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German Government Agrees To Ban Fracking Indefinitely (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Tuesday, the German coalition government agreed to ban fracking for shale gas indefinitely. Reuters reports: "Test drilling will be allowed but only with the permission of the respective state government, officials said. German industry is keen to keep the door open to fracking -- which involves blasting chemicals and water into rocks to release trapped gas -- arguing it could help lower energy costs, but opposition is strong in the country, where a powerful green lobby has warned about possible risks to drinking water. If the law is approved by parliament, Germany will follow France, which has banned fracking, whereas Britain allows it subject to strict environmental and safety guidelines. The two parties agreed on Tuesday to an indefinite ban, but the compromise legislation calls for the German parliament to reassess whether the decision is still valid in 2021, said Thomas Oppermann, who heads the SPD's parliamentary group. CDU officials confirmed that a compromise had been reached. Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) criticized the proposal and said that by setting a date for a fresh look, the coalition had essentially agreed to allow fracking in five years." Last year, Bloomberg published an article making the case that the U.S. must consider the earthquake situation in Oklahoma a national security threat.
that is all
I voted for SPD in 2013 to aid in the creation of a great coalition, and seems it paid off. Really great having a party on board that also thinks about the environment. Yes they are red and did all this woman quota bs and now this time waste with the inheritance tax but thanks to them germany doesnt agree to glyphosate and has banned fracking.
Good guys!
Who'd of thought that frak would turn out to be a dirtier word that fuck.
Frak the fraking frakkers!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
their stupid decisions only make US LNG exports (which I inve$t in!) more attractive. So outlaw fracking, green morons.
an ill wind that blows no good
No nukes, no fracking. What are German Greens going to say when Ruhrkohle, or whatever it's being called now, starts digging the giant lignite pits it has long planned to fill in for the now totally hollowed-out national baseload?
Bernie Sanders is about to bow out.
All Sanders supporters should shift their support to Jill Stein, not the felon Hillary Clinton.
Of course Bernie will support Hillary Clinton because he thinks preventing Trump (or any Republican) from becoming President is the most important thing.
All I can do is read that headline and giggle...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
German Government Agrees To Ban Fracking Indefinitely
How do they define 'indefinitely' in Germany?
The alternative to fracking is buying more gas from Russia's Gazprom.
Maybe. But buying stuff from an aggressor is certainly increasing a national security threat. Does Germany believe, Putin will be satisfied with Ukraine and the Baltic states?
The way the rest of the world believed, throwing Czechoslovakia to Germany will bring "peace for our time"?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Slashdot has been deleting comments on this post, including my own!
People, businesses and politicians act like there is no alternative to the water/chemical mixture. The truth is liquefied propane gas can work just as well and 100% of it is recovered and used as gas.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
We, as a civilization, should be discouraging any technology that lowers the cost of energy fuels producing IR filtering gases that linger in the atmosphere. Especially techniques with other harmful side-effects as environmental groups pointed out in Germany.
Instead, offering incentives in research and development of lower cost energy alternatives or techniques that prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. For example: research like this method using electrolysis to change CO2 into profitable carbon nano-tubes Power plants that covert all CO2 emissions into carbon nanotubes
It's only a moratorium, not a ban.
There is a big difference.
If you don't like Trump, then vote for Gary Johnson.
"but opposition is strong in the country, where a powerful green lobby has warned about possible risks to drinking water."
also, green lobby in the EU (incl Germany) gets heavy funding from Russia. Russia is major supplier of natural gas to large part of central Europe. Spreading FUD on fracking is good for Russia.
'terrorists' I imagine means Isis ( by definition, the us would be one too but never mind that). However, is is is lacking refinweiea. They do sell unrefined oil to others such as turkey a close ally of the us In it's fight against Isis. Hold in, something's not right here.. maybe they actually like the destabilising effect of Isis? Would you look at that!!
And here come Russians deluded by Putin-TV into believing, it was the US, who invaded Ukraine. So sad...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I won't vote for Crooked Hillary. I haven't ruled out voting for Trump, but he's not doing a whole lot to impress me at the moment.
The right wing in this country has spent nearly 25 years trying to vilify the Clintons. They've spent probably well over $100 million in Federal money between the GWB administration and the R's in Congress investigating them. And what do they have to show for it? Nada, just a lot of innuendo.
I'm not saying Hillary is a perfect person and she wasn't my first choice for President but she's not the evil person so many are trying to make her out to be either.
