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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.
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.
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?
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.
It's only a moratorium, not a ban.
There is a big difference.
The people opposed to gas drilling don't want an alternative. They want to stop the use of fossil fuels.
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.
We are offering an incentive:
"YOU produce lower cost energy alternatives or techniques that prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, or WE will continue to produce greenhouse gasses; YOU want alternatives? YOU pay for them."
Greenhouse gasses themselves encourage such solutions.
Just like peeing and defecating in public in a particular alley encourages adjacent businesses to install public toilets.
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!! ;-)
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.
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
>You say that now, because you're likely employed in the first world. With a high paying job, in either a downtown area or suburb where the loss of thousands of blue collar workers jobs will have minimal impact. Right up until the downtown starts shutting down, and your company moves out. [lmgtfy.com]
The problem with your reasoning is this: you can't eat money, you can't drink it, you can't breath it. Without a healthy, viable environment - the economy is absolutely useless.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
So, you are denying having changed the subject? Fine, let's recount: I started this thread pointing out Russia being a dangerous aggressor and it is therefor dangerous to be buying gas from her. You and boredwithpolitics "counter" that by saying, US is more of an aggressor... Sorry, but USA was not even in the picture — buying gas from the US is not an option for Germany.
The only reason to bring US into the conversation at all was for you two Kremlin-bots to shift attention from the topic you'll immediately lose to the one, where you can usually fight to stalemate.
But I recognized your subject-change — before moving on — and called it out.
I'm comparing American efforts to propagandize freedom and Capitalism to Russia's armed invasions: into Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine to name just the most recent ones. Yes, one of them is an ant hill and the other — a mountain. Only it is not the side you are backing, hater.
What of it?
Let's see — and, unlike you, I'm going to stick to known facts of military invasions not unsupported accusations of "foreign influence":
That was USSR. Now comes modern Russia: Moldova, Geogrgia, Ukraine. Again, the above are only the military invasions by Russia. Subtler things — like poisoning of Ukraine's presidential contender — aren't included for brevity.
There is still no transcript and the video is nearly 9 minutes long. If you can not find the transcript — as would've been customary for text-based debates — perhaps, you can link directly to the section of the v
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.