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Vermont Bans Fracking
eldavojohn writes "Vermont is the first state to ban fracking (hydraulic fracturing), a process that was to revolutionize the United States' position into a major producer of natural gas. New York currently has a moratorium on fracking but it is not yet a statewide ban. Video of the signing indicates the concern over drinking water as the motivation for Vermont's measures (PDF draft of legislation). Slashdot has frequently encountered news debating the safety of such practices."
We're moving to Vermont!
Are you fracking kidding me?!
"Vermont Says, "No Fracking Fracking!"
You stereotypers are all the same...
A common sense idea made law that goes against the big oil and gas industries? Maybe there is hope after all!
Its a little old, but here is a good PBS report on the subject fot the lesser informed:
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/613/index.html
Silence is a state of mime.
I hope I wasn't the only one who immediately thought of Battlestar Galactica.
From this wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shale_gas_in_the_United_States, it would appear that VT doesn't have any natural gas reserves to speak of. That makes it easy for them to ban fracking - there isn't any revenue/economy to be built on that effort anyhow. Perhaps Nebraska can outlaw fishing for Chilean Sea Bass. States with large reserves will likely have a harder time taking that leap.
Note - VT is close to a large reserve so I suppose I could be wrong about how much gas is easily accessible from that location.
Watch the HBO Documentary GASLAND (it's on Netflix instant) and you'll see what all the fuss is about. I hope to god fracking will stop before we destroy more natural resources in this country.
Frack those fracking frackers!
It'll be called The Patriotic Green Support the Troops Zero Footprint Petroleum DIffusion Method and be back.
A common sense idea made law that goes against the big oil and gas industries?
Were common sense involved all involve would realize how far apart gas deposits are from water tables, and never have passed such a law.
It's really sad that these days you find Slashdot filled with people so full of fear, and unwilling to look further for the truth of things.
In reality Fracking doesn't have any of the evils alarmists like you are painting it with - for example the drinking water issues you note about probably are from the region that had gas in the drinking water BEFORE fracking was involved.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's a sad day to be a battlestar galactica fan in Vermont. It should make out of state road trips more fun though.
WTF ? Water tables are at most 1k feet deep. Oil wells are well over 5k feet deep with a LOT of non permeable rock in between how can this fracking fluid get into the water table ? If all due precautions are taken there is no leakage. There is a well casing that seals off the drill hole where is goes through the water table. If we all want to be dependent on other countrys for our energy, stop the fracking and pay 5$ a unit for natural gas or 10$ a gallon for your gasoline. Too much politics and not enough common sense.
Ever heard of the precautionary principal?
No fracking will be coming here, due to our geology. But don't let that stop grandstanding politicians from doing something to solve a problem, even one that doesn't exist.
Liberty in your lifetime
The article doesn't go into much detail on what specifically is banned. We sometimes use hydraulic and/or pneumatic fracturing for environmental cleanups; of course, only water (or air/nitrogen) are used - generally pretty shallow and only trying to increase transmissivity of sediments, not break up rock. Just wondering if they actually put some thought into it, or just knee-jerk banned all hydraulic fracturing. The technology does have uses besides breaking up shale to extract natural gas.
They pump toxic chemicals into the water. Despite how deep they drill, what they pump in percolates up to the water supply. And you want more evidence? You'll never be satisfied, Denier.
Fact is, by doing what the gas companies doing they are STEALING natural gas from under other people's land and polluting other people's water. They have no right to that.
They've gotten a free ride for too long. They need to be stopped and they need to pay for the damages they have already done despite being given immunity by corrupt government officials.
As to the question of known reserves, because we don't have drilling here yet is all the more reason to ban it before it becomes a problem, they pollute our water and they steal our resources. They could find gas reserves in the future. Easier to close the gate before the horses escape.
"Cue the lawyers."
