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Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Drilling On College Campuses
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this news from MotherJones: "Last year, when Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett suggested offsetting college tuition fees by leasing parts of state-owned college campuses to natural gas drillers, more than a few Pennsylvanians were left blinking and rubbing their eyes. But it was no idle threat: After quietly moving through the state Senate and House, this week the governor signed into law a bill that opens up 14 of the state's public universities to fracking, oil drilling, and coal mining on campus. Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution."
We're not opening up the college campuses to resource exploitation. We're expanding our engineering program and our geology program. New fields of study to include Mine Safety Engineer, Gas Well Engineer, Resource Geology, Mining and Mineral Engineering, and more! Internships right on campus! Sorry for the coal dust on the windows.
Or possibly Saved by the Bell.
Who Shot Mr. Burns?
I can imagine how this conversation went.
"So, does anyone have any suggestions how we can fuck over the country's college students some more?"
"I don't know, we're already indebting them for most of their adult lives. How do you top that?"
"Hey, I have an idea, but it's kinda far-fetched..."
Drilling is one thing, but actual coal mining on campus? How would that even work?
If I recall correctly isn't PA the state with the ever burning coal mine fire? I think it was called Centrailia or something. Let's open up college campuses to mining as well. I'm sure putting a mine on the same property as drunk frat boys is a brilliant plan.
seriously, How big of an area is the campus in any city, county ? why the fuck would the mining companies even be interested? this sounds like something a mining lobbyist mentioned as a joke and the politician took seriously.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Battlestar Galactica has a lot to answer for.
Referring to the "fracturing" of seams beneath the earth sounds much worse than it actually is when it is called "fracking".
The real question we should all be asking is: WHERE THE FRACK ARE YOU GOING TO GET ENERGY TO POWER YOUR NEW DIGITAL ECONOMY FROM?
Does it go on forever?
This isn't the worst thing to happen on Pennsyvalnia college grounds.
State University systems can own thousands of acres of land not actually being used as campus land. A large portion of the University of Texas's income comes from leases operated on UT-owned land. In fact, there is an entire entity solely dedicated to handing this for UT: University Lands. It's unlikely that Pennsylvania is looking to lease Campus Commons areas. More likely they are simply making it possible for unused land owned by the system to bring in funds for the State University System.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
usa is so pathetic...
Ok I'll explain this for you. Any land owned by the University system is part of the "campus". They are not talking about strip mining the front lawn, fracking under the dorms, or drilling in the student lounge. The Universities in this state happen to own some pretty large chunks of land which are completely removed from the school's building and dorm rooms. Under previous rules they were not allowed to do anything with natural resources, this law allows them to develop in certain cases. Any development still has to comply with environmental regulations, impact studies must be performed, etc.
tl;dr just another reactionary bullshit slashdot story designed to get the enviro-wacko's pissed off.
This reminds me of the Simpsons episode where they had an oil well at the school...
liberare massarum ex ignorantia, clausa descendit molestie.
The law mandates that 50 percent of all fees and royalties from the mineral leases will be retained by the university where those minerals are mined, 35 percent will be distributed across the state system, and another 15 percent will go towards subsidizing student tuition.
PS "Mother Jones" isn't what you'd call an unbiased source when it comes to this sort of reporting. Other stories from their front page: "Hating on Software Companies", "Should Obama Flat Out Call Romney a Liar?", and "Joe Biden Smiles, Laughs, and Mostly Kicks Ass". It's biased and they make no secret of it. For an example of how this affects reporting, see the following:
The vice president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, but it will also harm the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about harming the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was harmed.
Did the chairman harm the environment intentionally? In a 2003 study, 82 percent of respondents said yes, he did. But now consider this:
The vice president of a company went to the chairman of the board and said, 'We are thinking of starting a new program. It will help us increase profits, and it will also help the environment.' The chairman of the board answered, 'I don't care at all about helping the environment. I just want to make as much profit as I can. Let's start the new program.' They started the new program. Sure enough, the environment was helped.
Did the chairman help the environment intentionally? Only 23 percent of respondents said yes.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I doubt this would be happening in the middle of the dorms. More likely it would be on land that the universities aren't currently using.
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
You are welcome on my lawn.
like using students as cheap labor. or wait cow/methane farm. solar / wind ? why does education cost so much anyway..
I'm trying to imagine what a derrick draped in TP would look like.
I think the answer is "awesome, dude!".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...unless money and greed is involved! Way to go US politicians.
All this hand-wringing about fracking is a mirage from the looney anti-fossil-fuel greens. There have never been any proven detrimental impacts from fracking when done with modern techniques. Fracking, our golden chance for energy independence, is being attacked as if these dangers were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, as opposed to lacking a shred of hard evidence behind them.
If the greens succeed in killing this opportunity to end our dependence on foreign oil, I hope they will be proud the next time we go to war to defend our oil lifeline.
