553 replies to this topic

[Shortpoet-GTD]

The picture of Dorian Grey.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Tar sands oil is not conventional crude.
It is so thick, sticky and full of sand that companies have to shoot steam deep underground to liquefy it
or scrape it out of sprawling surface mines.
These complex extraction techniques are expensive, and they also produce a lot more
greenhouse gases
than conventional oil wells.

• 
  

And the Keystone XL pipeline is back on track. TransCanada is sending out threatening letters as we speak; claiming
eminent domain.
If homeowners think they have rights for their own lands, they need to think again.
Big oil will take what they need from anyone.


And of course, the big polluters will always be shouting-"Jobs!"
but what good are jobs if the land is covered in oil?

http://www.npr.org/2...ole-new-monster
This link shows a breakdown of oil spills-costs, injuries, environmental damage, that seem to happen all the
time but few get reported.
http://primis.phmsa....cache=4790#_all

Related topics about tar sands oil.
http://www.altenergy...w-how-to-do-it/
http://www.altenergy...-report-is-out/

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Australia is having problems with this too.

A coal seam gas- methane fire is still burning, and locals are considering relocated because they fear more
will happen in the future.

And of course, as always, the company (arrow energy) is saying, "It's not our fault." Yeah right.
Source.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

The first thing that came to mind when I heard this story was fracking.

At the moment, it's just speculation on my part because I can't find source links to show fracking has been
going on close by, but it makes me wonder.

And this "swarm" is so close to the San Andreas fault line, it's a bit worrying.

http://www.cnn.com/2...warm/index.html

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Huge protest march in New York today against fracking.
And Bloomberg is pretty cool himself. His philanthropies include giving $6 million to the Environmental Defense Fund.
Source

[FamilyTreeClimber]

I didn't know that TransCanada is threatening to use eminent domain to get their way.  It's amazing to me that eminent domain has moved so far from it's original purpose.  It used to only be available to government agencies to do projects that were in the common good of a community.  But, after that Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago, it's become a tool for businesses that want to run roughshod over communities.

What I don't understand is why conservatives aren't in an uproar about this.  Specificially, individuals (not politicians).  They are angry that the electric company is going to attach a smart meter to their house.  Yet, eminent domain has been used to take their land away from them to run pipelines or fences across their property gets barely a whimper.  I remember reading about the border fence running through Texas and that they used eminent domain to cut through people's property.  In some places it has separated ranches from their grazing land. Why is their no protest?

Anyway...guess I veered a bit off track from the original point of this thread.  Shortpoet, I am glad ther are protests in New York.  People need to become more aware of the costs of fracking.  i hadn't even heard of it until a year or so ago.  They have been hiding it from us for too long.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

FamilyTreeClimber, on 27 August 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

I didn't know that TransCanada is threatening to use eminent domain to get their way.  It's amazing to me that eminent domain has moved so far from it's original purpose.  It used to only be available to government agencies to do projects that were in the common good of a community.  But, after that Supreme Court ruling a couple of years ago, it's become a tool for businesses that want to run roughshod over communities.

What I don't understand is why conservatives aren't in an uproar about this.  Specificially, individuals (not politicians).  They are angry that the electric company is going to attach a smart meter to their house.  Yet, eminent domain has been used to take their land away from them to run pipelines or fences across their property gets barely a whimper.  I remember reading about the border fence running through Texas and that they used eminent domain to cut through people's property.  In some places it has separated ranches from their grazing land. Why is their no protest?

Anyway...guess I veered a bit off track from the original point of this thread.  Shortpoet, I am glad ther are protests in New York.  People need to become more aware of the costs of fracking.  i hadn't even heard of it until a year or so ago.  They have been hiding it from us for too long.

Well, as you can see from the number of posts I've brought to this subject, I'm passionate about this.

Natural gas may burn cleaner than coal but the extraction methods, the hundreds of chemicals pumped into
the ground to retrieve it, the local water supplies that are tainted, and the growing number of earthquakes
this practice causes should be known by more people.

What got me started was reading about the basically non existent regulations that cheney bullied into place
so his company halliburton could do whatever they wanted to pad their bottom lines; public health be damned.

That one person can wield so much power over millions of Americans and change the health and safety
regulations continues to baffle and anger me.
How many people died because he waived the war banner and took us into Iraq? But that's another thread.

And then of course, seeing the movie Gasland and the effects that non-regulations have on us and our
ability to have safe, clean drinking water added to the passion. Josh Fox is a true investigative reporter
and I applaud his efforts.

I've had a homemade sign in my car's back window for a few years now that reads-"Gas fracking. Do you know
how bad it is?"
The sad thing? Too many people asking me "What is fracking?" But then Texans have been living with
the filth of oil for decades on their lands, so I guess they don't worry about gas.
Well, at least not until they set their water faucets on fire.

Ignorance is not bliss; people must be aware of this. And from the New York protests, it shows that the word is getting out.

[yoder]

Just the fact that eminent domain in the US has been perverted to such an extent that foreign businesses are given power over US citizens on their own land, and all for private use, is overwhelming.

Expropriation in Canada appears to be different:
From Wikipedia "In Canada, expropriation is governed by federal or provincial statutes. Under these statutory regimes, public authorities have the right to acquire private property for public purposes, so long as the acquisition is approved by the appropriate government body. Once property is taken, an owner is entitled to "be made whole" by compensation for: the market value of the expropriated property, injurious affection to the remainder of the property (if any), disturbance damages, business loss, and special difficulty relocating. Owners can advance claims for compensation above that initially provided by the expropriating authority by bringing a claim before the court or an administrative body appointed by the governing legislation."

