[spamfoote]

What I don't get about the activists on this issue is only NOW are folks getting up in arms about it? Wells have been fracked, both fresh water, oil, and natural gas for the last 60 years. If it was such a horrible problem we would have seen contaminated water aquifers LONG before now. I can only conclude that those who are against fracking are only doing so because of oil/NG production leading to carbon dioxide pollution into the atmosphere warming the planet and has little or nothing to do with the actual fracking process. They are just making a hullabaloo about the "process", just because they can try using it as a prybar to STOP oil/NG production. Of course these same people also decry our military budget(middle east etc) and are against new nuclear power plants that will eat their own waste and the stockpiled waste. Same for Coal(worst of the bunch IMO). Sorry, but solar/wind is not a viable base load solution at the moment. Simple math shows it is not. Part of the solution currently? Yes. No energy storage solution = not a solution at all. In short I just tune out these scientific illiterates on the subject of fracking and energy production. I don't see them taking their house off the grid and going all solar/wind. Last I checked, they are all still hopping on airplanes and driving cars. Lets stop the hypocrisy eh? Lets push R&D for energy storage. Only then can we address the carbon dioxide issue. Until then, it is a bad joke.

[Randito]

[Parked Out]

Shellenberger makes the very good point that providing the vast amounts of energy we consume is always going to have environmental impacts; the question is, how do we manage those impacts. Even when everything goes well, coal still kills ~13,000 people in the US every year. A good thing to keep in mind when considering alternatives. I've just recently gotten interested in the energy issue and I've been struck by two things: 1) how hopeless it is to think that 'renewables' are going to solve our energy needs anytime soon, and 2) the vast number of people who believe just the opposite.

[AR]

A few airplanes were shoved square up our asses for oil. Now we own the majority of oil out there. We even sell it off. May Hell be brought to them.

[spamfoote]

It is the well casings that leak. Well casings have always leaked. Nothing new there. The shallower they are, the more likely they are to leak. Not the fracking process is to blame. Has been used for 60 years. Most fracking uses nothing more than a light oil and water as the viscous fluid. A few have started using other chemicals and these are the wells getting the publicity. The number of wells actually using these exotic chemicals is few. Its not Fracking that is the problem. It is leaking well casings. Leaking well casings can allow these few wells with exotic chemicals to leak back up. Well casings(lack of inspection protocols by and large(Uh, how do you inspect something 3000 feet down? and instead rely on drilling practices)) combined with a few wells using exotic fluids to lower the viscosity of the fluid increasing their efficiency for pressure distribution into the rock and breaking it. So naturally all the ignoramouses out there are going with "fracking" ban petitions. Why? The word sounds like a certain other "F" word and provides a nice rallying cry for the ignorant masses to get behind. Even though the problem is not fracking at all. That is why I don't bother to listen to the ignoramous's in regards to fracking. The idiots are going after the wrong aspect. Those that do know, are pumping the problem child as "fracking" for other reasons. As a single word, "FRACKING", is a much easier point to get across as a problem(even though they all know it is not), instead of, leaking well casings and exotic fluids that can leak back to the surface from a leaking well casing. 1 Word verses whole sentences. All about PR. Nothing to do with science or facts. Makes it oh so much easier for billboards, pamphlets, headlines, etc. So, to drain the bathwater, they are throwing out the baby all because of marketing for the ignorant masses to support them.

[Randito]

[spamfoote]

[MtnGoat]

[Daryl]

Remember when some people that do not understand economics argued how more production/supply would not decrease price?

[MtnGoat]

yes, yes I do. often and repeatedly. We can't beat a cartel! it's a world price! etc etc etc. Except that you can force it lower than it would otherwise be with extra production. But it was all impossible and would take years even if it was .Well, it did....and now, here it is. That something will take years is no reason not to go do it because eventually, those years are up.

[MadCapLaughs]

Gloating like a child, eh? . . . over, what? $3.00 gasoline? Wow -- it's a magnificent blessing bestowed by the magical, mythical, invisible hand of market forces! $3.00 gasoline sounds good only because we've become inured to much higher prices for so long. It's all relative, and your shameless "told you so" attitude is certainly leaving you open to the inevitable skyrocketing price of oil that awaits us . . .

[MtnGoat]

Rarely does one get the clean falsification of the claims so forcefully stated concerning how we couldn't drill out way out of dependency, or defeat OPEC, or how it would take so long it wasn't worth doing. So I'm definitely enjoying that. All it took was not ignoring how economics actually works. Breaking the cartel and lower prices than they would otherwise be is indeed nice, but there's nothing magical about it in the slightest, nor mythical. It's merely the perfectly predictable outcome of allowing markets to work to some degree. Freedom works, and more would work better. I agree, 3 bucks sounds good only because it's been higher for a while. 2 bucks, or one buck sounds even better, but then there is inflation to contend with, and I'd be happy if the price relative to a commodity of fixed weight and content, like gold, was back to where it was say 20 years ago. The point being theres more to it than simply it's price relative to something which people can simply create with no net wealth increase necessary for it's creation. Of course demand has risen so that yields upward price pressure, so there's that. I don't really care what particular price it winds up at, so long as it's a market price created by freedom of supply and trade, and as much of both as are possible. Can you fill me in on some of your ideas concerning the inevitable skyrocketing of the price of oil?

[spamfoote]

[drm]

[MadCapLaughs]