tagged w/ shale gas
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Why is North Carolina not yet a site for drilling rigs, mud and service companies? Why is there shale gas exploration and production in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and on different rock formations in Arkansas, Texas and in the Rocky Mountains?
The answer is political.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/03/21/1947986/potential-bounty-for-north-carolina.html#storylink=cpyWhy is North Carolina not yet a site for drilling rigs, mud and service companies? Why... more
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Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina's approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation's Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here: http://www.johnlocke.org/events/videos.html
Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses "Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina."
http://youtu.be/4Lbn9diK1PADr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North... more
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Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina's approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation's Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here: http://www.johnlocke.org/events/videos.htmlDr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North... more
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Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina's approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation's Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here: http://www.johnlocke.org/events/videos.html
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*Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North... more
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Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North Carolina's approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Fine offered these comments during a Feb. 27, 2012, presentation to the John Locke Foundation's Shafesbury Society. Video courtesy of CarolinaJournal.tv. Watch full-length video of JLF events here:
Daniel Fine discusses North Carolina's approach to shale gas and hydraulic fracturing (two minutes)---
http://youtu.be/4Lbn9diK1PA
The full one hour video can be seen here-->"North Carolina?s approach to natural gas fracking" ---> http://lockerroom.johnlocke.org/2012/02/27/no...
Dr. Daniel I. Fine works with the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy. He is a longtime research associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT. Fine is also a policy adviser on nonconventional oil and gas. He is co-editor of Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week, the Engineering and Mining Journal and the Washington Times. Fine has testified on strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate committees on Foreign Affairs and Energy and Natural Resources. In this speech, he discusses "Shale Gas Wars: From Pennsylvania to North Carolina."Dr. Daniel Fine of the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy discusses North... more
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The United States is a country that has received many blessings, and once upon a time you could assume that Americans would come together to take advantage of them. But you can no longer make that assumption. The country is more divided and more clogged by special interests. Now we groan to absorb even the most wondrous gifts.
http://goo.gl/mJ1xXThe United States is a country that has received many blessings, and once upon a time... more
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A report commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla has found it ‘highly probable’ that shale gas drilling was the cause of earth tremors in Lancashire.
The quakes, which took place in May 2011, were put down to an ‘unusual combination of geology at the well site,’ according to the report, though Cuadrilla claim that the conditions leading to the tremors were ‘unlikely to happen again.’
Cuadrilla’s test drilling was suspended in June while the cause of the quakes was under investigation, though the industry denies that hydraulic fracturing – also known as fracking – is a safe source of energy production.
The report is published as protests continue against fracking in the UK. Demonstrators from Frack Off have climbed a rig in Hesketh Bank near Southport to show their opposition to the controversial practice.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-15550458A report commissioned by energy firm Cuadrilla has found it ‘highly... more
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INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM
Fletcher School Tufts University
Dr. Daniel I. FineResearch AssociateMining and Minerals Resources Institute, MIT
LUNCHEON LECTURETUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 201111:00AM – 1:00PMCABOT 703
“Shale Gas War: The Geopolitics of U.S.Self-Sufficiency”
Dr. Daniel Fine
is a Research Associate at the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute,MIT. Dr. Fine is also a current Policy Adviser on Non-Conventional Oil and Gas. He isco-editor of
Resource War in 3-D: Dependence, Diplomacy and Defense, and has contributed to Business Week , the Engineering and Mining Journal and theWashingtonTimes
. Dr. Fine participated in the Atlantic Council Workshop on Central Asian Policyand the Hudson Institute Russia-United States Relations Project. He has given testimonyon strategic natural resources before the U.S. Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs andthe Energy and Natural Resources. Dr. Fine was a member of the Domestic EnergyProduction Issue Team of the Center For The Study Of The Presidency and Congress“Strengthening America’s Future Initiative.” He has participated as a panelist on energy public policy at the Rocky Mountain Global New Energy Summit.
