing the corporate logos that are normally invisible at API events.
Inside, API CEO Jack Gerard announced the campaign and promoted dirty energy development like the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in his "State of American Energy" address. Apparently Jack thinks he's the President of United States of Energy, I thought he was just an oil lobbyist. Reporters leaving the session spoke about how bogus the event was--same old same old from Jack.
Jack Gerard may want to trick Americans into his Vote 4 Energy nonsense, but he demonstrates the same predictable rhetoric that oil companies always use to make themselves sound somewhat responsible, when everyone knows they aren't--see our profiles for ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips, all multi-billion dollar corporations, making record profits even in a global recession, and looking for more tax breaks and handouts. If you are watching election coverage on CNN and spot API's astroturf ad, don't buy the lie. Vote for yourself, not oil executives.
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:09AM Ohio EPA is asking for comments on their proposed “Draft General Permit for Shale Gas Exploration Surface Water Impacts.” Ohio EPA Seeks Public Comments on Draft General Permit For Wetland and Stream Impacts at Shale Gas Well Sites
Comment period ends Jan. 13th, 2012
http://www.epa.ohio.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=II_clMQeDlU%3d&tabid=5024
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:06AM CLEVELAND (AP) — A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drillingalmost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said Monday.
Research is continuing on the now-shuttered injection well at Youngstown and seismic activity, but it might take a year for the wastewater-related rumblings in the earth to dissipate, said John Armbruster of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.