...except for seismic events when faults slip due to increased lubrication, contamination of groundwater and increased hydrocarbon emissions from the fracking sites. But I guess you can hand out disposable dust masks and BRITA water filters. Problem solved ?
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Even if fracking IS harmless, and fossil fuel extraction has a history of going wrong, it still isn't any sort of "golden chance for energy independence". The need for energy is increasing exponentially and fracking will in the end be a blip on the radar in terms of energy supply. It is merely prolonging the time spent burning carbon and will only be harmful in the long run as it puts off real long term (the definition of sustainable, as so many people seem to forget) solutions.
The question is, why WOULDN'T a state do this?
It's state land.
And it's not like it's some sort of inviolable sacred ground, is it? And they are CERTAINLY not entitled to any special consideration beyond that of any other citizen when it comes to 'exposure to pollutants, etc.'
No, I don't think they should plant the machinery right outside the door of classrooms, but to be legally able to slant-drill and access the minerals beneath any public property is just good common sense.
-Styopa
umm unless education suddenly changed in the US. the avg freshmen in college is 18 years of age. and this too might have changed but last time i was in america the legal age to be considered an adult was 18. so they are no longer children. also why is no one thinking of the professors and campus staff? the "children" spend 4 years there. professors and staff spend their lives there.
I guess nothing stops the quest for greed
No, son. "Any land owned by the University system" is not considered part of the "campus".
I won't argue what "campus" means but, the bill never mentions "campus". here' the text of the bill:
Senate Bill 367 (P.N. 2349) – This bill establishes the Indigenous Mineral Resource Development Act, allowing the Department of General Services to make and execute contracts or leases for the mining or removal of coal, oil, natural gas, coal bed methane and limestone found in or beneath land owned by the state or state system of higher education.
In other words, the article from Mother Jones was entirely misleading making people think of gas rigs next to dormitories when, in reality, the bill opened up all state lands pending government approval. Typical Mother Jones scare tactics.
has 22 shale gas wells on campus, all drilled horizontally from a single pad on the edge of campus - http://www.uta.edu/ucomm/naturalgas/FrequentlyAskedQuestions.php
There's gas wells all over the city, but it's Texas, so no one bats an eye, quite the opposite, people actively encourage drilling on their land because they like the royalty checks. Here's the regulatory records for one of the wells on campus - http://webapps2.rrc.state.tx.us/EWA/specificLeaseQueryAction.do?tab=init&viewType=prodAndTotalDisp&methodToCall=fromGisViewer&pdqSearchArgs.paramValue=|2=08|3=2011|4=07|5=2012|103=254706|6=G|102=09|8=specificLease|204=district|9=dispDetails|10=0
It shows that the well is currently producing ~40,000,000 cubic feet of gas per month. At a current price of about $3 per 1000 cubic feet, this well is producing about $120,000 worth of gas per month. A typical royalty is 20% of the value of the gas goes to the landowner, and looking at the records, UTA owns about 2/3 of the land in this well's unit, so that works out to $16,000 PER MONTH from this well royalty for the university. Multiply that by 22 and you can easily see why a univerity facing budget shortfalls might like to drill.
Fracking with modern techniques is what is of concern here, in addition to the fact that it's being done on the east coast, an area more densely populated than where fracking has traditionally been done.
The modern techniques are not a safer, more efficient version of older techniques. Modern techniques involve drilling down and then snaking sideways to get at the gas. This has only been going on in populated areas since 2006, which isn't a whole lot of time to study effects. And since it's being done around a lot more people, we've seen a large amount of complaints about air quality, water quality, and increased levels of sickness. Some of that is bound to be the equivalent of headaches from an unpowered cell tower, but some of that is also bound to be genuine.
There is significantly more than "a shred of hard evidence" that fracking poses dangers to people living near wells. Anyone who tells you otherwise is being deceptive:
[P]roponents of hydraulic fracturing have erroneously reported in the press and other media that the recent University of Texas Study ("Fact-Based Regulation for Environmental Protection in Shale Gas Development") found that hydraulic fracturing caused no environmental contamination,[17][18] when in fact the study found that all steps in the process except the actual injection of the fluid (which proponents artificially separated from the rest of the process and designated "hydraulic fracturing") have resulted in environmental contamination.
That text is from this Wikipedia article all about the environmental impact of fracking in the US. Much of the data from that article comes from the UT study, and is most damning since the industry (and its shills) looked at the one positive bit and said, "See?! That piece there is really what fracking is! That's harmless! Ignore all of the setup and finishing steps...that's not fracking, so fracking is harmless!" If the evidence in that paper for the fluid injection stage is deemed reliable by the industry, so too should be the evidence against the other stages; if it were not so, we'd have heard them specifically attacking that evidence instead of remaining silent about it and relying on misdirection to keep it out of the spotlight.
