I have to disagree with your math. First of all, most people are grouped into population centers and fracking is not taking place very close to those population centers. So, if "only" 10% of the water is poisoned, then far fewer than 10% of the population will be affected. Take PA - 12 million population. Something like 9 million of those live in the top-10 metro areas. Lets make the ridiculous assumption that the remaining 3 million all live in fracking territory and all of them drink well water. 10% is 300,000 people affected by fracking.
The reality is that there are 1 million private wells in PA, which incidentally is the 2nd most in the nation if you like useless trivia. So it's a pretty good bet that those 3 million people are using well water. But look at the region with wells, and then look at the population map of PA. It is clear that most of the wells are nowhere near the populated areas of the state. Much of them are in state forests. I don't think we are talking about anywhere near 300,000 people in PA.
But even if we were, let's take your 10% number. We have some pretty shady operators here in PA. We have spills - even massive spills into the Susquehanna - of the frack water. Despite our crappy drilling companies with their amusing-if-it-were-somewhere else attention to safety, no one has been able to show even a short-term serious health threat, let alone some thousand-year superfund site.
What exactly is the mechanism you fear will make the well water undrinkable for thousands (or millions) of years?
You serious? I thought I was being pretty nuanced...
Re:how'bout u first prove beyond doubt that its sa
on
Vermont Bans Fracking
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· Score: 2
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.
Sure, but if I extrapolate from their cable bill practices that should be about $10... they give you $10 off on your internet if you already have cable:)
I wasn't flaming, I thought that was honestly funny... it's one thing to ban fracking, which probably doesn't make economic sense in VT, but this will stop people from even exploring. It's another thing entirely to ban deep injection wells, which are used for other chemicals besides frack water. If the geography and regulatory climate of VT was conducive to deep injection wells, they would have been put in a long time ago (like in Ohio).
These cables deliver crisp clear sound and are worth every penny. The sound, in all ranges, is amazing. My panoramic eq has never sounded better. I just have one gripe. My Television sometimes won't turn off ever since I've started using these cables with my stereo surround system. In fact it's on right now despite the fact that it's not even plugged in to the electrical outlet. I'm not sure how but these cables are supplying independent power to my television and stereo receiver. It's really cut down on my electricity bill even though, at times, I've lost the ability to control my TV.
Another downside is that, occasionally, there will be high pitched shrill sounds through the speakers. Almost as if a young woman is screaming. It doesn't happen all the time though. Usually it's around 3am when the TV turns itself on. I'm not sure why. It always turns on this show called "Hell Beast". Tivo is not set to record it but, without fail, it turns on every night at 3:33 am. I'm not sure what it's about. There's some sort of gargoyle or mutant goat or something. I think it's a monster movie show. Although they never show a movie and the goat monster guy just says "I want you" over and over. I think it's British or something. I don't really understand the humor. I'm usually tending to my newborn daughter who's routinely wakes up crying because of the screaming coming out of the television. It's funny too because that goat character on the show sometimes yells the name Shannon and that's the name of my daughter. LOL...
Other than those few issues I'm really enjoying the free electricity. It's helped with $$. Especially after all the money I had to drop re-soding my lawn after some teenagers burnt a star into my front lawn. Some stupid neighborhood gang. They're calling themselves 9-9-9.
I think most of the complaints are with natural gas ending up in drinking water. It's hard to judge, though, because the places where natural gas is plentiful already had a lot of gas in the drinking water.
The other concern is the unknown chemicals used in the frack water. Apparently the exact mix is considered a trade secret and so it goes largely untested by the scientific community.
There is the earthquake issue with the disposal, but these tremors are tiny little things. I have no idea if they could "trigger" a destructive earthquake, but it seems unlikely IMUHO (uninformed humble opinion):)
In general I am "pro" fracking - even given some health and environmental effects, you have to weigh it against the effects of coal mining and oil drilling.
My main concern is that the fracking chemicals are considered a trade secret and so are not disclosed. The broader scientific community has no good way of evaluating the chemicals that are frequently used, and I think that does a disservice to everyone involved.
My other problem is a political one - our state does not make any money when the gas is extracted. I think a fee should be charged and that the money should go to a contingency fund (in case this fracking thing needs cleanup afterall...) that after, say, 30 years could dump into the state treasury. Other money should go into an infrastructure fund - the state should benefit in the long-term from resources extracted inside of it.
