Hydraulic fracturing

The governor of the socialist republic of California, Jerry Brown seems to be a convert of the benefits of fracking:

The USC authors cite “the possibility that greater-than-expected in-state energy production not only could support a return to stronger economic growth within the state, but actually accelerate the state’s economic turnaround, perhaps profoundly so.”

Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects have harrumphed loudly about the perils of fracking. “If and when the oil companies figure out how to exploit that shale oil, California could be transformed almost overnight,” Kassie Siegel, a lawyer at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the New York Times in February. “Fracking poisons the air we breathe and the water we drink. It is one of the most, if not the most, important environmental issue in California.”

But to his credit, Governor Brown — affectionately known here as Moonbeam for his liberal, hippie tendencies — has taken some small steps in the right direction. “The fossil fuel deposits in California are incredible, the potential is extraordinary,” Brownstated last month, also noting that “between now and development lies a lot of questions that need to be answered, and I feel confident that the people are in place in my administration to handle the issues as they come up.” Brown also reaffirmed his commitment, such as it is, to the state’s oil economy, declaring that “our permits are dramatically up … California is the fourth-largest oil producing state and we want to continue that.” It may be some time before fracking becomes a reality, but Brown is plainly both feeling the pressure and sensing the promise.

So for all the talk of a new, high-tech, white-collar economy bringing California back from the brink, it may turn out that one of the oldest and dirtiest industries around will save the future of the Golden State.

The green taliban would have us all believe that fracking is incredibly dangerous and a huge risk…but is it?

The Greens oppose fracking when the reality shows they should actually be supporting it. It has been responsible for massive price reduction in power and also massive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Against all expectations, US emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, since peaking in 2007, have fallen by 12 per cent as of 2012, back to 1995 levels. The primary reason, in a word, is “fracking”. Or, in 11 words: horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to recover deposits of shale gas.

No other factor comes close to providing a plausible explanation. Unlike the European Union, the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, in which participating countries committed to cut CO2 emissions by roughly 5 per cent, relative to 1990 levels, by 2012.

Nor is America’s continued emissions reduction a side effect of lower economic activity: While the US economy peaked in late 2007, the same time as emissions, the recession ended in June 2009 and GDP growth since then, though inadequate, has been substantially higher than in Europe. Yet US emissions have continued to fall, while EU emissions began to rise again after 2009.

One can virtually prove that shale gas has been the major influence driving the fall in US emissions. Just ten years ago, the natural-gas industry was so sure that domestic production was reaching its limit that it made large investments in terminals to import liquefied natural gas (LNG). Yet fracking has increased supply so rapidly that these facilities are now being converted to export LNG.  Read more »

Hippes can suffer. The evidence is mounting of the great success of fracking and the astonishing failure of hippie power projects:

Enter the Apollo Alliance, which is a project of the George Soros-funded Tides Foundation. Apollo forged a new labor/environmentalist that would both limit fossil fuel use and spend billions promoting green energy.

Since renamed the BlueGreen Alliance, the group launched with a report calling for $500 billion in spending to create a “New Apollo Program” for the U.S. economy. It included federal subsidies for green car companies and solar firms, cash to make existing buildings energy-efficient, new power line construction and billions for new mass transit systems.

The New Apollo Program called for a cap-and-trade plan designed to drive energy producers away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy like solar, wind and biomass. Apollo promised these new initiatives would create 5 million new jobs.

The Obama campaign fully embraced the Apollo vision, producing its own New Energy for America document that largely mirrored the Apollo report. The only real difference was that Obama’s plan created 5 million new green economy jobs for just $150 billion.  Read more »

Gareth Hughes is going to be very disappointed that his little campaign to under-mine fracking in NZ has turned out to be fact free and nothing but scare-mongering.

A new study says that fracking will cause as much seismic activity as “jumping off a ladder”.

A controversial process used to extract shale gas causes tremors equivalent to someone ‘jumping off a ladder’.

Fracking, which involves blasting underground rock deposits with water and chemicals to release trapped pockets of gas, has been blamed for triggering earthquakes.

But a study has concluded ‘it is extremely unlikely that any of us will ever be able to feel an earthquake caused by fracking’.

After examining hundreds of thousands of gas extraction operations, the scientists found only three instances where resulting shocks could be detected by residents above ground.

In contrast, they found other man-made activities, such as mining and waste-disposal, are much more likely to trigger noticeable seismic activity.

Lead researcher Professor Richard Davies from Durham University’s Energy Institute, said the risk of fracking resulting in seismic activity that could be felt on the surface is ‘not significant’.  Read more »

Green Taliban actress, Lucy Lawless real name Lucy Tapert, has been slapped with yet another wet bus ticket from a gutless star-struck Judge.