Aye, and they'll waste a lot of money on lawyers as Vermont ties them up in the courts they own. Even if they were to win in Federal court then Vermont would make their lives miserable. Entergy found that out. They "won" and then appealed their own "win" when they found out it Fskd them further. On top of that Vermont added a new $12 million dollar tax on their heads and increased other costs for them. There is more than one way to skin a Big Corp.
Actually, we pronounce it "No Frickin Frackin" here in Vermont.
To ensure that the state’s underground sources of drinking water remain free of contamination and to formalize ANR’s interpretation of the state underground injection control rules, the general assembly should prohibit the issuance of a permit for the discharge to an underground injection well for conventional or enhanced recovery of natural gas or oil.
So I would guess for environmental cleanups you might be okay but, of course, you would most likely need a discharge permit to ensure that you are compliant with laws protecting any wildlife or water surrounding the area. Hasn't that always been the case though?
My dad pushes dirt in Minnesota and he knows all the laws about reclaiming and recovering after you've just scooped a bunch of clay out of the earth and haven't replaced the topsoil. Because you are in really deep if the anyone sees that. It got so bad for one guy who had my dad do work on his property that he ended up donating the corner of his back forty where he had scooped up all the clay to a church so he could 1) write it off and 2) get that environmental catastrophe off his hands given he didn't have enough topsoil to put back.
My work here is dung.
Your breathing generates carbon dioxide which is alleged to harm every living being. Before you take another breath, the precautionary principle demands you prove your breathing causes no harm.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Some years back a drilling company drilled some dry holes in the Lake Champlain Valley ...
His point is that there is no evidences that any of t is getting into the water table.
Well, there have been cases where the stuff that is taken out does find its way into the drinking water but the common argument is that it was mishandled. The way I see this, in a very unscientific way, is that we're doing something similar to when we dumped mountains of garbage into the Pacific Ocean because, hey let's face it, there's nothing out there and nobody's ever going to be able to find it, right? And now we just sit there and stare at it wondering if anyone's going to do anything about it saying stupid shit like "Well, it doesn't matter if we stop, Japan will keep dumping out there."
And, you know, this fracking stuff just sounds like more of the same mentality and I feel like it could bite our ass in the future when all of Pennsylvania has pockets of water underneath it that, by themselves pose no risk but added up eventually cause us some discomfort. And yet, all the comments on Slashdot assure me I'm just a fear monger so what are you to do? People seem to get upset when I try to place the burden of proof that this will not harm us in anyway on the companies that are going to make billions of dollars off it and the people that still own mineral rights are telling me to shut the hell up at all costs. These natural gas companies sound like really unsavory types.
DO you even know what chemicals are in there?
Now that's a funny question if you're in PA (and I don't mean "ha-ha" funny).
My work here is dung.
Am I the only one that first thought Vermont would ban hacking the telephone system?
It only has to be as safe as any other resource extraction - coal, oil, metals, lumber, etc.
Hell, just the burning of coal, through the release of mercury and radiation, makes more people sick than fracking could ever hope to.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
America will sputter its last gasp under the alarmist jackboots of enviro-fascists who want us all to live in caves!
Why isn't anyone taking me seriously? Guys?
Vermont bans something that doesn't, and won't, happen in their state? Next, Montana will be banning professional sports, Nebraska will ban surfing, and Utah will ban dancing and rock and roll.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Except for plants with Oxygenic Photosynthesis. Those plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
Damn I must be tired for a minute I thought the subject of this article was "Vermont Bans Fapping"
http://www.anr.state.vt.us/dec/geo/oilandgas.htm
Vermont doesn't fucking have anything worth cracking, unless it's water Wells. What douchebag politicians. My dad has been cracking wells since I was a baby and it has never polluted anything. OK I get hating energy production, but hating fracking is moronic.
Yeah, well how do you know there aren't underground formations that produce proprietary and secret combinations of chemicals when you force oil and natural gas into them?