There's no way the US can be trusted indefinitely with it anymore, something has to change.
I agree that it is not ideal that the US has sole control, but handing it over to the UN General Assembly is something that I object to even more. In the interest of democracy and free speech, I think that something like the Reporters Without Borders list and the measure of democracy proposed by the Economist could be used to select members that are relatively free and democratic. Exclude countries that aren't in the top 50% of the Reporters Without Borders list and exclude countries that are in the "Authoritarian" category in the Economist rankings.
You get charged based on how much electricity you use..
A homeowner does, but businesses can get charged based on usage and time-of-day. Also, there is a direct correlation between burnt fuel and electrons. There is no such correlation between bits transferred and a consumable cost on Comcast's side.
This actually seems like a pretty sane plan for most people who aren't diehard pirates or Netflix users.
It's only sane if you are Comcast trying to maximize profits. They are trying to have it both ways: a minimum price that they collect from everyone regardless of usage and a per-GB price as well.
In cell-phone land this is acceptable because very low-usage customers can switch to a pay-by-the-minute plan that saves them a lot of money every month - I think T-Mobile has a $100 prepay charge that lasts a whole year and gives you $0.10/minute, so you could conceivably only spend $100 for the entire year if you kept your usage to about 80 minutes/month. That's great for people who don't need their monthly service, the cheapest plan of which offers 500 minutes and no texting for $35/month.
Anyway, there's no "prepay" version of broadband that I'm aware of, unless you just switch over to using the cell network for internet access.
I'm glad they didn't risk the lives of a Seal team to give a guy who was on the kill list for 2 years that one last chance to surrender. He had plenty of chances. If he wanted his day in court, he shouldn't have run from justice for so long...you're hanging your hat on the wrong guy here. The US has a much larger black eye from Guantanamo than from Al-Awlaki.
To measure political speech, I would use a list like this, which is much less subjective than your opinion. It looks to me like the dividing line is somewhere in the middle of that list, but that is obviously IMHO. The bottom of that list is straight out.
To measure democracy, I'd try something like this (sorry about the PDF). They have a category called "Authoritarian regimes", and I think those countries should definitely be excluded.
I'm not trying to rig the game in favor of the US, I'm trying to rig the game in favor of human rights.
I could get behind this if it weren't the entire General Assembly, but instead just a selection of governments with some kind of free speech and representative democracy. Letting countries like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran even have a vote seems ludicrous.
Slashdot Mirror
I have to disagree with your math. First of all, most people are grouped into population centers and fracking is not taking place very close to those population centers. So, if "only" 10% of the water is poisoned, then far fewer than 10% of the population will be affected. Take PA - 12 million population. Something like 9 million of those live in the top-10 metro areas. Lets make the ridiculous assumption that the remaining 3 million all live in fracking territory and all of them drink well water. 10% is 300,000 people affected by fracking.
The reality is that there are 1 million private wells in PA, which incidentally is the 2nd most in the nation if you like useless trivia. So it's a pretty good bet that those 3 million people are using well water. But look at the region with wells, and then look at the population map of PA. It is clear that most of the wells are nowhere near the populated areas of the state. Much of them are in state forests. I don't think we are talking about anywhere near 300,000 people in PA.
But even if we were, let's take your 10% number. We have some pretty shady operators here in PA. We have spills - even massive spills into the Susquehanna - of the frack water. Despite our crappy drilling companies with their amusing-if-it-were-somewhere else attention to safety, no one has been able to show even a short-term serious health threat, let alone some thousand-year superfund site.
What exactly is the mechanism you fear will make the well water undrinkable for thousands (or millions) of years?
You serious? I thought I was being pretty nuanced...
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.
Sure, but if I extrapolate from their cable bill practices that should be about $10... they give you $10 off on your internet if you already have cable :)
Didn't know that - you still are getting all of our frack waste water :)
Government! Yay!
I wasn't flaming, I thought that was honestly funny... it's one thing to ban fracking, which probably doesn't make economic sense in VT, but this will stop people from even exploring. It's another thing entirely to ban deep injection wells, which are used for other chemicals besides frack water. If the geography and regulatory climate of VT was conducive to deep injection wells, they would have been put in a long time ago (like in Ohio).
