Thursday, August 22, 2013

The people of the USA have been stuck with this horrid technology due to a 2005 Bush/Cheney law.

Hydrofracking (click here) is a controversial oil and gas extraction technique developed in the late 1940s to gain access to fossil energy deposits previously inaccessible to drilling operations. The process, "hydraulic fracturing", literally involves the smashing of rock with millions of gallons of water--along with sand and a undisclosed assortment of chemicals in order to bring gas to the surface.
The 2005 Energy Policy Act exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act--this regulatory exclusion is often referred to as the "Halliburton Loophole."
Montana fracking is still in the early stages of development compared to other states and has been described by a Texas oil company as "the best kept secret in oil and gas."

The law takes away our democracy. It IMPOSES the will of the petroleum industry on people while hiding all the problems with the technology.

The petroleum industry wants to pretend to be on top of all the problems and are seeking to recycle water, etc., etc., etc.

This technology is very different than drilling for oil. It is invasive, can be directed horizontally as well as vertically. It is like a serpent and there is no controlling the outcome.

Why is there no controlling the outcome, because, it splits rock. It isn't cutting into rock with a singular direction, it is melting rocks without discrimination as to the amount or the rock or the direction. It is a very dangerous technology.

I don't doubt this technology has existed since the 1940s. It is fairly obvious that it has. It is crude and does little to control the pollution and the leaking methane. It says Petroleum Industry all over it. They don't care what they do to the land. 

Ask this to any government official that believes this technology is better than sliced bread. Ask them and the petroleum industry what their plans are to return the land to pristine condition when they are finished with their drilling and methane extraction. ASK THEM. Don't think twice about it. Ask them what they are going to do to return the land to it's original condition when they finished with their profiteering.

They won't have an answer. Why? Because once the land has been fracked, there is no going back. It is even worse than mountain top mining. At least with mountain top mining the companies are required to preserve the removed biotic soils and content of the mountain and then to provide a way to return the forest once the mountain has been leveled. The fracking industry has no way of even doing that much. Once the land is fractured, it will always be fractured. Once the rock has been dissolved it will not regenerate. 

It is a horrid technology that should have remained back in the 1940s.