Fracking and Energy Ethics

[Gene Scarborough]

[KeithE]

I have to do a lot more reading on this potential new energy source.

used to be the key player in the old Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO) circa 1984-6 before he became CIA Director. He had an excellent reputation as a technologist; on that I can attest.

I know he was charged with bringing home classified material while at the head of the CIA and therefore lost his job. But I don't hold that against him for sure becasue the raid on his house came soon after he had discovered drug running by the CIA. Very similiar to the story (make sure you scroll down to read his interview) where a raid of his house (no doubt because of the NSA whistleblowing Drake was doing) found material not marked classified but later determined to be classified.

Most of Deutch's life has been in civil service and lately (he is about 73 years old) he has been on the Board of Directors for 4 companies (none of which are involved in from what I can see although would seem to capable of entering the fracking business). So unlike your article I have no reason to doubt Dr. Deutch's ability to lead this study - he has no "vested interest" as far as I can tell and his qualifications are very good.

But I will be following the science of fracking wrt ghg emissions and groundwater contamination. Just have not had a chance to do so yet. I do have a Kindle Short book critical of fracking in Pennsylvania.

[Ed Pettibone]

Ed: New technologies almost always entail new risk but that is not a reason to stop development of new technologies. We need to acknowledge the risk and learn to control them. I am persuaded that Hydro Fracking can be done safely. Part of the otherwise high profits may have to go into cleaning up water and land after the fact. This is a BIG issue in Upstate NY.

[Gene Scarborough]

Ed---have you heard any late-breaking news on the Ford Plant fiasco?

I saw the report on an HBO documentary this last week for the first time. It's not pretty at all for a company using people and the environment to produce cars cheaply and maximizing their profits at the expense of those who live there now.

[Ed Edwards]

My favorite First American Shaman says:



BTW (by the way): This Ed (#2 Ed in BL):
My first Father-in-law was pumping frack-water into the bottom of
Oil beds in 1973. The oil companies got together in an old oil field and rejuvenated
the bed by pumping in frack-water. That caused the oil (and the natural gas - if any) to
go to the top of the bed. The 'top of the bed' might not be in the same oil companies
land, but they shared the wealth. The next field's 'top-off' vendor might be the
company of the "frack-water" pumper in this field. (the engineers who figure all this out
are the top paid engineers

Hydro-fracturing (AKA: 'fracking' ) is NOT a new technology. Big Oil and their bank rollers:
Absolutely Huge Money Houses (BANK) are not accountable to the politicians in the countries:
Big Oil owns the politicians.

frack = Hydro-fracturing (or 'frac' or 'frak')
fracking = frakking (what ever one adds -ing for)
There is nobody making the rules for this term
(in the age of the tweet, nobody wants to type "Hydro-fracturing"
The naughty nitwits who control 'naughty words'
use these terms to 'beat' auto-censuring programs.
Preachers and Christian Laymen are not allowed to use the naughty
"F" words in public places.

[Ed Edwards]

That would be // Hydraulic_fracturing \\ having to do with 'hydraulic'
instead of "Hydro Fracturing" having to do with water = 'hydro'.
In any case, My First Father-in-law pumped 'no-drinking water' into the
ground In South-central Oklahoma in an 80% depleted oil field. My Second Father-in-law drilled water
wells in North Texas.

I think fracking is messier than shale strip mining of oil. It is just that the
mess is underground: 300 to 30,000 feet deep -- not mess on top of the ground

[KeithE]

I read half of that Kindle short book on today and Schlumberger is a serious player. So I agree with Gene it is not approproate that Deutch (as qualified as he is) head the study of fracking safety/environmental effects.

From reading that book it seems that such a study has long been needed. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Bush's watch) declared that fracking was immune from the Safe Drinking Water Act (except that diesel fuel could not be used) . You see, Haliburton is the leader in the field and a deal was struck that if the fracking industry agreed to not use diesel fuel, no testing would be required. So currently there is essentially no regulation/testing done by EPA or state governments either.

Obama's energy czar (Steve Chu) has just ordered the new study Gene has called to our attention after numerous drinking water complaints from the public.

[Gene Scarborough]

As the Nazi smoking character said on "Laugh In:" "Interesting----velly interesting!!!!!"