EDITORIAL: The hydrofracking debate

[deminks]

http://dailyfreeman.com/articles/2010/08/01/opinion/doc4c532bd404e49712290943.txt

A new energy rush is on and its lapping at our doorstep in the Catskills. Natural gas embedded deep underground beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio is said to be enough to supply the East Coast for up to 50 years.

To the extent it offers a domestic alternative to being held hostage to foreign oil, extracting natural gas from the huge Marcellus Shale formation seems a good tradeoff.

To the extent it offers an alternative to burning inherently dirtier coal, natural gas seems a good tradeoff.

But these apparent tradeoffs cannot be verified until the actual, full cost of developing that natural gas has been assessed. That includes the potential environmental costs, which have not been fairly, fully and openly evaluated.

The potential dangers of the modern hydrofracking and horizontal drilling techniques used to extract the gas are incompletely understood because they have not been adequately studied.

But the anecdotal evidence from where hydrofracking is proceeding apace, however, is not reassuring.

(end snip)

As we move from 'drill, baby, drill' to 'c'mon, baby, light my tap water', imagine the greed and avarice surrounding the Marcellus shale compared to the Deepwater well. Stunning, really. Mind boggling.

For further mind boggling, consider "Gasland" at this link:

http://gaslandthemovie.com/

[ejpoeta]

1. that's the problem with the mindset today. you have people who could USE the money

being flashed in front of their face and they are told it's safe and assume the people trying to get at the gas on their property are being honest with them. so they take the money and don't bother checking it out. it will end up costing them more than they get from the company from what it sounds. short term thinking is killing us all.