Comment to the Diane Rehm Show about hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale:
The method of fracking breaks up the rock formations, making them permeable. They will no longer hold gas, so it leaks out.
It does not only leak out into the gas well piping. Gas leaks out to the surface in random locations in the area of drilling. Cows have died, as methane, propane or butane displaced normal atmospheric gasses on the landscape.
What technical fix, I wonder, could be applied to such a problem? (I doubt seriously that a thorough technical fix is possible, because of the nature of the problem.)
The destruction of these geological structures means the loss of natural helium storage capacity, along with depletion of gas supplies. This is a little-mentioned cost of this method of gas extraction.
Helium cannot be replaced by any other material.
Where is the public discourse that includes the idea that emissions should be kept within limits that most human beings agree are acceptable limits?
To what extent do these companies inject poisons into the ground, with the claim that they are trying to force the gas out, simply because they have nothing better to do with the poisons (which they would have to pay to dispose of, otherwise)? I understand that the EPA does not regulate these injections of chemicals into the ground.
(Do these drilling companies fund independently-managed projects that assay or survey exactly what is in the groundwater BEFORE they start operation, so that reliable benchmarks can be gotten for comparison with water quality AFTER drilling has been ongoing for some time?)
A cure for what ails the planet:
http://gaiabrain.blogspot.com
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