Now I'm sure they'll ban the importation of reasonably priced gas and oil that is available because of hydraulic fracturing.
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
I'm not sure anyone to be taken seriously has ever alleged CO2 harms every living being and I'm not sure I follow your argument. Are you suggesting that because a human body expels CO2 that any amount in the atmosphere is OK? I mean my body also expels feces and that can even be good for a lot of organisms. That doesn't mean I'm okay with the earth being covered a meter deep with feces. Life would go on but it wouldn't be pleasant for humans.
Frack.
Sorry my cell phone thinks fracking is cracking :)
You would think that right?
I have experience with fraccing...If it is being affected it is because of shoddy casing (the cement lined straw that goes through all the formations), which has nothing to do with fraccing.
Fracking as an industry includes EVERYTHING from prospecting through trucking or piping the gas away, including poor management decisions, bad engineering, and yes, shoddy casings. If you refuse to consider real world risks when it's actually executed, you're asking us to make decisions based on theory rather than practice.
It's the same with nuclear; the risks of that form of energy INCLUDE the greedy bastard owners who cut corners for a cheaper design, don't build seawalls high enough, and run obsolete designs long past their rated lifetimes.
Why don't you pro-nuclear and pro-fracking people get that? I think nuclear is worth the risk, and fracking MAY be worth the risk, but please, let's be honest about this.
Now what with the computer recycle industry do?
Pass new laws?
Really? More than fracking ever could? So you know the toxins and carcinogens in the fracking fluid aren't that bad? How exactly do you know? The oil/gas companies won't tell the components to anyone. (hint, it's your wild speculation, based on nothing much)
Compositions of many of the fluids are freely available because of complaints about the issue.
Here's one source of information:
http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used
Many is not all. I'm sure the most hazardous ones somehow just don't quite make it on the list. All just a random happenstance, yeah, that's the ticket.
In a surprise move, Vermont also banned toasters, leaving people baffled.
Just when we had another good homegrown energy source option. I guess they had to stop it somehow, typical shortsighted idiots.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The CO2 that comes from our breathing is already a part of the Carbon Cycle and therefore does not "add" to the total CO2.
The CO2 trapped in oil and coal has not been a part of the Carbon Cycle for millions of years. It has been sequestered. Or rather, it was sequestered...and now all that CO2 is being released at least four orders of magnitude faster than it was captured.
:(){
They dont call us the " Green Mountain State" for nothing! Now we are just plain old " the Green State" . Damn straight!
Can you try not being an innumerate dumbass? Relative to electrical production and transportation, the amount of CO2 produced by human breathing is a blip. People are not arguing about 300 vs 301ppm CO2; they're arguing about how nice it would be to back off to 350 and stay there, versus hitting 400, 500, or 600ppm.
Yeah, I'll stand by my statement. Fracking tends to occur in areas with low populations. Even if has some hidden cancer risk that isn't apparent for many years, the number of people affected is pretty small.
Coal gets blamed for 1 million deaths per year just from the air pollution. There is also the increased cancer risk from the radioactive material released and of course the mercury that gets into our fish. This guy even made a table where you can see the relative deadliness of coal vs natural gas. Even if frack water is as big a hidden danger as, say, asbestos, it would be a long shot for gas to match coal in deaths.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
How can they ban sex? It's the only reason to live.
While it's all good and fine that a state like VT has banned Fracking in their state, but I think I would be more concerned about what happens when a neighboring state allows Fracking and the results of it crosses state lines, causing issues that way. Is a simple, "Ooops, sorry. Our bad," going to cut it? I suspect not.
I don't think I'll be surprised if Fracking in OK sets of a fault like the New Madrid, causing isses across between 3 and 5 states.
