Since my quote is taken from a post which posited doing something in the spirit of what 'we' 'could' be doing now if we 'would' have been doing something else previously I joined in and posited who it 'might' be that 'could' be doing it. Now since something like 13% of well heads leak immediately and since it has been noted that after 3 years over 50% of wells leak, then it is a statistical certainty that some landowners 'would have' faced groundwater contamination. Does that sound like a joke to you?

replicant, the answer is "yes". You are joking. You have no facts on your side. You only have bizarre opinions.

Yea right. Whatever.

EPA 816-R-04-003
Figure ES-4. Hypothetical Mechanisms - Fracture Creates Connection to USDW

ES-5 How Do Fractures Grow?
In many CBM-producing regions, the target coalbeds occur within USDWs, and the
fracturing process injects “stimulation” fluids directly into the USDWs

Of course one can waste endless hours finding evidence for wilfully and phobically blind bats. Can you read what the above states? This isn't leaking, this is actually much worse. Though not much different than what actually happens anyways. What happens is that not only are mistakes made but that it is impossible to keep the fracking fluid and oils and gases previously held in rock formations out of the water table. That's the real reality. But not to worry, I'm sure your conceit and arrogance will protect you from any harmful information.

replicant - I am unable to see what point you are making. What are you trying to say? It seems to be that injecting a fluid that is 99% water into "coalbeds" changes ground water in a harmful way.

But given that almost all water consumed by humans in the UK is not unfiltered and untreated groundwater, where is the cause for concern?

injecting a fluid that is 99% water""

I don't know at all that the fluid is 99% water. Apparently that is the much quoted figure. But I don't know that it is a meaningful figure. Maybe it is the percentage that impresses you and makes you believe this figure is proof that all is well. There are many, many toxins that are extremely harmful in percentages of parts per million and even parts per billion. Your irrelevant single percentage figure is meaningless compared to such concentrations. But It is irrelevant not only because you don't discuss the toxicity of any of the substances used but also because it ignores that many toxic substances are released within the fractured zone and also make their way into adjacent ground water.The fact that today people can convince themselves that it is O.K. to pump millions and millions of gallons of toxic substances into ground water is an apt testament to the moral and intellectual poverty of our times. Millions of people like you go about their business and believe that humans can continue with their insane actions of destroying every available livable habitat. It is a testament to their selfish apathetic nature that their only concern is for themselves for the next few minutes. Any claims as to their intelligence must be reconciled with their complete disregard for anything else. The ridiculousness of their position is of course that they don't know how to stop so they pretend that they don't want to...or need to.

so you leap from saying that you do not know whether fracking fluid is 99% water to a position where it is undoubtedly toxic. Do you not see that this makes you appear to be lacking in intelligence?

What a point, what a charge. replicant can't tell me the toxicity of fracking fluid! He doesn't know! That it does no harm at all! We had ducks swimming in a collection pond we worked on. I had some as refreshment just before I left. And that's not the only good thing about fracking. I can tell you.

Just so we are clear. That is the intellectual level which I consider your position to be at. And that's the response it deserves. It is the same response I give all jackals. It is the same response I would give to the prime minister of Canada when he tells us that the toxicity of the fluids entering Athabasca river is no higher than back ground levels. I kid you not. He actually said this. I put you and him both on the banner of Moral and Intellectual Poverty of Modern Investors.

and your evidence is?

Just to inform you all, you're not dealing with a rational human being in repellent, or whatever s/he calls h/er/imself and you'll soon find reams of raving responses to even the slightest questioning of h/er/is world view.

If you are an example of a rational human I can most assure I'd rather stay irrational. But then, people living inside the box are completely unaware that there is another world outside. From my point of view there is no rational explanation that one can give to people who can not tell that pumping toxic material into ground water is insane. What possible rational explanation can one give to people who seemingly position the site as a libertarian exercise yet don't give a rat's a** about anyone else's property or liberty? Sanity? The posters I have come across on this site left sanity long, long ago when they crawled into their box.

Hey frack boosters, here's some news that will tickle your fancy:
Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson joins lawsuit to stop fracking activity near his home

Seems he thinks a water tower being built to supply fracking water might affect the value of his property...

Chandra

the lawsuit is more about the aesthetics of a water tower 160 feet tall than about the merits and perceived dangers of fracking. However at least the gas could be relied upon to generate power. Imagine if you had to suffer a 160 foot high windmill near your house and watch it steadfastly fail to generate power.

Actually that doesn't really sound like it has more to with aesthetics than fracking related activity.

"sell water to oil and gas explorers for fracking shale formations" will attract "fracking-related traffic" inflicting "noise nuisance and traffic hazards" on the quiet, peaceful, wealthy neighborhood.

The lawsuit adds eloquently that locating the tower in the exclusive neighborhood would cause "unreasonable discomfort and annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities."

