Fracking - the pursuit of natural gas in stratified layers of sedimentary rock

Letterman: "Ladies and gentlemen, we're screwed."

WATCH: Letterman Goes On Fracking Rant Against 'Greedy Oil And Gas Companies' www.huffingtonpost.com On Wednesday night's "Late Show," host David Letterman took several minutes to share his thoughts on fracking.

Global List of Fracking Bans and Moratrium

Canada  (we really need to add more jurisdictions to this list!!!)
 
 

• British Columbia
• First Nations people in NW British Columbia enacted a four year moratorium against drilling for natural gas by Royal Dutch Shell in the Sacred Headwaters. Members of the Tahltan First Nation are blockading Shell’s coal bed methane project in the Sacred Headwaters, the birthplace of the Skeena, Nass and Stikine Rivers.

• Nova Scotia
• Nova Scotia citizens call for ban on Nova Scotia fracking. Graham Hutchinson says the province should impose a moratorium on the controversial practice. The group recently presented a petition to Energy Minister Charlie Parker calling for a ban.

• Québec
• March 17, 2011: Nathalie Normandeau, Quebec’s natural resources minister, announced Wednesday that the province would no longer authorize hydraulic fracturing operations in the province in the hunt for oil and gas.

(cross-posted to the pipelines thread)

We dont have a moratorium in NS any more than gung-ho fracking NB does. The NDP government calls it a moratorium, but they are simply not issuing any permits. But no company wants a permit now or for the forseeable future anyway.

As far as I understand it, tecnically, Quebec is also just not issuing any permits... and withdrawing the Charest govt saying companies could still do test wells. But at least the PQ means it- and had to bite the petroindustry hand to do even that much... which the Dexter governemnt did not do, and would not short of us pushing them to the cliff edge.

posted in the Nova Scotia thread:

NDP Government Gives Fracking Waste Handler Free Ride: Colchester County Left Holding Bag

If you click on the author's name you get a list of my previous 4 articles on the issue. Though all of them may be hotlinked as references in the text of the story.

My understanding is that fracking is here to stay, at least for now in BC, so how can we minimize its detrimental aspects Ken?

Earthquake in Fort St. John this week.

France’s Ban On Fracking Is ‘Absolute’

excerpts:
 
- France’s ban on fracking was finally completed Friday, as its constitutional court upheld a 2011 law prohibiting the practice and canceling all exploration permits. The decision posted on the court’s website said the ban “conforms to the constitution” and is not “disproportionate,” effectively protecting it from any future legal challenge.
 
- And that’s not just talk. France has ambitious goals for a low-carbon future and is currently considering a tax on carbon emissions and a nuclear tax. Revenue would go to renewables and energy efficiency standards. France plans to cut fossil fuel use by 30 percent by 2030, at the same time that it de-emphasizes the nuclear power that provides three quarters of the nation’s energy.
“It’s a judicial victory but also an environmental and political victory,” Martin said. “With this decision the ban on hydraulic fracturing is absolute.”
 
Will Quebec follow suit?   
 

This is a disturbing story about a couple in the Alberta foothills and the problems they have had in the last few years after they started fracking in their region. This is what is coming everywhere they frack.  The process should be banned outright everywhere in this country.  I would hope that one of the three main federal party would but a ban in its platform but none have stepped up to the plate so far.  We know the Cons are gung ho on digging up as much carbon as possible as fast as possible and the Liberals under TRudeau are not the Dion Liberals on environmental issues.  That only leaves one hope for the countries environment.

Quote:

The Hawkwoods live approximately five kilometres from most of the flaring, and have carefully documented the impacts on their health for the last three years, with the hope that authorities might do something.

Nielle says that she has experienced unnatural hair loss, and both her and Howard's general health have suffered markedly. But they know others who have been more severely impacted.

"I've lost a lot of hair," Nielle says. "We've had skin irritation, nasal irritation, eye irritation. And these are chronic problems.... They've just been building up over the last three years since fracking started here."