As for fracking being "our golden chance for energy independence": it is an entirely stupid notion. What better way to not have to rely on fuels from other countries than to...dig up and use all of our reserves?
Your brain is not a computer.
Nonsense. Fracking, including 'slantwise drilling' has been used in the oil industry for 80 years. It's a well proven, safe technology when it is practiced with modern engineering principles.
FYI, "fracking" has been verifiably linked to flammable tap water. It's no surprise that this had to be pushed quietly through system, because there's a lot of very good reasons fracking shouldn't be done at all, especially near populated areas.
And just for fun: here's a fun video showing what can happen when you live too close to it.
I think the closest thing I have seen close to this is the "Commitee to Nuke the Whales" - a troll operation set-up in one of late Robert Anton Wilson's novels.
-><- no
I agree - the same is true here in Colorado, where land owned by Colorado State (a land-grant university) has been open to drilling for several years already. The university owns lots of land, often many tens of miles away from the main campus, for such things as experimental farms, aircraft hangars and radar sites. Most of them have been drilled using the "horizontal" approach, so no equipment directly on site. I know this because I work on one of the remote sites, and was around when they drilled some 500 feet away from my building. The oil company folks came over and explained that we may hear odd sounds when they did the frakking (I didn't). The university has made quite a bit of money off the wells, which translated to no student fee increases for a couple of years (this year was an exception, though).
Will they offer a TRADES based learning plan on drilling if they put this in?
With teachers with real job skills and not just years of teaching in class room with little to no job experience.
Will they also make it a 2 year or less plan?? 4 years of mostly theory with the full load of fluff and filler classes is overkill.
Oil drilling is not gas drilling. Modern fracking for gas in particular uses much higher pressures than oil drilling and even older gas drilling operations. It's not the slantwise drilling itself that is the issue; it's the high-pressure fracking in that kind of well structure (and also possibly in the kind of geological formations that are gas-bearing) that is new and unstudied.
Your brain is not a computer.
The need for energy is increasing exponentially and fracking will in the end be a blip on the radar in terms of energy supply.
Well, the need for energy isn't going to increase exponentially forever.
It is merely prolonging the time spent burning carbon and will only be harmful in the long run as it puts off real long term (the definition of sustainable, as so many people seem to forget) solutions.
Show there will be harm rather than merely saying it.. Let's consider another painful transition, death. By your rhetoric above, since we're all going to die anyway, it'd be "less harmful" for us to die now since otherwise we're putting off the real long term solution.
The point here is that just because there are transitions that we'll need to face, it doesn't mean that it is a good idea for us to embrace those transitions now. Procrastination does have its advantages and I think this switching over to more expensive and less capable energy sources is one of those places where procrastination shows value.
Some more concrete data from WP:
The first use of hydraulic fracturing was in 1947 but the modern fracking technique, called horizontal slickwater fracking, that made the extraction of shale gas economical was first used in 1998 in the Barnett Shale in Texas.
Your brain is not a computer.
So 'common sense' suggests you don't do it near where your future generations best and brightest are likely to be taught. Well not unless you're an old man who received a lot of election money from the fracking industry anyway.
Common sense also says that the problem should actually exist before you consider it a problem. As has been noted here before, fracking is just a variation of some well proven drilling techniques. When done wrong, yes, it can release pollutants. When done correctly and it usually is done correctly, it does not.
So there's cause to insure that drilling on university property is done correctly, but there isn't cause to keep the activity from being done at all.
If you read the acutal law, SB 367, it does not authorize natural gas drilling on college campuses. In fact it specifically exempts them, as well as all state nature preserves:
It does, however, permit the state to make a right of way through a state college to reach natural gas wells located some place else, but I guess "Pennsylvania Fracking Law Opens Up Roads on College Campuses" doesn't sound nearly as sentational.
No, it's fracking and it's a problem because it includes fracturing the rock which is inevitably not a neat thing.
That has been done before. Which was my point.
I don't think going into denial about it fixes anything.
Then stop doing that.
He should not be taking donations from the fracking companies to get elected, then giving them permission to frack on college campuses when this is the known problem with fracking.
As I was saying, it's a fixed problem. Just inspect the wells in question to make sure they're doing anything dangerous.
Environmentalists and educators are concerned that fracking and other resource exploitation on campus could leave students directly exposed to harms like explosions, water contamination, and air pollution.
Not to mention it permanently degrades public land and the mining companies will never undo the damage they did because it's not cost-effective (for them).
Who here buys into what you just said? The so-called "conservative picture" does have one feature your argument doesn't have. Namely, that's where the people are. As to people who are actually working out in the field, I doubt they'll be exposed to any more risk than they already get from their education itself.
