The New York State Assembly has voted to place a moratorium on the controversial method of natural gas fracking in New York. The link that follows provides the details:
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/n-y-assembly-approves-fracking-moratorium/?hp
For those of you who don’t know what fracking is you can read the following:
And here is a previous post on what’s going on in New York:
Well as investigators start dissecting actually what happened to cause the deaths of eleven men and the largest oil spill in American history, we find our old friends Halliburton right in the thick of things. According to an article published in the New York Times, Halliburton knew that the concrete used to seal the bottom of the well was unstable and didn’t meet industry standards. Halliburton initially informed BP of the error and then failed to follow up with BP even though retests showed that the problem still exists. This comes as no shock to anyone that both BP and Halliburton have extreme culpability in this accident.
A quick update on the natural gas fracking issue that I’ve written on twice before, these links are from the Christian Science Monitor, not completely mainstream press but we get closer and closer to this finally going mainstream. This is the link to my previous article:
The links relate to the debates going in New York considering potential drilling and fracking in New York State. It does seem however that Haliburton and their friends might finally have to release the actual chemicals they shoot into the water table.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2010/0913/Fracking-for-natural-gas-EPA-hearings-bring-protests
So I went to a local Japanese restaurant after work the other day, I’ve been craving sushi after my week in the desert and so I settled in for a little chicken teriyaki and a B52 roll. I ordered my standard bowl of miso soup as well and while I waited for the waitress to bring the soup, I sat there listening to the discussion at the next table. At the table sat an older man who had the attention of a younger woman and two young guys, he was pontificating about the environment, liberals and such and I was about to tune it out when something caught my attention. It was the phrase, “all this environmental stuff is blowing hot air, our environment is better now than it has ever been.”
He then went on to describe how the foothills area of the Sierras has improved vastly over the gold rush times. He went on to talk about how the area was deforested and polluted with the chemicals of mining and how now we have trees and clean water and everything is wonderful. Now, he’s not wrong about that but he then went on to talk about how because the environment is getting so much better that we need to get rid of all of this unnecessary regulation of the environment, that things get better as time goes on and that fifty years from now our environment will be cleaner than it has ever been because the earth repairs itself. I looked over to see these three young people staring up at him with admiration in their eyes and I almost spit up my miso soup.
I quietly sat there wondering if I should insert myself into the conversation and lay down a little bit of reality and in all truth slaughter this half-ignorant wind bag, but in the end, I live and work in a very conservative county and I really just wasn’t up for the annoyance on a Friday afternoon, so I ate my meal and slipped out to enjoy my weekend. But I don’t want to let this go, it fries my ass when I overhear things like this and friends I frequently overhear people who know just a little bit about science and then use this tiny bit of understanding to inappropriately apply science to support their ideology. So my friends instead you’ll get to hear it and this is what I would have said.