Just to be clear: Fracking (short for fracturing) has been around almost as long as humans have been digging wells. Way back when, dynamite was used for fracking oil wells. I believe shaped charges were also used. And even Hydraulic Fracking has been tried a number of times with varying methods. Plain old water pressure and also steam have been used. So Fracking itself is not the problem, as it's been around forever and has many methods. What's different about fracking as used in the context of this article? One difference is the METHOD. But the most important difference is the SCALE. So banning Fracking in general will be counterproductive in the long run, as there are many safer ways to do it. What needs to be regulated/modified/banned is this particular method and most importantly the scale. Fracking is your friend!! ;-)
Actually, that's not what happened in Greece. What happened is a little bit more complicated.
First, one small American securities broker, goldman-something, lead, at the time, by a Mario Draghi, who is currently the boss of the European Central Bank by the power of the revolving door, helped the so-called 'political elite' of Greece borrow quite a lot in violation of the EU regulations, using the implicit guarantees that the EU and the eurozone treaties provided, and the fact that the other ez members looked away.
Then, most of the borrowed money went to buy German submarines to protect Greece from their NATO ally Turkey. Now, this is really strange, because the point of the 'common defense' structure is, ostensibly, lowering the costs of all the members. Too bad in reality NATO is a military block, used by one of its members to squeeze another large European country, and outside of that narrow goal, doesn't involve itself with members' security.
The remainder of the money (which is somewhat insignificant), minus the commissions paid to goldman, was pocketed by some of the said Greek politicians, who promptly deposited it in tax-free accounts, mostly in the fiscally responsible country of Luxembourg, lead, at the time, by a right-wing European with a ridiculous name, Jean-Claud Junicker.
And here we come to the part that's most fun. This err, person, is now the boss of the European Commission and is being helped by the above Mario to 'solve the Greek debt crisis', which is to say, twisting Greek hands to have the poor Greeks repay the German loans that went into buying German gear.
Of course, it is all the fault of the Greeks.
Yeah, it worked really well.
Plus everyone is calling her a felon when she has yet to be convicted, put on trial, or even indicted for anything.
Of course if you listen to people who oppose her, the FBI have been "about to indict her" for the last 6 months.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
why just limit these guys to president? they are all likely better able to manage a budget and interact with their peers in a much less retarded way than anybody we have elected to Congress or the Senate. hell, their initial problem will be that they aren't nearly as good liars as the current crop.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
She is responsible for running a poorly secured email server. And she did not lead a covert counter-attack at Benghazi.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
PNAS
Organic compounds found in drinking water aquifers above the Marcellus Shale and other shale plays could reflect natural geologic transport processes or contamination from anthropogenic activities, including enhanced natural gas production. Using analyses of organic compounds coupled with inorganic geochemical fingerprinting, estimates of groundwater residence time, and geospatial analyses of shale gas wells and disclosed safety violations, we determined that the dominant source of organic compounds to shallow aquifers was consistent with surface spills of disclosed chemical additives. There was no evidence of association with deeper brines or long-range migration of these compounds to the shallow aquifers (emphasis added). Encouragingly, drinking water sources affected by disclosed surface spills could be targeted for treatment and monitoring to protect public health.
These comments are mine; I do not speak for my employer.
To be honest, I have a very time to understand the pro-fracking movement in the US.
It seems that public in general in America is very, very short sighted.
There is actually a lot of evidence to support the premise that fracking not only pollutes the ground water, but also causes mild earth quakes.
Perhaps, in time, they will find out that it is safe. Who knows. But, right now there is a very reasonable doubt.
Here's the thing.
Oil is important. We all know that. We depend on it for our modern world. Sure, there are substitutions for nearly every application of oil, but they are expensive. Thus would of course cause harm to the economy should we run out or stop using it all together.
Water, on the other hand. Is not important. It is literally life and death. We cannot live without the stuff. No ifs ands or buts about it. If we pollute all of our drinking water, we will all die.
So, why the fuck would people take that chance? To save 15 or 20 bucks filling their gas tanks? It makes no sense.
I sometime wonder; maybe the whole plan IS to pollute the water. The oil companies are buying a lot of water rights and have been for a long time.
So, if they pollute all the water except for the areas in which they control, they would have a monopoly on fresh drinking water. Then we would have a water cartel in place of an oil cartel. Forever raising the price of water and literally holding the life of the population in their hands.
I'll address this as not your personal opinion that you're not saying he should do it but as a fact that he most likely will do it.