Adds Nielle: "They can use us as guinea pigs and look at what happens to us to get some basis for saying that there are health concerns with this technology."

Because the list of chemicals that could be present is endless and unknown, testing air quality can be expensive and difficult. But in studies where flared gases have been tested for a limited range of pollutants, high levels of benzene were recorded.

Benzene can cause leukemia, and Nielle suspects it has also contributed to her hair loss.

A 2011 U.S. study found that 75 per cent of 632 chemicals used in natural gas drilling operations could affect the skin, eyes and gastrointestinal tract, while 50 per cent would impact the brain and nervous system and kidneys. 25 per cent can cause cancers.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/10/21/Fracking-at-Home/

..my bold

Documents show fracking is soaring in Alberta

Alberta New Democrats say newly released documents show fracking has become an unregulated free-for-all in the province with no regard for the impact on groundwater or on people's health.

NDP Leader Brian Mason presented information Tuesday provided under freedom-of-information laws that shows the number of hydraulic fracturing licences granted by the province soared 647 per cent last year to 1,516.

Mason said the amount of water allocated and used for fracking has increased even faster.

"Most Albertans don't realize that fracking in Alberta is almost completely unregulated," he told a legislature news conference.

"And it is increasing on a dramatic scale without any understanding of what the potential consequences will be."

He said the water loss alone is sobering, with more than 17 million cubic metres used in 2013.

"This is an enormous amount of groundwater. It's pumped into the ground, it's polluted by chemicals and it's never seen again."....

http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2014/02/04/documents-show-fracking-is-s...

Kasich reverses on fracking in state parks

Less than three years after signing legislation opening up Ohio state parks and forests to fracking, Gov. John Kasich now opposes the controversial horizontal drilling for oil and gas on public lands.

“At this point, the governor doesn’t support fracking in state parks,” Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols told The Dispatch. “We reserve the right to revisit that, but it’s not what he wants to do right now, and that’s been his position for the past year and a half.”

Word of Kasich’s reversal came the same day Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation of a marketing plan to promote fracking on state lands that was put together a year and a half ago by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which regulates oil and gas drilling....

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/18/Reps-call-for-i...

Industry Group Says Fracking Could Help Ukraine

http://www.rollcall.com/news/industry_group_says_fracking_could_help_ukr...

"...Utilizing hyraulic fracturing technology spurs enconomic growth and jobs from within Ukraine,' the industry said last week in a letter to House Energy and Commerce chairman Fred Upton.

Ukraine has 128 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, according to the Energy Information Administration..."

More:

Why Exxon-Mobil's Partnerships with Russia's Rosneft Challenge the Narrative of US Exports as Energy Weapon  -  by Steve Harris

http://desmogblog.com/2014/03/17/exxonmobil-russia-rosneft-gas-export-we...

"But even before the vote and issuing of sanctions, numerous key US officials hyped the need to expedite US oil and gas exports to fend off Europe's reliance on importing Russia's gas bounty.

In short, gas obtained via hydraulic fracturing (Fracking) is increasingly seen as a 'geopolitical tool' for US power-brokers, as the New York Times explains..."

Green Fracking? 5 Technologies for Cleaner Shale Energy

Dusk falls at a hydraulic fracturing site in northeastern Pennsylvania. New technologies aim to reduce fracking's impact on land, water, and air.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM LO SCALZO, EPA

It may seem strange to hear the words "fracking" and "environmentally friendly" in the same sentence.

After all, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in which high-pressure chemically treated water is used to crack rock formations and release trapped oil and gas, is a dirty term to many environmentalists. Critics decry the practice for consuming vast amounts of fresh water, creating toxic liquid waste, and adding to the atmosphere's greenhouse gas burden, mostly because of increased risk of leaks of the potent heat-trapping gas, methane. (See related quiz, "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas.")

