And Now, The Frackcident

Have you tried BBC or Reuters? They're actually the same stories, with the same point of view, but the writing is much better.

"They want expensive energy, to force people to move to cities, live in Soviet style high rise apts., pay high rises and take mass transit with Union workers, who will go on strike every year, etc,etc,etc" Don't you mean "American style high rise apartments"? Where were the first high-rise buildings built? Right dead square in Chicago--after the Great Chicago Fire. Mass transit? Take a look at Chicago's elevated railroads--a century old or older. Sorry, CL, your argument fails on incorrect data.

Amen DTS 187

Congratulations, dts187, you've done what thelaine and Rockcrusher couldn't do--presented a reasonable argument with valid points. I applaud you. I will not argue with the overall gist of your statement, though I will argue one single point. * "- The economic impact is astounding. Entire local economies have been resurrected. There are new jobs created in the industry. These jobs pay well and have great benefits. New non-industry jobs are created as an effect. Restaurants are full, hotels are full, property values are up, colleges and vocational schools have increased attendance, new businesses are thriving." -- In other words, you have a boomtown economy that works great--for now. But will that community be self-sustaining once the 'mine' runs dry? While I'm not totally familiar with that specific locale, history shows us that once the resource runs out, the community dies quickly and devastatingly for all residents. Every new business will disappear and possibly even the local farmers and ranchers will be impacted negatively. However, as oil shale is a rock, you're obviously doing more mining than 'pumping' if I recall the process correctly. this raises two very different, but related questions: 1). How long do you expect the 'vein' to remain workable? 2). What is done with the waste rock? I can offer a potential use for the 'tailings' for road-building purposes (in place of whatever stone is used in the production of asphalt) or if 'cleaned', maybe even as landscaping stone or ground fill on highway, railroad or other transportation, construction, etc. infrastructure. Hey, if you're taking mountains down, you might as well put them to work. That doesn't mean I agree with such massive modification of the local geology, but we've pretty much done something of the sort ever since we learned how to make tools; we're just a lot better at it than we were. The long-term effects of such landscape restructuring may never be known, but local climates near some of the mountain-topping coal mines out east have seen unexpected wind shifts and changes in temperature and rainfall as the mountains have come down. We simply cannot know all the macroscopic effects such projects will have until after there's no turning back.

@Vulpine Unfortunately when the wells go dry, the economic fortune will likely do the same. It is the harsh reality of boom/bust in most natural commodities. The only real hope is that the short-term economic success creates a diversification of industry in the area. The initial production of a fracked Marcellus well is astounding but experiences a steep hyperbolic decline after the first year or so of operation. However, the well will continue to produce for 5-10 years. There is still a lot of drilling to do. I've seen analyst predictions from 20 to 100 years. It's tied to so many external forces (government regulations, taxes, etc) it is very hard to estimate. There really isn't much in the way of tailings that are often associated with traditional or strip mining. In fracking, a vertical well is drilled down to the target depth and then several horizontal shafts are drilled. The entire vertical shaft is cased by multiple layers of pipe and cement. Then the actual fracking takes place. A mixture of water, sand, and chemicals is injected into the well bore under pressure which causes very small fracture in the target rock formation. These small fractures allow for the release of the gas/oil. What comes out of the wellbore (outside of the gas/oil) is called flowback. Flowback is the original liquid used for fracturing mixed with whatever small bits of minerals and fluids that are released during the process. This is what's held in tanks and storage pools until disposal or recycling. The failure of these tanks and storage pools is the most likely cause of contamination. The flowback is either treated and discharged through a waste treatment plant, stored in an underground injection well, or recycled to be used again. The surface isn't affected much at all compared to other extraction practices. Some minor excavation is used to level the area immediately surrounding the wellbore and of course pipeline will be installed around the area under the surface. If any landscape related complications arise, they are usually soil erosion or water pooling issues from the small excavation. These can be remedied pretty easily. Once production stops and a site is completely reclaimed (well is cased with cement and covered with dirt. Grass is planted if it was there before, trees/vegetation are planted to prevent erosion, etc) it's hard to tell that anything happened there at all.

@Vulpine Wanted to add: In the Appalachian Basin, natural gas drilling has been part of the economy for a long time and has usually played second fiddle to coal mining. It wasn't until new drilling techniques made production in the Marcellus shale formation more economically viable that the boom started. One result, is a glut of companies and corporations moved in or started up to get in on the action. There were already many long-term fixtures in the area. As the fight for acreage gets more difficult and the cost to drill goes up, more players will drop out and only the leanest, smartest companies will be left. The others will move onto the next booming play. Those left will likely be here for generations to come. The profits won't be the same, there won't be as many employed, but there will still be a product sell-able on the market.

@dts187 Appreciate the comments DTS.

@Vulpine One little correction, Vulpine. oil and gas bearing shale is, indeed, rock, but it's not mined. The Athabaska tar sands must be dug up, but the shale remains in place and is hydraulically fractured, releasing oil and gas to be piped out. There is no mining, no tailings to dispose of, and no alteration of the surface. There's the danger of water table contamination and the possibility of surface spills that has to be regulated closely, but no wholesale surface landscape alteration with typical shale deposits 1k-3k feet down and 600 feet thick. You have a point that local economies boom while there's production and crash when the shale is played out, but that pattern has existed for centuries with all kinds of mining, as well as with industries that move to new locations, and industries that die out. The New England textile industry made use of local water power, but left for the south and cheaper oil and gas energy, and lower, non-union wages. A number of farming towns at major crossroads dried up when railroads caused competing centers to spring up, or railroad lines were shut down. I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about that pattern, though some former industrial cities have tried to reinvent themselves as light industrial centers. In densely populated areas, there's the option of factories being converted to retail and/or residential, but places like the Dakotas will likely see their populations dwindle as the kids grow up and move away. America's population has been far more mobile than other countries, always on the move for jobs elsewhere.