[FamilyTreeClimber]

Shortpoet, I've mentioned before that I have a friend that lives in a small town in Texas.  They may own their property, but they don't own rights to their land...the oil companies do.  If the oil company wants to start fracking or stick a derrick across the street from your house, you can't say anything.  She told me a year ago about how a neighbor down the road was trying to fight one oil company as they wanted to drill to close to his water well.  The people are dependent on their wells.  He lost his battle.  So, when his well gets tainted, he has nowhere to go.

And, this gets back to the Smart Meter thing.  The people will fight getting this little box attached to their meter.  But, they somehow believe that all the damages oil companies do is a far trade off.

Yoder, eminent domain no longer means what it once was.  As you said, foreign businesses can now use it.  That's crazy.  What common good does that serve?

[Shortpoet-GTD]

FamilyTreeClimber, on 28 August 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:

Shortpoet, I've mentioned before that I have a friend that lives in a small town in Texas.  They may own their property, but they don't own rights to their land...the oil companies do.  If the oil company wants to start fracking or stick a derrick across the street from your house, you can't say anything.  She told me a year ago about how a neighbor down the road was trying to fight one oil company as they wanted to drill to close to his water well.  The people are dependent on their wells.  He lost his battle.  So, when his well gets tainted, he has nowhere to go.

And, this gets back to the Smart Meter thing.  The people will fight getting this little box attached to their meter.  But, they somehow believe that all the damages oil companies do is a far trade off.

Yoder, eminent domain no longer means what it once was.  As you said, foreign businesses can now use it.  That's crazy.  What common good does that serve?

Too many of our rights are being taken away, bit by bit, bill by bill, law by law.
That's why I was so enthusiastic about the Occupy movement. I thought, ok finally, things will change,
light will be shined into the dark recesses of back door deals.

But no, all they were interested in was media coverage, you tube video's and getting arrested.
Such a waste of human potential for change. Like Egypt, I suppose.

Like us old hippies used to say-"You can't fight the man" and it's still true today.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Cement seems to be an issue.
Or is just the faulty way it's poured, not enough time allowed for it to set up properly, or the mixture is wrong?

We saw the same thing with the bp gulf oil spill.

Pennsylvania state regulators have sent out letters to residents stating-

"There is a physical danger of fire or explosion due to the migration of natural gas into water wells. It is not possible to
completely eliminate the hazards of having natural gas in your water supply by simply venting your well."

Chesapeake Energy was fined $900,000 for contaminating 16 water wells and have installed venting systems,
but the danger is still there.

The fact that these faulty drill sites are allowing leaking methane into local waterways and not just wells
should be cause for concern for everyone. Streams on fire? It could happen.
Source

[yoder]

We are indeed moving backward, and will soon again have our rivers catching fire regularly.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

yoder, on 29 August 2012 - 04:13 AM, said:

We are indeed moving backward, and will soon again have our rivers catching fire regularly.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

A growing coalition of artists (180 and counting) are coming together to oppose fracking.

So far the list includes (among others)-
Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Anne Hathaway, Alec Baldwin, Marina Abramovic, Gwyneth Paltrow,
Cindy Sherman, MGMT, Wilco, Bonnie Raitt, Liv Tyler, Mario Batali, Roberta Flack, Robert De Niro, Mark Ruffalo,
Uma Thurman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Yoko One and Sean Lennon.

Article

[E3 wise]

Please read the following article by Sean Lennon called  "Destroying Precious Land for Gas"
http://www.nytimes.c...nd-for-gas.html

Also you can read about the new organization " Artists Against Fracking" at this link
http://green.blogs.n...ainst-fracking/

[Shortpoet-GTD]

What percentage of gas fracking wells are inspected in your state?

In New York, 75% are not inspected. Just in New York alone, about 1000 new wells were dug between 2001-2010.
And with the non-existent oversight that chaney pushed through, it remains a free for all.
Source

[still learning]

Shortpoet-GTD, on 10 September 2012 - 03:57 AM, said:

What percentage of gas fracking wells are inspected in your state?
Source

Looks to me that the article you linked to refers to oil and gas well inspections generally, not just to fracked wells.
Near as I can tell, lots of the criticisms levelled at fracking should be levelled at oil and gas production generally.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

still learning, on 10 September 2012 - 01:04 PM, said:

Near as I can tell, lots of the criticisms levelled at fracking should be levelled at oil and gas production generally.

Exactly.

But when oil spills, we can see it. I think that's part of the problem. These fracking liquids seep into ground
water or homeowners wells unseen. It may be months before a problem comes up.

But by then, it's too late. The homeowners have already sold or signed a lease to the oil/gas companies
for those wells.


Methane can contaminate the water, it might not.

From what I've read, it depends on the quality of the cement being used.

And the thing that probably bothers me the most is our previous "unawareness"-I know I'm guilty of it.
But when I saw the movie Gasland, I could only think _____?
And why isn't everyone talking it?

Now, all these years later, people finally are.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Wyoming's governor thinks that gas fracking rules are "unnecessary."
Source

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Who knows what "compulsory integration" means?

It means, if your neighbor has signed a lease for their lands to be fracked for gas, they can frack your lands too-
without your permission

Source