Register to attend this event at
http://www.danielfine.eventbrite.com
Business Casual Attire Required
http://www.scribd.com/doc/64842008/Shale-Gas-Wars-Flyer-9-20-11INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM
Fletcher School Tufts University
Dr. Daniel... more
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Jack W. Plunkett, CEO of the Houston (Texas)-based Plunkett Research Ltd., suggests the future of energy will likely be a contest between renewable energy and shale oil. But, he admits, in many countries the debate over shale and its costs and benefits risks, continues. http://bit.ly/pCaZAXJack W. Plunkett, CEO of the Houston (Texas)-based Plunkett Research Ltd., suggests... more
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Jim Hamilton, Econbrowser (hat tip reader Thomas R). I saw a Canadian academic speak on US and Canadian energy issues last weekend. He said the technology exists to extract shale gas without damage to aquifers, it’s been done in parts of Canada with scarce water supplies, meaning not damaging water resources was a very important development priority. So count on the US to allow operators to focus on profits rather than environment preservation as if thats not the case already, with all the undocumented spillage of drilling and fracking chemicals into nearby streams and aquifers in Penn.-Figgdimension(hat tip Yves Smith)
Shale gas environmental concerns
Technological breakthroughs in methods for drilling for natural gas have opened up the possibility of vast new supplies. However, environmental concerns may turn out to be significant.
Stuart Staniford has taken a look at a study of the effects of shale-gas extraction on drinking water recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The scatter diagram below summarizes 60 drinking water wells in Pennsylvania, with distance from a natural gas well on the horizontal axis and methane concentration in the water on the vertical axis. All of the water wells with concentrations above 28 milligrams of methane per liter of water were within one kilometer of active drilling.Jim Hamilton, Econbrowser (hat tip reader Thomas R). I saw a Canadian academic speak... more
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By Josh Fox - Director of GASLAND
This week, Teddy Borawski, the chief oil and gas geologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and a member of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett's administration, serving in an official capacity, and on the record, compared my Sundance award-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary film GASLAND to Nazi propaganda stating "Goebbels would be proud." The slander was the latest in a series of smears and misinformation about the film and character attacks on me.
This kind of hateful speech shows a contempt for history, for truth, for science and sets a dangerous precedent in our state's government. Such slanderous mudslinging has no place in any rational or adult debate on ANY topic, let alone the most important issue facing the state in decades - natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
When one speaks violence, he degrades himself and his fellow man. When that person represents the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, he violates the fabric of our civic trust, delegitimizes the government he represents and opens the door to madness. The Corbett administration has thrown the dialogue on Marcellus drilling into the gutter and it is it up to the Corbett administration to get it out.
I made the film GASLAND out of a geniune care and love for the state of Pennsylvania. The film was designed to bring to light something that we were by and large overlooking -- the extreme harm and danger of Fracking for Natural Gas, as it was taking place across the nation. To make the film, myself and a dedicated team of five people were working for no pay, day and night, without a major media company behind the film and without any assurances that anyone would see the film outside of the Delaware River basin.
The film GASLAND has been thoroughly vetted, fact checked, verified and backed up by true journalistic review and science and we stand behind it and the incredibly brave Americans in it 100%.
GASLAND has helped forge a movement of in Pennsylvania, New York, and increasingly worldwide. Millions of people saw the film when it aired on HBO. In addition, I have toured to over 100 cities in the United States. Everywhere I go, I hear the complaints, concerns, outrage and dismay of the citizens facing the driller's invasion.
But instead of engaging in a real dialogue on the issues, the Pennsylvania government and the gas industry have mounted successive attacks against the honest journalism of the film. I and my team have been branded terrorists, extremists, communists, traitors, liars and now, Nazis. NAZIS!!!!!!
The state deserves better.
Continue Reading at:
http://dcbureau.org/201103231311/Bulldog-Blog/gasland-director-responds-to-attack-by-pennsylvania-official.htmlBy Josh Fox - Director of GASLAND
This week, Teddy Borawski, the chief oil and gas... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Flickr user davipt, Creative Commons LicenseDuring the State of the Union address earlier this week, President Barack Obama spoke at length about clean energy, with nary a mention of climate change. This is the new environment in which America’s energy policy is being made.
Just two years ago, Democrats were rallying to combat climate change, one of the most worrying challenges the country faces. But now, Obama has apparently given up his plan to openly fight climate change during his presidency. It’s hard to imagine how, even in a second term, he would choose to re-fight the lost battle to create a cap-and-trade system.
The Obama Administration has instead resorted to a sort of insurgent strategy. Instead of waging an all-out battle against energy interests, the U.S. government will try to chip away at the edges of the industry’s power and rally citizens’ allegiances to a new flag, that of “clean energy.”