Hi pal, couldn’t help overhearing your conversation and I find your perspective to be interesting and completely idiotic. You are covering and interesting concept in environmental science, which is what point in time do we use as the baseline for the environment. Taking your example, if we use the middle of the 1800’s as our baseline then yes, our environment here in the foothills is much better than it was. However, if you pick 1800, then we have a whole different ballgame because prior to the massive environmental impact of the gold rush, this area was pristine forest habitat. So apparently things don’t get better as time goes on, maybe you just picked a really convenient point to make your argument conform to your ideology. I would ask people who lived on the Cuyahoga River in the 1960’s and 70’s if they think all of this environmental nonsense is just a lot of hot air. In case you don’t know, the Cuyahoga River is most famously known as the river that caught on fire because it was so polluted:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuyahoga_River
So my friend why don’t we look at the reality of the environment globally and seriously if you think the global environment is better now than in 1850, I’d have to say you’re a moron. In 1850 passenger pigeons on migration flew overhead in flocks that were a mile wide and sometimes 300 miles long, taking hours to pass; you could regularly catch blue fin tuna bigger than the biggest tuna caught today; and there were even grizzly bears in California actually roaming around, not just on the flag. I could go on and I don’t want to take away the successes we have had in recovering and saving species, species like the Bald Eagle, the Gray Wolf and the California Condor. However our environment is in trouble:
* There are dead zones in our oceans depleted of oxygen
http://azstarnet.com/news/science/environment/article_69547a06-1391-5939-b3ca-451cc65b5017.html
* We now the Great Pacific Garbage Patch floating in the Pacific
http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/
* Niger is so polluted due to oil extraction that they should close the country
* Air quality is so bad in Beijing that athletes at the Olympics wore dust masks
* Haliburton and friends are destroying water quality through hydrologic fracking
http://zdeaconblue.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/natural-gas-fracking-in-the-news/
And yes my conservative friends, I made that entire argument without once mentioning global climate change. How do we get people to understand the simplest of scientific principles and the difference between causation and correlation? Honestly I don’t know but trust me we are trying in Biology and Environmental Studies classes all over the world we are trying. In the meantime let’s remember all of the good things the Clean Air and Water Acts as well as the Endangered Species Act have done. Should our environmental laws and policies be reviewed, of course no law or policy should be above review, but let’s not be stupid enough to think that they should all be abolished, if you’re not convinced you can borrow my copy of Silent Spring.
The BP Gulf Oil Spill is nothing compared to this…
Probably the only upside to the BP Horizon drilling platform sinking and subsequent oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is that light has been shed on some other significant problems in the energy sector.
The first area that has gotten recent attention is the situation in the Niger Delta in Africa. This area in Africa that many multi-national oil companies drill for oil in has had a significant amount of oil spill damage to its environment. Effectively the river system that the local people are completely dependent upon for everything is a toxic mess. The monetary fund established to compensate these same people seems to vanish after it reaches the government of the country. How much oil has been spilled in the Niger Delta, the equivalent of a spill the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster every year for the last forty years, a total of over 13 million barrels of oil. This has not only led to an environmental disaster but also political upheaval as well as locals have rebelled against the government by performing terrorist acts upon the oil pipelines and drilling rigs in Niger exacerbating the problem. However, I have to say, were I in their shoes I might do the same thing, you can learn more about the situation in the following links:
http://newsdesk.org/2010/06/niger-delta-oil-spills-dwarf-bp-exxon-valdez-catastrophes/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell
The second area that has gotten attention due to the BP disaster has been the issue of previously capped wells that may be leaking oil and methane into the gulf. According to the Associated Press, there are over 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico. These “abandoned wells” are not inspected and many have been capped since the 1940’s, there are laws on the books that require these wells , particularly recently abandoned wells, to be inspected but there are no teeth in the laws so companies do not comply. Essentially, neither the government nor the industry have any idea if or more likely how many of these wells are leaking. Given that wells can repressurize and caps in place for up to 70 years maybe rusted and faulty, how long will it be before we have another huge spill in the Gulf of Mexico, you can read more about this at:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/07/07/1547812/old-wells-are-rarely-checked-for.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gz8SP1X8Y6bOR5kwCcuxUdV1XwLgD9GPVQ0G1
Finally there is one issue in the energy sector that has not gotten the attention it deserves during this disaster and that is the environmental damage done by hydrologic cracking or more commonly called, fracking. I recently wrote a piece on this and you can read it at:
For me all of this brings up two significant issues, the first being that our insatiable desire for energy has caused us to pursue an extractive energy policy regardless of the environmental and I would argue long-term economic costs. This mentality has to change and has to come on several fronts including conservation which seems to currently being ignored by everyone; selective extraction with concern for the environmental and health impacts to the public; and finally an energy policy in this country that address and focuses on renewable energy. No matter what your political affiliation is you can’t deny that renewable energy helps us solve our energy issues in the United States which in the end helps our economy and improves our national security by leaving us less dependent on unstable nations. Currently in California people are actually trying to repeal a state law that has been helping us down this road, have we learned anything from the BP spill?