Whatever Tellerson's reasons might be when you google Earth Bartonville there are several water towers close to what Google identifies as Bartonville. This is Texas. Water towers are not uncommon in Texas.

These are absolutely stunning numbers, so large as to be almost inconceivable. An ultimate recoverable resource of over 10,000 TCF is 400 years of current US gas demand and 4000 years of UK demand

So large as to be almost inconceivable

No. Really?

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-05-08/shale-gas-view-russia

Shale gas: the view from Russia

The official shale gas story goes something like this: recent technological breakthroughs by US energy companies have made it possible to tap an abundant but previously inaccessible source of clean, environmentally friendly natural gas. This has enabled the US to become the world leader in natural gas production, overtaking Russia, and getting ready to end of Russia's gas monopoly in Europe. Moreover, this new shale gas is found in many parts of the world, and will, in due course, enable the majority of the world's countries to achieve independence from traditional gas producers....

If this were the case, then we should expect the Kremlin, along with Gazprom, to be quaking in their boots. But are they? Here is what Gazprom's chairman, Alexei Miller, recently told Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Shale gas is a well-organized global PR-campaign.

The best-developed shale gas basin is Barnett in Texas, responsible for 70% of all shale gas produced to date. By “developed” I mean drilled and drilled and drilled, and then drilled some more: just in 2006 there were about as many wells drilled into Barnett shale as are currently producing in all of Russia. This is because the average Barnett well yields only around 6.35 million m3 of gas, over its entire lifetime, which corresponds to the average monthly yield of a typical Russian well that continues to produce over a 15-20 year period,

In spite of the frantic drilling/fracking activity, this is all small potatoes by Russian standards. Russia's proven reserves of natural gas amount to 43.3 trillion m3, which is about a third of the world's total. At current consumption rates, that's enough to last 72 years. Russian gas production is constrained by demand, not by supply; it is currently down simply because Eurozone is in the midst of an economic crisis. Meanwhile, US production has surged ahead, for no adequately explored reason, crashing the price and making much of it unprofitable.

It seems that Gazprom has little to worry about.

The US, on the other hand, does have plenty to worry about. There has been much talk already about groundwater pollution and other forms of environmental destruction that accompanies the production of shale gas, so I will not address these here. Instead, I will focus on two aspects that are just as important but have received scarcely any attention.

First, what is shale gas? Ask this question, and you will be told: “Shut up, it's methane.” But is it really?

Whew, what a great article. Takes your breath away (For those of you who bother to read the whole thing). As the old addage goes - If it sounds too good to be true. It usually is.

Dung

I have been fighting a battle on BH for years because the Bish was accepting government figures for our potential gas reserves when it was obvious we had a great deal more.

That is interesting. I wouldn't mind discussing those figures with you myself on this thread.

Dung

I dont know if anyone spotted an article about the founder of Cuadrilla who now has 3 licences to drill for SHALE gas in the Irish Sea? These would be the first off shore wells and since the estimates are that there is about ten times as much gas offshore, we are now firmly into "thousands of years of shale gas" territory hehe.

I'm firmly into the speechless category myself.

One can't help but thinking that finding such old information, and at the same time such tired old arguments about our salvation adds to the argument that we have - No Way Out.

http://thewalrus.ca/an-inconvenient-talk/?ref=2009.06-energy-an-inconvenient-talk&page=

An Inconvenient Talk
Dave Hughes’s guide to the end of the fossil fuel age

From the June 2009 magazine

The Talk is in essence a constantly updated survey of the state of the planet through a hydrocarbon geologist’s eyes. It plows methodically through reams of energy-geek data. World Conventional Oil and Oil Sands Reserves, 1980–2007. Energy Profit Ratio for Liquid Hydrocarbons. Canadian Gas Deliverability Scenarios from All Sources.

His was a quiet government researcher’s life. Then, in 1995, a major Canadian energy company came calling, hoping to figure out how much natural gas might someday be mined from coal bed methane deposits—an “unconventional” gas reserve. This is how Dave learned that the gas industry was worried there wasn’t enough conventional natural gas left in Canada to feed its pipes indefinitely. His research confirmed those suspicions.

Ninety percent of all the oil humanity has ever burned has turned to ash and greenhouse gases since 1959—half since 1986. Ninety percent of all the natural gas ever burned set aflame since 1964. Half of humanity’s cumulative coal tally up in smoke since 1972. “When I was born, back in 1950”—this is Dave, summarizing in his flat, slightly clipped deadpan—“the world had 95 percent of ultimate recoverable hydrocarbons remaining. Today we’ve consumed about 40 percent of ultimate recoverable hydrocarbons.

The huge concern, in other words, isn’t the total but the difficulty of recovering those remaining hydrocarbons beyond the halfway mark. You notice, too, the way the keywords on that subject start to stick. Energy return on energy invested, which geologists refer to interchangeably as eroei or eroi. Canada’s exploration treadmill. Reserves-to-production ratios.