Climate bill’s absence is smothering clean energy
Since Washington hasn’t succeeded at tackling climate change head on, Obama’s new strategy is to attack the problem obliquely by promoting innovation in clean energy and setting goals for the use of technologies like electric cars. But can clean energy efforts and innovations thrive in the absence of a wholesale climate policy? When a climate bill was still a possibility, clean energy entrepreneurs were promising substantial investments in the sector, if only Congress could give them a framework. And as Monica Potts explains at The American Prospect, in the absence of a climate bill, clean energy has flagged:
What’s been problematic about the president’s approach up to now is that, despite his efforts to pump funding into the clean-energy sector, as he did with about $90 billion of the stimulus, renewable energy hasn’t taken off. Obama had a line in his speech that summed up why this is so: “Now, clean-energy breakthroughs will only translate into clean-energy jobs if businesses know there will be a market for what they’re selling.”
Short on influence
It’s possible that clean energy investors will take the President’s new promise as incentive enough to push forward. But, they will also have to consider the influence of the newly empowered Republicans. Mother Jones‘ Kate Sheppard isn’t convinced that the president’s new tactic will stick:
“There are plenty of people—and most of them happen to be Republicans—who don’t think that policies to support clean energy are worthwhile and who will oppose any attempt to move away from them,” she wrote. “Meanwhile, this latest iteration of the Obama climate and energy plan includes few of the driving forces that would actually make renewables cost-competitive in the near future and allow renewables to compete (the big one being, of course, a price on carbon pollution).”
When “clean” energy includes coal
Another weak point in the President’s new strategy is his reliance on the vague idea of clean energy, which becomes dirtier the more it is used. As Sheppard writes, “Environmental groups weren’t all that excited about the inclusion of “clean coal” and nuclear in that mix, but that’s pretty broadly expected as the price one must pay to draw broader support for a clean energy standard.”
Another key source of clean energy is natural gas. In Washington, it’s become a given that natural gas, which releases less carbon when burned than coal or oil, will help the country transition away from its high-carbon diet and be phased out as energy sources like solar and wind become more viable. (The natural gas industry, of course, doesn’t see its role as transitional. It’s playing for keeps.)
And while some places are rightly celebrating the freedom that natural gas gives them from coal—as Care2’s Beth Buczynski reports, Penn State is investing $35 million to convert its coal-fired power plant to natural gas over the next three years—other places are bearing the environmental toll of this new, clean fuel. In North Carolina, for instance, hydrofracking, the controversial technique that natural gas companies have been using to extract the gas from shale, is not even legal, but already environmental groups are having to fight efforts from energy companies to buy up potentially gas-rich properties, Public News Service reports.
A poverty of political capital
The president’s new strategy on clean energy will surely succeed at turning current energy economy slowly towards a new path. In the absence of any overarching strategy to fix the country’s energy problems, it’s going to have to be good enough. But ultimately, this sort of tactic, born out of a poverty of political capital, cannot move fast enough to keep energy companies from scouring the earth for more profits doing what they’ve been doing.
That means that there will be more scenes like the one in Kern County, California, where companies are dredging up the last resources of oils from the tar sands. In Orion Magazine, Jeremy Miller writes:
The land also reveals the Frankensteinian scars and machinery necessary to keep up that level of production. Gas flares glow on hillsides. Nodding donkeys lever over thousands of wells, some of which are spaced fewer than a hundred feet apart. Between the wells and imposing cogeneration power plants—which supply energy and steam to the senescent fields—run wild tangles of pipe. These are the conduits of an elaborate industrial life-support system, breathing in steam and carrying away oil.
Will the president’s new strategy prevent the creation of more landscapes like this one? It seems overly optimistic to hope so.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium blogger
Flickr user davipt, Creative Commons... more
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by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
There won’t be any national or international movement on climate policy for the rest of this year, at the very least. And while Washington waits to act on climate change, at least one group is benefiting. The natural gas industry is flourishing, despite reports that its practices lead to flammable tap water, poisoned aquifers, and multiple health problems.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), who is emerging as a new leader in Congress on these issues, said this week that a comprehensive climate bill had little chance of passing through the Senate in the next two years. Furthermore, the expectations for the next round of international climate negotiations, to be held this winter in Cancun, are abysmally low, as Inter Press Service reports.
Say no to the status quo
In the past, the volatility of gas prices limited the industry’s share of the energy market, but now, hydrofracking techniques guarantee a more steady supply, meaning steadier prices. It helps that green leaders have talked up natural gas as a clean energy source.
