Monday, May 20, 2013

Attempting to sell Gas Fracking to the American people their technology god needs to visit China.

It is becoming more and more 'us and them.' The political Right Wing can't stand the progress the USA is making on many fronts and alternative energies is one of them. Now, the NY Times wants to demonize the movement to stop the very dangerous technologies involved with hydraulic fracturing.


In Gas-Drillling Fight, Opposites Attract and Distract (click here)
April 24, 2013
by Andrew Revkin
There are passionate and well-meaning people arrayed all around the issues surrounding America’s enormous shale-gas resource and the communities on the surface above it. I’ve met landowners and residents and scientists in Pennsylvania and upstate New York with powerfully articulated positions against and for drilling using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

And then there are the filmmakers. First there was Josh Fox, who rose to prominence in 2010 with “Gasland,” a potent attack on fracking, and who unveiled “Gasland Part Two” at the Tribeca Film Festival on Sunday (read an IndieWire interview and film review)....

The USA Energy Department states China shale gas reserves are 50% larger than USA, so the petroleum industry is pushing every possible attack on the immorality of gas extraction through destruction of land and pollution of water and air. There are huge methane emissions from fracking wells.

January 17, 2013, 9:00 pm
I describe my recent posts (click here) on ways to identify gas leaks or prove — one way or the other — if water contamination came from a particular well. We talked about big impediments to the development of China’s huge shale gas reservesor increasing exports of liquefied natural gas to Asia. I also stressed that President Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy could be disrupted by cheap gas — without an overarching energy policy to sustain investments advancing the next generation of non-polluting energy technologies.

Don't ask me what kind of moral or ethical content the NY Times practices anymore, but, it isn't anything environmentally respectable. 

It is a joke to believe China needs help with energy. They will not replace coal. China struggles with finding energy for over one billion people. China never eliminates any energy source. It is why blaming China for the Climate Crisis is hideous. China is still a third world country in many ways. 

Over the decades China has diligently built all kinds of alternative energies, often against Western advise. The Three Gorges dam is a huge project and there are always worries, but, it was one of the most intense movement of Chinese citizens from impoverishment along the rivers to apartments built by the state.

China has vast fields of wind turbines already. It has significant areas of protected lands, some temperate rainforests. But, with over one billion people it is sometimes difficult for provincial authority to stop migration into the forests. 

China will never end it's coal mining or seek to stop it's imports from North Korea. China's population demands as much energy as it currently uses and then some.

The idea China needs fracking in a country plagued with extremely dangerous and frequent earthquakes is crazy. Plain and simple crazy.
On Sunday I posted a 140-character Twitter item (click here) containing four links that sketch humanity’s urban pollution challenges and opportunities over the last 60 years. (Link shortening is one of many reasons 140 characters can matter)....

The air quality in China is very bad, especially on days with temperature inversion. No one more than I wants Clean Air for every person in the world. But, Air Quality is not the same as energy needs. Air Quality is smoke stakes. Air Quality is about emissions. CO2 is an emissions problem. So, China needs to address their emissions along with their thirst for energy. That is the issue. Telling the Chinese if they SWITCH to hydraulic fracturing for gas will answer there air quality problems is a lie given that China will never stop using coal. There is no electorate to bring about change in China.