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In 2011, Fracking Was #2 In Causing Greenhouse Gas In US
eldavojohn writes "According to Bloomberg, drilling and fracking results in greenhouse gases second only to coal power plants in the United States. From the article, 'Emissions from drilling, including fracking, and leaks from transmission pipes totaled 225 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalents during 2011, second only to power plants, which emitted about 10 times that amount.' According to Mother Jones, we now have more giant methane fireballs than any other country in the world and we can now see once dim North Dakota at night from space."
Why not use that energy to do something useful with it ? Apparently energy is still too cheap if we can afford that.
Slashdot has become entirely too political. This isn't even close to being accurate and with all the shots the site takes at Fox News and such you'd think there'd be some pot calling ketlte black type self-awareness when throwing this sort of thing out there...
I'll miss the true technical stuff, but time to yank the site out of the ol RSS reader and find something better.
Where are all the comments that Bloomberg and Mother Jones have no credibility anymore?
In any case, our schools are doing a great job making sure the next generation will have already decided that fracking is bad. It's a lot easier to debate and convice 4th graders.
http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130113/NEWS/301130319
Hydraulic fracturing does not release CO2, burning fuels does. It just helps get about 30% of what is trapped in rock, out of the ground for our use. However they are accurate when they state that “This report confirms that major carbon reductions from power plants wouldn’t be possible without a reliable and affordable supply of domestically produced natural gas," Yes, carbon-based energy sources do release some CO2, although Natural Gas by quite less a margin than Coal or Oil. Now if you want to write a story on something worthwile, how about one on the worthless DOE and NRC. They should be encouraging the use of Atomic energy with new generation breeder reactors that can use up of the "spent" fuel from old-style light water reactors instead of having it lie around parking lots in rusty containers. And meanwhile also continue research on Fusion reactors. But no, we have to push minor energy sources such as wind and solar. And then even negative energy sources (actually drains) like Ethanol. But to be honest, what I really want to know is - why I never see articles on banning soda pop, beer, or champagne? They also release mass amounts of CO2 when consumed. I know - Science has nothing to do with this - it is all political (AKA who's paying me the most to tear down their opponents). Sigh...
The purpose of fracking is to collect natural gas, not to release it. The problem isn't necessarily fracking itself, just the sloppy unregulated fracking that we have now.