Natural gas does emit less carbon than coal, but the process of extracting it through hydrofracking—pushing chemical-laden water into the ground to create cracks and allow gas to bubble up to the surface—has serious environmental impacts.
Sandra Steingraber, in Orion Magazine, calls the rise of hydrofracking “the environmental issue of our time.” Environmentalists based support for natural gas production on the premise that natural gas would serve as a “bridge fuel” while renewable energy infrastructure grew enough to provide much of the country’s fuel needs. But without stronger support from Washington for renewables, that bridge may never reach the other side.
The high cost of hydrofracking
The alliance between the environmental movement and the natural gas industry has always been uneasy. Both sides regard each other suspiciously. As evidence mounts that hydrofracking pollutes air and water, posing health risks, the worries of local environmentalists are beginning to outweigh the advantages of gas.
“Fracking is linked to every part of the environmental crisis—from radiation exposure to habitat loss—and contravenes every principle of environmental thinking,” Steingraber writes in Orion. “It’s the tornado on the horizon that is poised to wreck ongoing efforts to create green economies, local agriculture, investments in renewable energy, and the ability to ride your bike along country roads.”
On the ground, fracking is frightening, as Kate Sinding, an attorney with the National Resources Defense Council told Change.org’s Jess Leber.
“Drinking water wells are being contaminated, livestock are being poisoned, explosions are occurring when methane has gotten backed up inside a drinking water well after the underground water supply became contaminated,” Sinding said.
Facing down gas companies
Steingraber argues that these effects—the true impact of natural gas extraction—should be factored into the cost of gas and that the public health implications deserve the benefit of the doubt. Even weighed against a lower level of carbon emissions, these considerations make gas look much more like a bridge to nowhere.
In New York, the state government is trying to reign in the industry, Sinding says. “Culturally and politically, I think New Yorkers may be more skeptical about a new heavy industry coming in,” she told Leber. While the promise of jobs is as tempting in New York as it is in places like Pennsylvania and Wyoming that had rushed ahead with fracking, New Yorkers are seeing, Sinding says, that “now residents still face the same problems as they did before, but now, in addition, also can’t drink their water.”
Outside of New York, there are other initiatives that could slow the momentum behind fracking. The Nation’s Peter Rothberg suggests supporting United for Action, a group that’s fighting the practice, or pushing congressional reps to support the FRAC Act, which would increase regulation of the fracking process. (FRAC stands for Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals.)
Fracking and flammable tap water
Fracking can pollute water supplies, as the flammable tap water in fracking areas demonstrates. But the process also demands huge volumes of water as a matter of course. Fracking companies mix chemicals into the water and use it to keep the cracks in the earth open in order to access gas.
But fracking isn’t the only water-guzzling energy process. Keith Schneider, speaking for a network of journalists and scientists called Circle of Blue, told Inter Press Service that “the competition for water at every stage of the mining, processing, production, shipping and use of energy is growing more fierce, more complex and much more difficult to resolve.”
More than 200 billion gallons of water go to cooling power plants each day. Harvesting solar energy also demands huge quantities of water.
As water resources grow scarcer, this demand could drive huge conflicts, both internationally, and in the United States. As Making Contact reports, in Michigan, lawmakers are weighing the idea of putting water resources into a public trust, but already the ecological arguments for that idea and the economic arguments against it are clashing. Imagine how much harder it will be to divvy up water if energy companies got involved.
This post features links to the best independent, progressive reporting about the environment by members of The Media Consortium. It is free to reprint. Visit the Mulch for a complete list of articles on environmental issues, or follow us on Twitter. And for the best progressive reporting on critical economy, health care and immigration issues, check out The Audit, The Pulse, and The Diaspora. This is a project of The Media Consortium, a network of leading independent media outlets.by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger
There won’t be any national or... more
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DC Bureau’s documentary “The Marcellus Shale: The Politics of Gas” reveals the controversy surrounding natural gas production in New York. While skeptics of production fear hydraulic fracturing, a widely used technique to extract gas, will ruin the state’s pristine waterways, proponents tout potential economic benefits.