My fear is that the only thing that we will take away from this disaster are the rumors of things that haven’t actually happened including the cracking of the sea floor and extinction level methane bubble disasters, both have been debunked in previous posts and can be found at:
I had heard about the documentary Gasland for a while and didn’t pay much attention, I first heard about the film on NPR and then I saw Josh Fox, who made the film, on The Daily Show with John Stewart. Mr. Fox showed a video clip of someone’s tap water catching on fire, you can see a clip at the link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A
That little clip was enough to get me to check out the film which I caught On Demand, through cable on HBO and yes Comcast that was a shameless plug, how about a little free cable. I watched the documentary and was really impressed with Josh Fox and his story. Fox was obviously not a filmmaker and that shows particularly early on in the story. However, the deeper he digs into what’s going on, the better his film work and story-telling become. Essentially Mr. Fox was offered a decent sum of money to give up the gas rights to his property and unlike most of us he became suspicious of easy money and promises of no adverse environmental effects. The film is basically about his initial quest to learn more about the offer and proceeds into an in-depth investigation of a process called hydraulic fracturing or fracking. On a side note fracking serves as the alternate universe substitute for the word fucking on Battlestar Gallactica and the irony of being fracked by big gas companies didn’t escape me as I watched the film.
Fracking, not in the Battlestar Gallactica sense – that’s a talk for your parents to handle, is a process by which natural gas companies drill down through the ground into pockets of natural gas not previously accessible. Then high pressure water and chemicals are pumped down into the ground to fracture the rock and release the gas helping it flow up through the well to be captured. According to the companies that do this, the chemicals they use are safe, and there is no contamination of nearby drinking water wells. However Josh Fox shows us this just isn’t so and visits folks who have some of the nastiest water you’ve ever seen including some that is actually flammable when it comes out of the taps. Other people show how their cats, dogs and horses are getting ill and losing their hair and talk about the very real fear that their families will get ill or their house will blow up from the gas in the water lines.
Our old friend Dick Cheney and Haliburton are involved, and to quote the promotional site for the film we find out the following: ”In 2005, the Bush/ Cheney Energy Bill exempted natural gas drilling from the Safe Drinking Water Act. It exempts companies from disclosing the chemicals used during hydraulic fracturing. Essentially, the provision took the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) off the job. It is now commonly referred to as the Halliburton Loophole.”
The worst part of the loophole is that it means that there is no regulatory agency even looking at this issue and it allows the companies involved, Haliburton included, to poison people’s drinking supply and the people impacted have nowhere to go, enter Josh Fox and his film. A lot of the folks involved truly looked scared and some have very definite proof of what these companies are doing in their heartless pursuit of profits as some of the companies have paid for alternate water sources of water indefinitely. These sources include bringing in tankers of water to fill giant cisterns or full industrial level filtration systems.
The scariest part of this issue is the sheer area of the United States that has the type of rock that possess the natural gas. The areas include some of the largest watersheds in the Northeast including the drinking water supply for New York City. Take a look at the trailer below and then the link for the movie’s promotional website below that:
The trailer:
http://www.wikio.com/video/gasland-trailer-2010-3378350
The promotional site:
http://gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking
And finally take the time and see Gasland
I wrote a post about two weeks ago after reading a story online that Anatoly Sagalevitch, a world renown Russian Oceanographer, had visited the Gulf of Mexico shortly after the Deepwater Horizon platform managed by BP had exploded and collapsed. According to the article Dr. Sagalevitch had reportedly said that upon his visit to the site in his submersibles, that he in fact saw over 20 cracks on the seafloor leaking. You can read my post at: http://zdeaconblue.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/if-this-is-true-bp-may-lead-the-united-states-into-depression/
As you may notice, the post title starts with, if this is true? That particular question weighed on me for some time and I waited to see if the mainstream media would address this question. They did not, so I decided to track down the answer myself. Anyone who tells you it’s easy to track down anyone’s e-mail address on the web hasn’t tried to track down anyone they didn’t already know. It took me three days of searching but finally I was able to get in contact with Dr. Sagalevitch and as him the very basic question, is this story true? Dr. Sagalevitch’s response was very prompt and he told me he had not been to the Gulf of Mexico, in fact he was on vacation when the accident occurred and that he couldn’t have possibly surveyed the seafloor of the gulf as his submersibles, the Mir1 and Mir2 are actually deployed in Lake Baikal. So the definitive answer to my post and the rumor flying around the internet is that no, Dr. Sagalevitch has not reported seeing dozens of cracks on the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico leaking oil.