I think supporting a corrupt candidate for quick relief against an even worse candidate is selling your life-long ideals cheap. He achieved much by rising to popularity from within a major party, but he should now prove his commitment to his cause by taking a long hard look at the situation and assessing whether supporting a major party candidate really is the best for this country. In the long run it changes nothing. Trump is really bad in the short term whereas Clinton would be a blessing to the current way of (political) life.
The best thing to do is to send a loud and clear message that things need to change, no matter what. He should either consider running as an independent or endorse someone outside the party. Standing strong and taking the fallout would make him a historic figure, someone to look up to and inspire others. We have now also learned that the whole nomination process was practically rigged from the start and this only underlines the previous point.
Many great thinkers didn't succeed in their lifetime, but their legacy really changed the world.
I believe Trump is paid by Hillary to run. This is the most logical explanation (seriously).
I listened to Bernie Sanders for an hour nearly every Friday for years on the Thom Hartmann show so I think I know him pretty well. Of course Bernie is an idealist but he's also a pragmatic politician willing to take a partial victory to advance his cause. Doing anything that gives Trump a better chance of winning will not do that. He has got enough support to name several people to the Democratic Platform Committee and dragged Hillary to the left some. If he's inspired some of his followers to follow in his footsteps he has done a lot to advance his cause and made a small change to the world. He's not going to blow that all up just for the sake of personal pride or being a rigid idealist.
Well, if that isn't the pot calling the kettle a nigger.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Which ever comes first.
Yes, never try to make positive change. Just put your efforts into hurt the people you hate.
Funny how the story changes completely across the Atlantic.
Here in local news (I live in Germany), the decision is largely painted as allowing fracking and the coalition partners are slammed for not having enough guts to outlaw it, which apparently was the original proposal before it was watered down.
The "if the states allow it" is the federal government cop-out if they can't find a solution. Because we have two houses as well, one elected by the people directly and one with representatives from all states, and because people sometimes vote differently in local vs. federal elections and because of different coalitions, holding a majority in one doesn't automatically mean holding one in the other, much like it is in the USA.
So when the coalition could push something through the Bundestag, but not through the Bundesrat, their solution is "leave it up to the states". Spineless cowards, all of them. Always change your opinion so you find a majority.
The important thing is that a lot of NGOs and opposition parties wanted a ban on fracking, and they didn't have the spine to do it. This is not a ban, it's basically a permission with the added bureaucracy that you need a local permission.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
The fact that Bernie would prefer a felon says something terrible about him.
Any random non-felon would be better. I mean it. Without even really knowing their politics
That is just retarded.
Would you for example rather vote for a candidate that runs Putins errands rather than a felon candidate that only cared about her own wealth?
Of course the "vote for lesser evil" means that you only get those two choices.
What some people call "tactical voting" is a pretty bad tactic since it puts you in a position where you will be screwed over no matter what.
Voting for a better person when no possibility to win gives better results. When the larger politicians wonder where the votes went they will realize that they need to shape up if they want to win.
As long as people vote for the lesser evil that won't happen.
Russia will not honor any of its agreements, and is a dangerous aggressor.
One of the promises made to the USSR when the whole wall came down and Soviet Union dissolved and all that was that the NATO would not expand to the borders of Russia. Oh look, how we keep our promises.
If Russia would expand - peacefully, through alliances - to include Canada and Mexiko, how do you think the USA would react? Peacefully? Really, it's possible to be so stupid?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If I were Trump, I would call up Bernie and ask him if he wants to be my Vice President.
You know, just to fuck over the establishment, and anyway I'm Trump, I don't really give two shits about any of this politics, I'm in it for the laughs and giggles.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
> non-felon used-car salesmen
Why not just ask for honest lawyers or smart generals ? I mean if you're trying to limit the lottery to the shortest list possible...
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>Voting for a better person when no possibility to win gives better results.
Sadly - it does not. In fact, most often, it has led to the worst possible candidate winning. Gore may not have been a good president (I have my doubts about the guy behind the PMRC crap being a good leader) - but Bush II was terrible, and he got the job in 2000 mostly because so many people who would otherwise have voted for Gore voted for Ralph Nader instead.
I think Nader would have been a better president than Gore but he was always a no-hoper and he caused 8 years of the shrub instead. On the other side of the dark, dangerous ally one of the only cases in the last 70 years of an incumbent not winning re-election was when Bush 1 lost to Clinton in '92 - a loss almost entirely caused by Bob Dole.
So either way - voting for a non-mainstream candidate ends up, most often, ensuring your second choice loses. This is a major problem in the US system. A better system would let you rank candidates by preference.
If you voters could list Nader as first choice, Gore as second and Bush as third - chances are Nader may actually have won, and even if he hadn't, Gore would not be as terrible as Bush was.