The political situation surrounding natural gas in New York is tainted. DC Bureau discovered the same year a powerful republican state senator endorsed industry-drafted revisions to gas mining laws, his law firm represented the largest natural gas producer in the state. Partners at the firm also advised local residents on real estate transactions involving mineral rights. In addition, DC Bureau revealed a liberal Upstate congressman championed strict control over hydraulic fracturing at the same time his wife lobbied for the American Association of Professional Landmen, whose members acquired gas leases in the state for energy companies.
With investors rallying support to drill in the New York portion of the Marcellus Shale – which geological experts say may hold the world’s largest store of natural gas, the race to tap into natural gas in this pre-Jurassic formation has begun.DC Bureau’s documentary “The Marcellus Shale: The Politics of Gas”... more
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Dr. Daniel Fine of the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute at MIT addressed Fletcher students at a talk sponsored by the International Security Studies Program and offered his insights into how the development of new technology will allow the United States to tap vast, previously inaccessible, resources of natural gas that will impact everything from the price of gasoline to the ability of Chinese companies to buy equity in Russian natural gas fields.
The United States has a monopoly on “hydro-fracking” technology. The technology, short for hydraulic fracturing, releases natural gas trapped in shale deposits by injecting the deposits with high-pressure water mixed with sand and small amounts of chemical additives.
According to Dr. Fine, the “cloud over gas” used to be “do we have enough gas?” In 2003, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan declared that the United States did not have enough natural gas, and that it would be necessary to import liquid natural gas (LNG). This, said Dr. Fine, was clearly a mistake in the light of the new hydro-facing technology, not only because importing LNG poses a security risk to the United States, but because tapping natural gas from shale represents an economic “bonanza” in “the most [economically] repressed parts of the country:” western New York, western Pennsylvania and West Virginia, areas which suffer from high rates of unemployment, and are estimated to host 490 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The thousands of jobs that could be created in these areas could stand in the way of President Obama’s pursuit of subsidies for renewable energy.
Substitution away from imported gas by the United States will impact Russia, the world’s largest exporter of natural gas, where gas production is controlled almost exclusively by government-run Gazprom. Moreover, Chevron has signed an agreement with Poland to search for and extract natural gas there, and similar arrangements have apparently been made in Romania. “When Chevron announces that they have gas [in Poland],” Dr. Fine said, “then Russia is shut out,” and will no longer be able to act as a near-monopoly supplier of gas in Eastern Europe.
Seeing the threat to Russia’s interests, Dr. Fine suggested that Putin has de facto “joined the friends of the Earth,” claiming that hydro-fracking will lead to problems with water supply. Beyond that, however, Dr. Fine pointed out that Gazprom has recently acquired the largest gas field in Russia that was not already under its control, and that the location of this field, outside of Irkutsk, near the border with China, gives a clear indication of the direction that Russian policy is headed.
“China is moving towards a gas economy rapidly” to get away from the images and problems associated of coal, said Dr. Fine. China is well aware that its reliance on coal, and the emissions associated with it, not only present an environmental and health threat to its own population, but that China is vulnerable to increasing attacks from Western environmentalist groups as climate change becomes a more prominent political issue. China does not have large gas deposits of its own, and so, Dr Fine suggested, will want to take advantage of Russia’s weaker position vis-à-vis Europe, to demand not only lower gas prices, but also the ability to purchase equity in Russian gas fields, something China has not yet been allowed to do.
Returning to address some of the environmental concerns surrounding shale gas extraction, Dr. Fine said that, in light of the jobs that will be created , and in light of the economic advantages of natural gas—which is cheaper than either coal or nuclear power, and far less expensive than any current renewable technology—it will be politically difficult for any administration to challenge shale gas unless it can be conclusively shown to have adverse environmental effects that outweigh the benefits. Shale gas wells, Dr. Fine said, are only used when an impermeable rock layer surrounds them, so that none of the estimated 5.5 million gallons of water used for extraction can seep into the groundwater. In addition, most wells can recycle their water, and ultimately, “use less water than an average golf course.”
Finally, Dr. Fine predicted that we are not, in fact, entering an era of “peak oil,” that with the new production coming from the Iraqi oilfields, and with new natural gas deposits replacing other petroleum fuels, we can expect to see a decline in world oil prices. He predicted that on April 1, 2017 in Medford, Massachusetts, gasoline will cost barely over $1/gallon at the pump. Whether that prediction proves true or not, it certainly provides something to think about.
By Elspeth Suthers for The Fletcher SchoolDr. Daniel Fine of the Mining and Minerals Resources Institute at MIT addressed... more
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