This information brings two points to bear for me. First, how fast disinformation can fly around the internet, Dr. Sagalevitch remarked upon this as well. Secondly, even without this information, we still don’t know what the actual conditions are at the seafloor or whether or not the relief wells will work. Today we have been given a couple of interesting pieces of information including that the relief well drilling is proceeding as planned and the first tropical storm of the season has formed and is on track for the Gulf of Mexico. We’ll talk in more detail in my next post about the potential consequences of a large tropical storm or hurricane in the gulf. Hurricane formation in the gulf is greatly related to the temperature of the gulf and right now the gulf is very, very warm approximately eighty-six degrees Farenheit. Look out friends the situation in the gulf may drastically change very soon and not for the better.
So you may have heard there’s a teeny tiny little oil spill somewhere off the southern coast of the United States. The details are all too well-known now; the oil rig explosion, the tragic loss of life, the sinking of the platform, the failed blowout restrictor and the loss of the wellhead. All of this has left what appears to be a minimum of 5,000 barrels or 210,000 gallons of oil pumping into the gulf on a daily basis.
British Petroleum (BP), the company being primarily held responsible for the spill, has taken many steps in conjunction with the US government to alleviate the impact of the spill while simultaneously trying to stop it. The worst case is that if no other measure can be found, we may have to wait another 60 plus days for a relief well to be drilled and be up and running. In the meantime they have set up barriers to prevent landfall, scooped oil from the surface, corralled and burned oil at the surface, shot a chemical (that may be more toxic than the oil) into the flow to break it into smaller drops, unsuccessfully dropped a bell dome 5000 feet to ocean floor to contain the flow, and now finally have inserted a pipe deep inside the well head to suck and contain as much oil as possible.
Congress got involved, because of course nothing solves an ongoing crisis like congressional hearings. During these hearings we were introduced to the merry band of companies at the core of this disaster, BP who had already been taking a public lashing, Transocean the company primarily responsible for the rig operation and then- – - Haliburton! Haliburton’s role was to be responsible for cementing the deepwater drill hole, as well as the possible failure of equipment leased to British Petroleum.
What does Haliburton do right? Here they are possibly on the hook for what may turn out to be the largest oil spill in US history. They raped the military by providing allegedly substandard and overpriced services to our troops in the gulf, so how does a company with such spectacular alleged failures keep getting contracts. I mean come on, who do they own, maybe a certain ex-vice president? Of course they do, Dick Cheney served as the CEO and chairman of the board for Haliburton. The same oil man who oversaw operation desert storm where we invaded a large oil country, ran a major American energy company (Haliburton), then returned to public office as VP to reinvade the same oil country, depose a horrid dictator and then eventually help open up oil contracts for American oil companies.
As of this writing BP is alleging success with their latest attempt, their great mechanical fornication, insertion of their long hanging pipe into the opening to achieve a climactic end to the oil spill. Ok so maybe it doesn’t really end it, just slows it down by putting it into a post coital lethargy, but progress none-the-less. But in this disaster we have heard BP’s line change frequently so stay tuned. What more fitting solution could we have however then someone or something getting screwed when Haliburton is involved.