Fracking compositions known as slickwater have been around for a lot longer than 1998 - I know Halliburton had a key patent on that expire in 1968. Generally the term 'slickwater' refers to adding some type of polymer - either natural or synthetic that suppresses formation of vortexes in the fluid flow making it easier to pump. This makes the fluid 'slick'.
WP also got the 1947 date wrong. Fracking has been used a lot longer than that. Some forms involving pumping nitrogylcerine into wells were used as early as 1860. Liquid fracturing fluids were definitely used in the 1930s.
Finally the idea that shale gas uses especially high pressures never used before is equally specious. Hydraulic fracturing pressures are determined by one thing - what is needed to open the resource bearing formation.
Wikipedia is just not factually correct in several regards on this topic.
Fracking is breaking rock, to leak gas. The gas carries a bunch of toxins. The toxins dissolve in ground water, and leach out into the air. They cause cancers and are toxic.
They've broken rock before to leak oil (or just because some idiots overpumped a field). So it's not different from what's happened before. And you still have to have a mechanism for how those toxins get into ground water.
As to causing cancer and being toxic, a lot of things at a college do so. Perhaps we should get rid of agriculture, physics, and chemistry programs, for example. Or we could just insure that like the other stuff that's moderately risky, the operators of the well take the appropriate precautions.
You lose.
.: Semper Absurda
Ask Berry College(located in Rome, GA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_College ) how their college campus ended up when Florida Rock dug a huge hole on campus property. Though the site was out of site to people on campus, one of the lakes on campus(Victory Lake) almost completely dried up(sink hole) and buildings, some very old(Ford Buildings, paid for by Henry Ford and given continued assistance by the Ford Corporation), started having problems from sink holes, the watertable started to be displaced, and it hurt the college far more than the help Berry College got from Florida Rock.
The rock quarry is now a large lake, which is also extremely deep. Would you fall in(which you should survive the fall), and cannot get out, you will drown and never have your body retrieved. Sadly, this place is well known to be an excellent place(one of a few in the area) to dump a body, or other items you do not want found, or ever retrieved by anyone(including the person that dump the body or item). Yes, Martha Berry would be proud.
https://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2011SE/finalprogram/abstract_183994.htm
There are other buildings that have had problems from the bad decision of Berry Colege's administration. These colleges may end up in a similar situation.
Mod parent up! The trades used in the oil and gas fields often pay very well.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I'm against this. There is entirely too much drilling on campus already. And furthermore, I was not invited.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Coal mining is completely different to seam gas extraction.
Did I miss a memo?
When did it change from "different from" to "different to"?
I can't speak for Pennsylvania, but here at Notre Dame we sure as hell drink from our own reservoir.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
When done RIGHT it releases pollutants. Pollutants are used in the process. When done WRONG those pollutants contaminate the groundwater, and people lose their homes or their health. this is only a good idea if you're a greedy jerk.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Not a neat thing? Damn, shut it right down then! Whew, thank goodness we averted doing something that might not be neat!
Quit your prissy hand wringing. If there's an engineering problem, engineers will solve it.
If this were the Stone Age, you'd be the faggot caveman whining, "ehhhhhh Fiiiiiiire noooo! It's too hot put it out! Fires are scary and might hurt the chiiiiiiildren! Think of the chiiiiiiiildren." Be shamed.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
On campus? Our health department would shut it down.
The general public isn't even allowed into our city watershed.
Have gnu, will travel.
Are you skimming on your reading of SB 367 a little bit?
This law absolutely allows drilling and fracking on campuses next to (or under) dorms.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You seem to know what you're talking about. I'm just an armchair muckraker, so I'll defer to your numbers. I'm curious to hear your response to this question: why is it that places like Marcellus are only being drilled now? If we've had the technology to do it for so long, why didn't we start drilling there during the Reagan push for energy independence, for example?
The argument from the anti-shale-drilling folks, the ones I tend to be more sympathetic towards, is that there have been new developments "that unlocks gas that was previously not considered recoverable". I pulled that from a rebuttal to the rebuttal of Gasland by the film's creators. A lengthier quote from the same document reads,
On Chesapeake Energy's Hydraulic Fracturing "fact" site, this contradiction is evident: "Hydraulic
fracturing, commonly referred to as fracing, is a proven technological advancement which allows
natural gas producers to safely recover natural gas from deep shale formations. This discovery has
the potential to.... [emphasis added].” Later in the same passage we get the same refrain: "Hydraulic
fracturing has been used by the oil and gas industry since the 1940s..."
Since you seem to have substantially more knowledge of the industry than I do, I'd like to hear your take on that. The whole document is an interesting read, and one that seems pretty convincing to me, but again, I am very much a layman when it comes to this stuff. In any case, I appreciate your previous informed responses. I suspect that I will remain biased against shale drilling, but I do my damnedest to remain open to new information.
Your brain is not a computer.