Fracking is a neat technological idea, but I think will cause more problems that we'd like to see as a result.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
Yeah it would be great to live in a world where we didn't rely so heavily on coal or fracking, but I don't see the U.S. intalling Solar Panels at nearly the rate of say Germany or making any other serious efforts to get off of coal and cheap carbon rich sources of energy. It gets stalled as a political argument where people who worry about the impact of carbon on our atmosphere are painted as the ones full of shit. It's very hard to convince people that something that feels good in the short term but has potentially disasterous impact on the long-run is something they shouldn't do, especially once they are addicted. Just look at cigarettes. Fossil fuels are the equivalent of societal amphetamines, they speed everything up and make it so that people sleep less, work more, and generally do more but they over the long-run are wearing out our planet and the extraction is contaminating many parts of our earth, from the plastic debris to the oil spills to the coal residue contaminating fish. And at the same time I don't really see a way for individuals to prevent this from happening because going against the short-term economic benefit of fossil fuel extraction and use is political suicide for most politicians where people are benefitting from both the consumption and production of fossil fuels. We could provide subsidies and even more credit to encourage the wide-spread adoption of solar energy, and we as individuals could probably afford to install small solar systems onto our houses to help off-set the electrical production even if it were a somewhat expensive investment with a long-term financial payoff.
Separating the drilling and casing problems that lead to groundwater contamination from the actual fracking is ridiculous. Its like saying eating pufferfish is safe, its the damn bad chefs doing a shoddy job cutting out the bad parts that is dangerous. Sure, a well executed dissection of the animal by a highly skilled chef is safe for consumption, but it doesn't change the fact that the pufferfish is poisonous and can kill you when inadequately trained individuals are involved. Do you think these companies are using exclusively highly trained individuals?
My guess is that without real oversight and accountability they contract that portion of the job to the lowest bidders.
I'm very pessimistic about anyone's ability to stop mankind from harvesting all of the fossil fuels. I hope I'm wrong.
That said, even if you totally ignore carbon, coal is not the greatest choice. You can scrub out the mercury, but you are still sending radioactive material into the air and the mining of coal presents some serious environmental and aesthetic challenges. Oil comes with the obvious baggage of war and the outflow of $300 billion in wealth each year. There are also some environmental consequences like spills and the nasty air pollution associated with refineries. Natural gas has a relatively good safety record, is reasonably clean-burning with little refining, and is found in large deposits domestically. Does the extraction create some environmental challenges? Sure. Do I think they are as serious as coal or oil? Not IMHO.
By the way, I also like nuclear, though the way we just stockpile the waste is unacceptable (and solvable... solved, actually).
Solar is great but nowhere near ready for the scale of nuclear or coal... the largest solar plant in the world is about 500MW, which is the output of a single small nuclear reactor - and you can't put those everywhere and they don't work at night. Wind is somewhat more promising... the largest farms already produce as much as a full-sized nuclear reactor and it looks like we might get as much as 20% of our power from wind in the next 20 years. Hydro is pretty much tapped out in the US.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I read an extensive piece in Time about fracking the Marcellus play. The piece seemed pretty balanced and authoritative. My take away was that if done using best practices fracking can be made relatively safe -- at least as extractive processes go. But there is a lot of room for damage if it is done irresponsibly. IMHO society and industry can both benefit from the positive dynamic of competent government regulation to make fracking -- or for that matter -- any large-scale mineral extraction work.
The root problem is not the technology. It is corruption. The BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico proved that. It is a simple fact of life that fossil fuel really brings it when it comes to providing cost-effective, portable efficient energy. However, if we ruin our quality of life while extracting it we obviate its advantages. We have people watching these industries, but "quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
The was a good episode of the Sceptics Guild to the Universe where they interviewed someone on this, Phraking is something that as been going on for a long while quite safely, but what people are referring to as Phraking now is order of magnitude different. The takeaway from SGU seemed to be that Phraking shouldn't be outright banned but there where some instances where it shouldn't have been done and that the safety standards need to be stricter. Also a lot of stories of Phraking causing leakage of gas into drinking water aren't true, companies are choosing to do Phraking where there is underground gas is and so places like that have a chance gas is going to enter the drinking water naturally, some instance though may have been caused by or exasperated by Phraking.