You pick one at random, fixate on it. The historical eroei for conventional oil is 100:1. This refers to the kind of crude that gushes up in the opening credits of The Beverly Hillbillies, the kind that first flowed out of the Ghawar oil field in Saudi Arabia when it was tapped in 1948. Invest a barrel’s worth of energy drilling and refining in a spot like Ghawar, then and forever the largest single crude oil deposit on the planet, and you used to get 100 barrels of energy-dense, easily transported fuel in return. These days, conventional eroei for such places is closer to 25:1.

The eroei on more recent “new conventional” deposits, which Dave cites mostly by their discovery and extraction methods (“deepwater oil, horizontal wells, 3-D seismic”) is also around 25:1. In Alberta’s tar sands, the surface-mined bitumen comes to market at an eroei of 6:1. “In situ” bitumen—sludge buried too far under the boreal forest floor to excavate, which comprises the lion’s share of the most breathless estimates of Canada’s energy superpower–scale oil production—rings in at 3:1. Corn ethanol, that darling of America’s farm states, is somewhere between 1.3:1 and 0.75:1. Shale oil, another unconventional source held by its boosters to be capable of indefinitely extending the age of oil, has never been converted into fuel at a net energy profit, at least as far as Dave has been able to ascertain.

Shell has lost a fortune in US shale gas and is getting out according to today's Times.

Shale gas profitable?

but Shell is still planning to invest $4bn in upstream activities related to Americas shale and it still employs 1400 people in this sector. It has of course been hit by low gas prices and by the fact that it is easily out-manoevred by smaller, more nimble businesses. Contrary to what you suggest, EM, the management still seems to think they can make a go of shale activities.

Diogenes

I also note Shell's reluctance to enter the UK shale gas arena. These professionals have been bitten once, and are twice shy as a result.

EM what do you know of Shell's culture? As this post of yours suggests, NOTHING hence as usual you leave me supremely impressed.. I was surprised that Shell had tied in to the ethylene by-products of shale gas production. It is very counter the Shell culture, as I am sure you are well aware. So no surprises that they sell out. Except you are excited by it. But of course you are ignorant..

And you are encouraged by it. And why would anybody be encouraged by it, or be anything by it for that matter. Because you are a shill and a troll whose only purpose in life here is to promote any oil or gas use and denigrate any other energy source. Regardless of reason, arguments or facts.

diogenes

so you leap from saying that you do not know whether fracking fluid is 99% water to a position where it is undoubtedly toxic. Do you not see that this makes you appear to be lacking in intelligence?

and your evidence is?

It has occurred to me that perhaps you think that I actually hadn't presented the evidence and I incorrectly assumed you had read it and put 2 and 2 together. I always think people will put the 2 and 2 together. And I just honestly always assume that the evidence and conclusions are too obvious to ignore. Actually when I delve deeper into the issue I see this is a deep issue of my own. But we can leave that for now and just dwell on the evidence.

EPA 816-R-04-003
Figure ES-4. Hypothetical Mechanisms - Fracture Creates Connection to USDW"

ES-5 How Do Fractures Grow?
In many CBM-producing regions, the target coalbeds occur within USDWs, and the
fracturing process injects “stimulation” fluids directly into the USDWs

Mar 5, 2014 at 12:34 AM | Unregistered Commenterreplicant

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-20/fracking-boom-leaves-texans-under-a-toxic-cloud.html

Fracking Boom Leaves Texans Under a Toxic Cloud

Chemicals released during oil and gas extraction include hydrogen sulfide, a deadly gas found in abundance in Eagle Ford wells; volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, a known carcinogen; sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, which irritate the lungs; and other harmful substances such as carbon monoxide and carbon disulfide. VOCs also mix with nitrogen oxides emitted from field equipment to create ozone, a major respiratory hazard.

People in the Eagle Ford face an added layer of risk: hydrogen sulfide, also known as H2S or sour gas, a naturally occurring component of crude oil and natural gas that lurks underground.

Mar 6, 2014 at 6:51 PM | Unregistered Commenterreplicant

The second quote is taken unfairly from another recent thread. But what this means diogenes is that while much toxic material is pumped into the ground much, much more toxic material comes out of the ground. Toxic liquid escapes from the target shale zone and into adjacent rock layers to be transported or to escape to other zones unknown. The lighter gases can easily rise into water tables above the target zone. Of course the toxic liquid also escapes up past leaking well head casing and into more shallow ground water. All of the toxic substances exist in the flowback and waste fluids. All of the pipes and containers show leakage during drilling and after drilling. Ground surfaces including surface water become contaminated from leakage and spills as do all industrial sites. And that is what fracing is a concentrated industrial activity.

I trust this is the evidence you were looking for? Finally, perhaps needlessly to say, after all this, there actually is no gas to be had. According to the geologist cited above, more energy is spent retrieving the gas that is gained from burning it. Now he specifically cites shale oil rather than gas, but I'm going to stick my neck out and apply it to gas as well.