James Hill, chief executive of the Calgary, Alberta-based energy services firm GasFrac, is one of a handful of technology pioneers determined to change that. Hill's company has introduced a new fracking method that uses no water at all. Instead, GasFrac uses a gel made from propane—a hydrocarbon that's already naturally present underground—and a combination of what it says are relatively benign chemicals, such as magnesium oxide and ferric sulfate, a chemical used in water treatment plants. Over the past few years, GasFrac has used the process 2,500 times at 700 wells in Canada and the United States.

"We're actually using hydrocarbons to produce hydrocarbons," Hill said. "It's a cycle that's more sustainable."

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/03/140319-5-technolo...

BC LNG faces growing First Nations opposition

One of the biggest myths pervading BC’s energy dialogue goes something like this: While First Nations stand united against the proposed Enbridge pipeline, they overwhelmingly embrace Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).

Sure, Premier Christy Clark can tick off a list of aboriginal allies in her effort to build at least five among a dozen terminals proposed for Kitimat and Prince Rupert. Just last week, she announced with great fanfare LNG revenue sharing agreements with two coastal nations - Metlakatla and Lax Kw’alaams.

But a growing group of hereditary leaders, grassroots members and their allies, even some elected governments, are rising up in opposition – from the fracking fields of northeast BC that would supply the industry, to the various proposed pipeline routes across the province, to the coastal communities that would house the hulking terminals....

quote:

In a little-reported but highly significant development a few weeks ago, a group of Gitxsan hereditary chiefs in the Kispiox Valley, near Hazelton, ordered TransCanada to cease and desist test drilling relating to the pipeline it plans  to construct to Prince Rupert on behalf of Malaysian, Japanese and Indian LNG partners.

quote:
A tale of two nations: Hereditary vs. Elected

Understanding the discrepancy between the official story on First Nations’ support for LNG and the emerging, contrary reality requires some sense of the different – often competing – systems of governance amongst BC’s aboriginal communities.

Broadly speaking, there are two main forms of aboriginal government: elected and hereditary. The former is a product of the Indian Act – elected band councils which govern reserves created by the Crown. The latter is an ancestral system of  leadership made up of houses and clans – the specific makeup varying from nation to nation.

Canada’s courts – in formative cases like Delgamuuk vs. British Columbia - have often acknowledged the jurisdiction of hereditary chiefs over their nations’ often vast, resource-rich traditional territories, where such systems still exist. Elected band councils, on the other hand, generally administer the much smaller reserves which many First Nations inhabit today – again, broadly speaking. It remains a contentious legal issue, often specific to individual nations.  That said, a number of deals involving pipelines and energy terminals have been signed by elected councils, which is sewing conflict in some communities....

http://commonsensecanadian.ca/first-nations-collision-course-lng/

Which by the way is the waste water amount for about 2,000 full production wells. Since a lot of wells never reach that capacity- that's well over 2,000 wells fracked in a year, that they are allowed to dump it all in the ocean.

That is almost as much as gung ho Pennsylvannia is now drilling and fracking. So it would mean that the industry has sought, and state govt granted, the licence for that level of dumping.... to enable the launch of a full scale industrial attack in California... which has only just begun.

The parks were created to "protect".

But that transforms into some very general and amorphous idea when there are enough $$$ in play.

Mining I'm sure. But not all shales have significant hydrocarbon resources in them.

Kind of thread drift, but....

Are 'special interests' the only ones so far overtly promoting to twin the Yellowhead?

Is either of the provincial governments looking like they would like to get behind it?

Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition unites loggers, farmers, miners against rampant LNG development

"We are often mistaken as environmentalists, but we are not fighting for the environment for the sake of the environment," said Dana Hibbard of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition. "We are advocating for our economy and our community which depends upon a healthy environment."

Q:  Could you tell us something of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition? 

Hibbard: Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition was formed around kitchen tables and campfires ten years ago over concerns about Shell’s plans to frack for natural gas in the Sacred Headwaters-the birthplace of three of Canada’s greatest wild salmon rivers--the Skeena, Nass and Stikine [See geographic notes below]. We have always believed that the people who live where development is being proposed should have a major role in the decision making process as they will be the ones to live with the consequences.