Yeah, I'm aware of the indirect money the state gets. I meant they don't tax it directly.
This might be my favorite review ever on Amazon:
LOL, did they also ban sunbathing in January? What other non-existent-in-VT activity did they ban? NO BETAMAX!
I think most of the complaints are with natural gas ending up in drinking water. It's hard to judge, though, because the places where natural gas is plentiful already had a lot of gas in the drinking water.
The other concern is the unknown chemicals used in the frack water. Apparently the exact mix is considered a trade secret and so it goes largely untested by the scientific community.
There is the earthquake issue with the disposal, but these tremors are tiny little things. I have no idea if they could "trigger" a destructive earthquake, but it seems unlikely IMUHO (uninformed humble opinion) :)
That would be so friggin awesome...
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.
The earthquakes are from the disposal of the frack water (in Ohio) and are not occurring where the fracking itself is taking place (in PA).
I'm in PA, which is not hostile to fracking.
In general I am "pro" fracking - even given some health and environmental effects, you have to weigh it against the effects of coal mining and oil drilling.
My main concern is that the fracking chemicals are considered a trade secret and so are not disclosed. The broader scientific community has no good way of evaluating the chemicals that are frequently used, and I think that does a disservice to everyone involved.
My other problem is a political one - our state does not make any money when the gas is extracted. I think a fee should be charged and that the money should go to a contingency fund (in case this fracking thing needs cleanup afterall...) that after, say, 30 years could dump into the state treasury. Other money should go into an infrastructure fund - the state should benefit in the long-term from resources extracted inside of it.
There's no way the US can be trusted indefinitely with it anymore, something has to change.
I agree that it is not ideal that the US has sole control, but handing it over to the UN General Assembly is something that I object to even more. In the interest of democracy and free speech, I think that something like the Reporters Without Borders list and the measure of democracy proposed by the Economist could be used to select members that are relatively free and democratic. Exclude countries that aren't in the top 50% of the Reporters Without Borders list and exclude countries that are in the "Authoritarian" category in the Economist rankings.
I'd rather they cut me off (or throttle me) a la T-Mobile.
You get charged based on how much electricity you use..
A homeowner does, but businesses can get charged based on usage and time-of-day. Also, there is a direct correlation between burnt fuel and electrons. There is no such correlation between bits transferred and a consumable cost on Comcast's side.
This actually seems like a pretty sane plan for most people who aren't diehard pirates or Netflix users.
It's only sane if you are Comcast trying to maximize profits. They are trying to have it both ways: a minimum price that they collect from everyone regardless of usage and a per-GB price as well.
In cell-phone land this is acceptable because very low-usage customers can switch to a pay-by-the-minute plan that saves them a lot of money every month - I think T-Mobile has a $100 prepay charge that lasts a whole year and gives you $0.10/minute, so you could conceivably only spend $100 for the entire year if you kept your usage to about 80 minutes/month. That's great for people who don't need their monthly service, the cheapest plan of which offers 500 minutes and no texting for $35/month.
Anyway, there's no "prepay" version of broadband that I'm aware of, unless you just switch over to using the cell network for internet access.
I'm glad they didn't risk the lives of a Seal team to give a guy who was on the kill list for 2 years that one last chance to surrender. He had plenty of chances. If he wanted his day in court, he shouldn't have run from justice for so long...you're hanging your hat on the wrong guy here. The US has a much larger black eye from Guantanamo than from Al-Awlaki.
To measure political speech, I would use a list like this, which is much less subjective than your opinion. It looks to me like the dividing line is somewhere in the middle of that list, but that is obviously IMHO. The bottom of that list is straight out.
To measure democracy, I'd try something like this (sorry about the PDF). They have a category called "Authoritarian regimes", and I think those countries should definitely be excluded.
I'm not trying to rig the game in favor of the US, I'm trying to rig the game in favor of human rights.
Representative democracy? At the UN? Since when does a king or dictator represent the will of the people? I'm the one proposing democracy.
And letting in the US is better ?
Well, the US controls it now, so...
What kind of a lunatic creates a web page consisting of 94 individual flash animations??? It's like Hamster Dance!!!
I could get behind this if it weren't the entire General Assembly, but instead just a selection of governments with some kind of free speech and representative democracy. Letting countries like China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran even have a vote seems ludicrous.