“Actor Lucy Lawless says she is proud of her efforts to stop Shell drilling for oil in the Arctic….. “We are proud to have taken part in our attempt to stop Shell’s reckless plans to drill for oil in the pristine Arctic,” she said outside the court”.

And the punishment for being unrepentant, trespassing, wasting police time and making NZ look like a basket case?

“New Plymouth District Court, Judge Allan Roberts sentenced the activists to 120 hours community work and ordered them to pay Port Taranaki $651.44 each.

Wow maybe he has watched one too many episodes of Spartacus where Lawless gets her tits out.  How much do you think I would get if I invaded Judge Allan Roberts living room as a protest at overpaid Judges?  District Court judges pulling in a cool $300,500 per annum so I guess they really know what the breadline is like.     Read more »

James Lovelock is the inventor of Gaia theory and the father of modern environmentalism. The Guardian interviews him and finds that he is recanting. He discusses nuclear (good), wind power (bad) and why fracking is the future.

On sea level rises:

After more than three decades living amid acres of trees he planted himself by hand, he and his wife Sandy have decided to downsize and move to an old lifeguard’s cottage by the beach in Dorset. “I’m not worried about sea-level rises,” he laughs. “At worst, I think it will be 2ft a century.”

Read more »

If it wasn’t for the green taliban and the boy MP, Gareth Hughes, dramatically misleading people we would be able to get on with fracking a whole lot faster.

We should stop listening to the green taliban and start listening to people like Ronald Bailey argues that the “environmental and economic benefits of fracking greatly outweigh the costs“:

Environmental activists, who once hailed natural gas as the bridge fuel to the renewable energy future, have turned with a vengeance against it. Originally, activists who worried about man-made global warming produced by burning fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide favored fracking because burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide emitted by coal. However, local and national environmental groups have turned decisively against shale gas based on both not-in-my-backyard concerns and the fear that cheap natural gas undermines the economic case for solar and wind power.

The green taliban are covered by the shield of sanctimony which protects them from hypocrisy.  Read more »

Boris Johnson tells it like it is as he gets stuck into the Green Taliban over fracking:

In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news. Beware this new technology, they wail. Do not tamper with the corsets of Gaia! Don’t probe her loamy undergarments with so much as a finger — or else the goddess of the earth will erupt with seismic revenge. Dig out this shale gas, they warn, and our water will be poisoned and our children will be stunted and our cattle will be victims of terrible intestinal explosions. Yesterday the Observer found some political support for the gloomsters, in the form of a German MEP. His name is Jo Leinan, and it seems he is a prominent member of the Euro-parliament’s energy committee. There were only two countries interested in this procedure, he said – Poland and Britain.

And according to Herr Leinan, neither of us knows what we are getting ourselves into. We are about to release the pent-up shale gas of Britain from its sinister cavities beneath Lancashire and Sussex, and anything can happen. Before we touch the integuments of the planet, he says, the European parliament will produce some regulations to “discipline” the operation.

Regulations? From the Euro-parliament? And these people wonder why we in Britain are increasingly determined to have a referendum on our membership of the EU. I am sure that the SPD politician means well, but just what in the name of hell has it got to do with him? Before he draws up any regulations for the British fracking market, he might care to look at what has been going on in America in the past four years, where the discovery of large quantities of shale gas is turning into one of the most significant political events since the end of the Cold War.

The Green Taliban ignores the progress made in the US. Instead they focus on spurious science and attack anyone who says otherwise.

The US is into fracking boots and all, and political opposition is waning. We need to be telling the Green Taliban to frack off and get cracking with the fracking here:

Political obstacles to oil and gas production are starting to fall away at the state and local levels as voters, elected officials and courts jump on the energy boom bandwagon.

Voters are rewarding local politicians who support production. Ballot measures are distributing potential tax windfalls broadly. And most state legislatures are focused on managing the economic and environmental consequences of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, so the drilling boom can speed up rather than slow down.

The trend is crucial to the nation’s energy future because oil and gas production is regulated and taxed almost entirely by state and local governments. The federal government’s role is largely advisory, except on federal lands and on pipelines.

“Fracking is happening and it’s not going to stop, so we have to take the high road of good regulation and taxes so communities are better off, not worse off, after it’s done,” says Ted Boettner, executive director of the liberal West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.

Most states were caught off guard when fracking turned Pennsylvania into a major natural gas producer in 2009. Fracking could produce oil or gas in as many as 36 states. Result: The USA will become the world’s No. 1 producer of natural gas in 2015 and oil in 2017, overtaking Russia and Saudi Arabia, respectively, predicts the International Energy Agency.