Fracking - where is it headed ?

[ZenGum]

The point of fracking is to create flow in the rock. This means any toxicity has greater potential to spread.

The fracking liquid is not the only source of toxins. Fossil carbon deposits contain all sorts of chemicals, a lot of which you don't want in your ground water. These would also be mobilised by fracking.

Take a long term view. A shale gas field would be productive for what, ten, twenty, thirty years? Contaminated groundwater would remain contaminated for ... centuries? How many jobs, and human lives, depend on that ground water? (Maybe here my Australian view is biasing me - we spend more time drilling for water than for oil, I think. Water is precious. Your view may differ.)

Back to a moratorium. It wouldn't "kill" the industry, just defer it. In a decade, the gas will still be there, and it will probably be worth even more. Brooks' thinking is very much RIGHT NOW, not at all long term.

Check out how the US lead industry for decades fought and suppressed the evidence about how bad lead was for human health. (Try A Short History of Almost Everything, Bill Bryson, quite a fun read). Think about how tobacco companies did the same about cigarettes.
I think people are right to be wary. We are relying for protection on a system that is slow and clumsy at best, and are risking significant long term penalties if this call is wrong.

Fracking IS an efficient and apparently clever way to extract the least-dirty fossil fuel. Provided it can be done without sodding up the groundwater and soil, we might as well. I think we should be more careful to make sure that proviso is being met before calling for full steam ahead. Remember, the companies who are saying we should take the risk are not the ones who will suffer if the risk goes bad. We all know where that can lead - Wall Street.

[Undertoad]

Contaminated groundwater would remain contaminated for ... centuries?

We'll just stick with the nukes then?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

We'll just stick with the nukes then?

Which completely misses are few important points.

1) We have more than enough energy. The problem was obviously defined by this simple example. For every ten gallons of gasoline burned in a car, only about one actually does anything productive. We waste over 8 of those ten gallons doing nothing but heat, noise, and pollution. We don't have an energy shortage. We have an innovation shortage.

2) The problems with both nuclear power and fracking are not the process. In both cases, it is the management who screws everyone else for their greater glory and profit. In every case (Fukushima or fracking), problems were not created by the technology. Problems were created by management with outright contempt for the technology and for those who actually make things work.

These fracking problems are so serious that fracking has been banned in areas that provide NYC with drinking water. Or course, clean water is one reason for NYC's success. Water so clean that it is not even treated or chlorinated. Management problems and other unknowns are so great that fracking is banned where it might affect water supplies. And where consumers actually have political power.

[Undertoad]

1. Internal combustion cars are inefficient. That's an argument for changing the energy mix away from internal combustion. But electric cars are gonna have to be plugged in somewhere.

2. So we'll just stick with the coal then?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That's an argument for changing the energy mix away from internal combustion. But electric cars are gonna have to be plugged in somewhere.

Nobody said internal combustion must be so inefficient. And nobody said electric cars are a solution. Both speculations are often promoted as if fact in propaganda that exists without numbers.

Meanwhile, we don't have an energy shortage. Never did. We have an innovation shortage. Same reason also explains a shortage of jobs and another problem called global warming. Rather than innovate, many want to find solutions in sound bytes. "Drill, baby, drill."

Absolutely amazes me how so many want to waste so much money on more energy. Simply view the numbers of customers filling gas tanks at Wawa, Sheets, Hess, Giant, and US Gas. They remain so naive as to not understand why they are spending about $0.26 per gallon higher than the $3.47 showing on that pump. And why they increase this nation's foreign oil imports by maybe 8% to 14%. They do so because energy is so plentiful and cheap.

[Undertoad]

The coal then?

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

The coal then?

You are asking for an answer using concepts that MBAs use. Amazes me how the problem is solved by switching to an different fuel rather than address the actual problem.

Well, the answer if found in why hybrids extend the life expectacy of the internal combustion engine. This was all discussed previously with numbers.

An example of fools advocating absurd solutions was hydrogen. Another myth that was obviously a lie had they bothered to first learn the numbers. Had they first bothered to define the problem before solving it.

[Undertoad]

Coal?

[Lamplighter]

OK UT, how about...

Coal... for the next 10 years/then complete shutdown
Methane... for the following 10 years/then almost complete shutdown
Mixed solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc ... thereafter

Ultimately, oil will stop being a fuel and will be only a lubricant.
Electrical power will replace long distance carbon-based fuels

Nuclear, perhaps in a StarTrek sort of way, may be the ultimate long range fuel.
But until the waste disposal is acceptable, it probably "can't fly"

When these will happen will depend on when such decisions as:
... shut down the long haul trucking industry in favor of rail shipping
... shut down business air travel in favor of internet-types of video conferencing
... shut down personal air travel in favor of high speed rail service
The mechanisms of these changes will probably be $ and public attitudes.

It's the long term negative effects (nuclear waste storage, water contamination,
over-consumption of non-renewable resources) that need to be considered now,
not later when resolution of such problems will be more expensive or un-do-able.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

...Ultimately, oil will stop being a fuel and will be only a lubricant....

I prefer K-Y, but whatever floats your boat.

Don't forget plastics, medicine, etc. There'll still be a market for oil.

[Jacquelita]

I think you all sorta missed the mark - the future won't be about which energy source we use. It will be about super efficient energy storage and distribution.

Not just the best "battery", but the most efficient way to use (and re-use) energy, sending
it from point A to point B, C, D and back to A with the least amount of loss.

Drive energy production requirements way down - to the point of sustainability - this will minimize (though probably not eliminate) the importance of energy source.

The one with the best battery wins.

[Lamplighter]

We just have to learn how to herd electric eels to work and back home again

But seriously, welcome to the discussion, Jacquelita

[tw]

Originally Posted by Jacquelita

I think you all sorta missed the mark - the future won't be about which energy source we use. It will be about super efficient energy storage and distribution.

Hallelujah. Someone demonstrates a grasp of the actual problem. We have plenty of energy. More energy solves nothing. For the past decade, I kept posting variations of this expression. "Application to a changing load". And still don't understand why so many do not get it.

Burn ten gallons of gasoline in a car. Only a little more than one does anything productive? Over 8 gallons burned to do absolutely nothing. Why is that acceptable? Because so many want to solve the problem with alternative energy sources. So many would encourage the stifling of innovation by letting spin doctors avert the problem for political purposes or self serving profits.

This even applies to batteries. The bunny battery (Energizer, Duracell, etc) are a battery developed by Americans for WWII walkie-talkies. That little has been achieved in battery development. Most of that innovation has only achieved in the past generation.

Everyone remembers a GM electric car: EV1. Its designer wanted to use a new technology - the NiMHd battery. GM loves to screw the world to maximize profits. Business school graduates said GM did not make a NiMHd battery. So he had to use lead acid - an 1860 technology.

Hydrogen as a fuel benchmarks the so many brainwashed by business school liars. Hydrogen obviously solved nothing when George Jr (an MBA) advocated it in his State of the Union address. He demonstrates the problem. So many are brainwashed about alternative energy rather than address the problem. Only one plus gallons of gasoline moves a car that burns ten.

No viable replacement exists for petroleum. Nothing else has the energy concentration required. Damning reality to so many who forget to first define the problem. Solutions are found in application to a changing load. That (and not more energy) is the problem to be solved.

BTW, this month's edition of Scientific American describes fracking by defining the problem. And by defining spin that averts informed discussion.

[classicman]

Unforeseen problems are part of the process of innovation.
Overcoming these problems furthers innovation.

[Undertoad]

Well that seems like the most reasonable LL. Let's go with that.