In such a system, if your number one choice doesn't get enough votes to win - your vote still counts for your number 2, they don't end up being - effectively, a vote for the person you LEAST want to win.
It doesn't much matter if you're a liberal (like me) or a conservative, either way the current system is bad but as long as this is the system the ONLY chance to get somebody else elected is in the primaries. In the general you HAVE to vote with your brain or you end up voting for the thing you wanted least. Right now, any vote not for Hillary is a vote for an avowed fascist who eagerly spouts policies taken straight out of mein kampf and actually can't even be bothered to come up with any explanation of why they may be different.
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Face it, Bernie won't be president - I wish he would be but he won't. But he just may have opened the door for a president Warren in 2020 or 2024.
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Erm... Hitler loved the 'ragheads' as you call them. He considered them practically honorary Aryans - the second most noble race on earth according to him. Seriously - if your'e going to be a racist troll, at least don't be an ignorant one as well.
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"American Exceptionalism" doesn't mean what you seem to think it does. It's not "American Betterism". Look it up some time if you're interested in knowing what the words you use mean.
In brief summary, it's the idea that the US has a special responsibility to act in accordance with the principles of freedom and democracy because it was founded not as an ethnic group, but based on those principles.
Well, there was also a treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe between the USSR and NATO countries that limited the amount of NATO troops and equipment in Europe. It was broken by the NATO expansion.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
While that sort of thing never surprises me at all, I still get frustrated by it: the reason I voted for Bernie in the Democratic primary was because preventing Hillary Clinton from becoming president was the most important thing. The reason I voted in the Democratic primary at all was to try to keep her off the ballot in the general election.
-rozzin.
Holy cow! I've only committed two (2) today. I better get busy!!! Is today Purge day???
Two felonies will suffice if the government doesn't like you for whatever reason.
Bernie Sanders is about to bow out.
All Sanders supporters should shift their support to Jill Stein, not the felon Hillary Clinton.
Beware! You have awaken the Trumpians! (grabs popcorn...)
He's talking about Jill Stein, not Trump. Plenty of people on the Left are no fan of Hillary.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
shes not even on the ballot in most states.
some states like Oklahoma have legally barred all but the main two parties from elections.
When Ukraine gave up it's nuclear stockpile, Russia agreed not to interfere with Ukraine in return. We can see how well that worked out.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
but Bush II was terrible, and he got the job in 2000 mostly because so many people who would otherwise have voted for Gore voted for Ralph Nader instead.
Actually, I think Bush II got the job in 2000 mostly because so many people voted for Bush II.
This is a parody of leftist greek apologists. Please tell me you don't believe this nonsense.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Not sure if it's that direct. But the fix truely is in.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Citation needed.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Because nobody should be concerned that the justice department is refusing to indict when the evidence is so clear. No politics there at all.
Step back for a second and consider what you would do if the roles were reversed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Citation needed.
Hitler supported any group that hated the jews. Ragheads qualified.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This must have been submitted by someone who does not know how law and politics work in Germany. The federal government has forwarded a proposal to regulate fracking. Not to ban it. And it ultimately leaves the decision to the individual states, most of which are in dire need of more funding. Some of the state governments have already expressed support for fracking – this is the enabling piece of legislation they have been waiting for.
And in contrast to the praise some AC showered over our social democrats, I am delighted to be just as disappointed as I expected to be by the Traitors' Party (as the moniker for that particular party goes around here) for the sell-out they committed here. Again.
If only someone invented a machine that recovered electricity from broken political promises, all our current and future energy needs would be fulfilled by year's end.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
Of course Gore won the popular vote in 2000. He just lost in the Electoral College.
Then again, russia isn't germany, so why the fuck you give a shit about a "subject change" when the subject HAD ALREADY CHANGED beggars any intelligent being.
and not America.
You saying the texans aren't American?!?!?!?
The claim that the gas venting in the documentary (no scare quotes needed: it was a documentary) were proven faked has been proven a lie.
Now that Germans aren't allowed to frack, the birth rate is plummeting.
For fuck's sake, i even have provided the name of the treaty, are you too stupid to use a bloody search engine? http://m.state.gov/md108185.ht...
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Vote a third party. Simple as that.
In 50 years people will look back on fracking with the same eyes we look at shoe store x-ray machines today. It's a bad idea to any half intelligent person on the planet and no one would do it if money wasn't involved.
You make a claim, you present evidence. That's how things work in a debate.