I alway hate it when people try to reduce the real world to simplistic true/false black and white. The real world is messy and complicated, and if you do not acknowledge that then you are not reflecting reality.
The majority of the posts about this subject seem to be very similar to posts I see from people who lack knowledge of "usda organic" foods. I'm curious how many of you posting "anti-fracking" comments are also "pro-organic"? You need to separate your political ideology from actual science. Just as science clearly shows that "organic" food has no value greater than regular food (same taste, same nutrition, same amount of pesticides), science clearly shows that most of the comments on here are bunk. I personally don't think throwing money into fracking is a good idea. I'd much rather see that money spent developing solar power technology. But... I am not going to let any political ideology or personal bias steer me away from actual scientific data and peer reviewed studies. Neither should you.
You can pretty much see Big Oil dollars in this from a mile away. The US has a METRIC SHIT TON of natural gas, _and_ infrastructure delivering it right to most homes. Your car can easily be outfitted to run on that gas, and equipment can be built to liquefy it, right from the pipe. Boom! Oil companies are irrelevant, and fuel is really, really cheap all of a sudden, and there's a hundred year's worth of it, right here in the country. And it's relatively clean, so "green energy" industry slides right down the crapper.
Before I start I'm didn't read all the comments yet so somebody may have mentioned this, in fact it may be well known. But, for those of you that haven't seen this little documentary, you should. Now, I know the gas companies have gone to extremes to attack this documentary and the maker in any way they can, of course they need to, it's rather bad in its portrait of "Fracking". Anyway, I'll let you make those decisions and look around for other facts, but it seems pretty much on the up and up to me, as MANY people in a lot of areas have reported a lot of the things you will notice in the show and they DIDN'T even have earthquakes of all things to add to the list of its potential hazards.
Gasland is a documentary by Josh Fox and I think a good one that shows the possible problems with "fracking", as they call it. It all starts with Josh himself getting a generous offer from an oil company to "frack" his multi-acre property, but he didn't know what it was and set out on a journey to see what he could learn about it before he signed on the dotted line. What he found was not good by any measure of the word.
This documentary will show that they are lying about or simply, truly do not understand their own process. As people are starting to realize, it's probably true, but no one listened to the warning cry, that really came from this little documentary--it made a dent, but so many people and states signed right on. But I think finally the damage is getting severe enough that it's impossible to hide what they've done to ourselves. ...And they'll probably never go to jail and they committed an act that might eventually be considered as dangerous as terrorists threatening to burn down wild forests. Sociopath and psychopathic corporate ideology at fine work--simply just doing what all their brothers and sisters have taught them to do so well. How do we cure ourselves of this ideology that is at work in our businesses, banking, and government. If we don't we all know what happens.
This is just a stepping stone... (risking the melodramatic)
Ultimately it doesn't matter. States around Vermont will frack so what little is trapped in vermont probably won't amount to anything.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
In the same way as being against fly tipping of industrial waste into the municipal water supply is not luddism, neo or not.
YOUR problem (and the problem of the parent post) and the reason why it was modded flamebait is because you think that only fossil fuels must be used because to do any different "would let the hippies win".
A perfect example of how environmental pseudo science and mainstream media can drive a media and so obscure the truth that politicians pass a harmful and unnecessary law. Thanks. Add this to the spread of malaria, the malnutrition in developing countries, the thousands of acres of rain forest destroyed for biofuels with negligible environmental gains.
Coming soon this winter - people in Vermont bitching about how they are paying more for gasoline, natural gas, and propane. Because, if I were one of the manufacturers, I'd certainly raise prices...just because I can.
Of course, on the flip side, it is also wild speculation that there actually are toxins and carcinogens in the fracking fluid. As you say, the oil/gas companies won't tell the components to anyone. It may just be steam and sand.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Since there is no known natural gas beneath Vermont James Taranto, of the Wall Street Journal, compared this to banning cross country skiing in Florida.
Well said.
-kgj
Science isn't clean anymore, (if it ever was). The lab coat doesn't automatically mean the doctor's clip-board is bearing truth or that we are allowed to suspend our critical thinking facilities.
For instance, in an increasing number of cases, "USDA Organic" isn't even Organic:
http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/19/19greenwire-usdas-organic-enforcers-let-offenders-slide-au-12233.html
I'd also be curious to know who performed and paid for the study you are quoting. And sadly, asking that kind of question isn't even hair-splitting these days. The hard fact is that if the result of a given study will have *any* socio-economic-political impact at all, then the chances are good that a closer look will reveal corrupted science.
There are statistics companies out there which openly advertise their service of spinning your figures to ensure that your boss will still like you after you submit your report. That's where we are today.
btw, I don't think vegetables are good for anybody regardless of how they were grown. But I would like my proteins and saturated fats to come from animals not fed on poisons.
Well, it's a good idea. Given Vermont's granite and metamorphic dominated geology, drilling gas wells and fracking would probably liberate radon instead of methane!
0 1 - just my two bits
We don't have any shale deposits worth going after. Hydrofracking is clearly a harmful process, and legal or not, any 'fracking operation would get run out of the state in a heartbeat. We cancel wind turbine projects for fuck's sake. There technically are viable areas to frack, but it's wasn't ever worth anyone's trouble. New York will likely see a much bigger push for fracking, since the potential for the fracking industry gaining a foothold there is greater. I'm not throwing up any sources above because I live here and everything i mentioned is already well documented.
In response to the Hydro-Quebec statement, we are definitely leaning more on them after we decommission our nuke plant, but that doesn't mean we like it. Our major power utilities and government signed a shitty contract with them a few years ago that we are bound to and will likely be the next item of scrutiny.
(http://www.washingtonelectric.coop/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Mar2011.pdf)
Washington Electric Coop newsletter. (For Central Vermont)
People recognize that this isn't all sunshine and marshmellows. That dam displaced my ancestors, and much less a food source. At least we're aware and doing something about it. Where is your power coming from? Oh, you haven't shut down your sketchy nuke plant yet? how noble.
There is no arguement here, burning up natural gas at your local power plant flapping your finger gums talkin' 'bout being more resourceful with your resources.
- Sent via a PC running on Indian dreams.
How could they? I love fracking! After going to the club and bringing some hot chick home and we frack all night long! Oh....THAT type of fracking...ok, never mind....
Sorry, no, it's not wild speculation. It's fact.
http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Hydraulic%20Fracturing%20Report%204.18.11.pdf
"The BTEX compounds â" benzene, toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene â" appeared in 60 of
the hydraulic fracturing products used between 2005 and 2009. Each BTEX compound is a
regulated contaminant under the Safe Drinking Water Act and a hazardous air pollutant under the
Clean Air Act. Benzene also is a known human carcinogen. The hydraulic fracturing companies
injected 11.4 million gallons of products containing at least one BTEX chemical over the five
year period.
"
Those are just some of the ones we KNOW are there. There are many others we don't know about.
"In many instances, the oil and gas service companies were unable to provide the
Committee with a complete chemical makeup of the hydraulic fracturing fluids they used.
Between 2005 and 2009, the companies used 94 million gallons of 279 products that contained at
least one chemical or component that the manufacturers deemed proprietary or a trade secret.
Committee staff requested that these companies disclose this proprietary information. Although
some companies did provide information about these proprietary fluids, in most cases the
companies stated that they did not have access to proprietary information about products they
purchased âoeoff the shelfâ from chemical suppliers. In these cases, the companies are injecting
fluids containing chemicals that they themselves cannot identify.
"