Good. Now, please, cite the actual violations. Oh, heck, I'll do your job for you — this once... So, Russia and others have violated the treaty in 1998, according to Wikipedia and its sources, whereas NATO violated it in 2006...
Seriously, claiming that these "violations" are equivalent to and justify an actual armed invasion is ridiculous... Russian scum indeed.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What felonies has Clinton been convicted of? I believe the answer is "none", which means she's not a felon. You may be assuming on the basis of biased announcements and a shaky understanding of the law that she will be convicted, but that's speculative at best.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The evidence isn't clear. I've seen a lot of malicious speculation on what she might have done, and simplistic and incomplete at best explanations of the law by people who are self-evidently not lawyers.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
The Soviet Union was socialist. I've seen no particular signs of socialism in modern Russia, and nobody will who doesn't define socialism as "government I don't like". There are many ways to screw up a country and a government, and Russia has wound up with one that the Soviets didn't.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
It doesn't matter. She is not a felon. That's a fact. If she's a felon in the future, so be it, but she isn't right now.
Step back for a second and consider what you would do if the roles were reversed.
I'm confused, which roles should be reversed? Do I become Hillary Clinton, does Hillary Clinton become the FBI, or do I become the FBI?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
NAZI mythology held that Aryans were the descendants of Atlantis. The mythology stated that there were two offshoot races that shared this heritage to a lesser degree making them cousins to Aryans and superior to other races. These number 2 races were Arabs and Asians (especially Tibettans and Japanese who were believed to be the purest Asian races). Hitler sent several scientists to Tibet to look for proof of this idea, brought Japan into the axis and gave Arab immigrants immunity from slavery. These are not controversial claims. It is well documented history. Hell it is literally what Heinrich Himmler's department was for.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You wrote a very comprehensive response. Thanks for that. I appreciate you sharing your viewpoint. I wonder if we could now focus a bit more and you could tell me briefly what you think about these specific questions:
> supporting coups of democracies - most recently Honduras and Ukraine
Clearly you're unhappy that Clinton supported the coup in Honduras. Would you be surprised or upset if you thought Castro supported it? That is, if Castro (or Russia) supported a coup of a democracy, would that be just as upsetting, or would you expect one dictator to support another? A detailed explanation is necessary.
You expressed great displeasure that the United States has a friendly relationship with the House of Saud, which is the secular half of the Saudi government. If Iran forged an alliance with one of the Saudi governments, whould that be just as bad, or would you expect one Muslim nation to ally with another? If Russia supported Iran, would that be as bad as the US working with the Saudis?
I'm very curious about your thoughts directly on this specific pair of questions.
Typing on a small phone, I missed the word NOT. Sorry about that. I wrote "a detailed explanation is necessary". I meant "a detailed explanation is NOT necessary".
I'm just curious if you would agree more with a or with b:
A) The US SHOULD support democracy, they claim to be "the brightest beacon of freedom and democracy".
B) The US has no more responsibility to support freedom and democracy than Iran, North Korea, or any other country does. It's perfectly fine for each country to support whoever they want in each situation.
Typing on a small phone, I missed the word NOT. I wrote "a detailed explanation is necessary". I meant "a detailed explanation is NOT necessary".
I'm curious if you would agree more with a or with b:
A) The US SHOULD support democracy, they claim to be "the brightest beacon of freedom and democracy".
B) The US has no more responsibility to support freedom and democracy than Iran, North Korea, or any other country does. It's perfectly fine for each country to support whoever they want in each situation.
Yes, yes â" a tale oft-repeated by Russian scum. Please, cite the treaty, where that promise was made. Oops...
No such treaty was signed, but documents support the claim. Here is a reputable source for you:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat...
Quote Jack Matlock, the US ambassador in Moscow at the time, has said in the past that Moscow was given a "clear commitment."
NATO itself officially rejects this claim: http://nato.int/cps/en/natohq/...
The thing is controversial, but your choice of words makes it clear you have no interest in facts and nuanced views, you're a stupid git who shouts at everyone who dares to not share your dimwitted opinion.
You are trying to equate unequatable.
You are dodging the question and your counterpoint has nothing to do with the argument. It was a simple question: Do you believe the USA would stand by and watch if the Warsaw Pact were resurrected and Canada and Mexiko joined? Yes or no? It's a simple question.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Are you completely mental or a paid shill?
Nobody said Russia is innocence in white. People with brains are just tired of this cold war USA = good, Russia = evil propaganda.
But you admitted that the west has broken its promises, which was all that was claimed in this thread, so case closed. If you want to compare dicks, sorry, violations, that's three threads over to the left.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org