Our region celebrated a tremendous victory just over a year ago when Royal Dutch Shell, one of the largest corporations on the planet, voluntarily gave up their tenure in the Sacred Headwaters.  We continue to work towards protection for this area and anticipate that 2014 could be the year that this becomes a reality [See SWCC 'Sacred Headwaters Campaign'].....

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/skeena-watershed-conservation-coal...

Defiant northern Chief galvanizes BC First Nations against Premier's LNG plans

The actions of a young, tough-talking First Nations leader in northeast B.C. last week, that sparked the embarrassing reversal of a cabinet decision to fast-track natural gas plants, appears to be rallying province-wide Aboriginal opposition to Liquified Natural Gas plans.

quote:

The video-captured incident, uploaded to YouTube, is now being seized by First Nations leaders across B.C. to tell Premier Christy Clark to slow down her LNG plans and respect Aboriginal land and environmental concerns, or risk seeing her entire LNG economic strategy – worth $78 billion – go up in smoke.

“This is the end of the love in on LNG," said Coastal First Nation director Art Sterritt on Tuesday.  

"Everyone was trying to make it work, but when everyone took off the rose-coloured glasses, you realized everyone was getting a raw deal,” he added.

The so-called “Fort Nelson incident” has united several Aboriginal political entities – including the First Nations Summit, Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, and the Assembly of First Nations -- to sign a Declaration to put B.C.’s LNG Strategy “on hold.”

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/bc-first-nations-slam-brakes-premi...

LNG Demonstration at Hagwilget Bridge - Hazelton BC

video

A group of citizens from various backgrounds (doctor, nurse, dental hygienist, farmer, carpenter, social-worker, paramedic, driller, miner, welder, etc.) are fed up with the way LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) is being proposed in BC. They launched a day-long info demonstration on the single-lane Hagwilget Bridge. Homemade cookies, a tent full of info and brochures were paid for out of the pockets of these everyday citizens.

http://vimeo.com/92986130

..........

..according to this short video from ccpa the increase in bc's employment would be 0.1%. fracking is not about jobs..it's about greed where the corporations are concerned. for the provincial gov it's about creating the illusion that they are creating jobs thus worthy of reelection. this illusion can be drawn out for years. edit

Don't Frack the Law! Why BC's natural gas plans will kill our climate action targets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64yOCh4O_yo

'Over my dead body': northern BC residents overwhelmed by massive LNG push

quote:

What really bothers him is how fast LNG industry is coming in, and how little control local residents seem to have on this massive industrial push.  Many here are ranchers, farmers, loggers, fishers and guide outfitters – and they don’t want their sustainable way of life destroyed.

“I’ve worked in oil and gas.  It’s a boom and bust deal.  It’s not sustainable.  The sports fishing industry is sustainable, the food fishing for the First Nations is too.  That’s their life blood.”

“If this goes through – kiss it goodbye,” said Allen.

Construction of three new multi-billion-dollar pipelines, by TransCanada, Altagas, and Spectra Energy, could soon slice the wilderness near his home. 

But that’s not all.

The Clark government is entertaining a jaw-dropping 19 LNG proposals in British Columbia: six pipelines, 13 LNG export terminals.  The Ministry of Natural Gas Development says if five of the terminals are built, $178 billion in investment will be attracted.

That’s enough money to build 15 Northern Gateway pipelines....

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/news/over-my-dead-body-northern-bc-resi...

Jessica Ernst Exposes Drilling and Fracking Crimes in Alberta

video

Filmed at the University of Lethbridge, March 25, 2014

This You Tube is a compilation of segments from a 90 minute talk. The full version will be available soon.

Jessica Ernst worked for over three decades as an environmental biologist doing research and independent consulting for the Alberta petroleum industry. One of her main clients was the EnCana Company, which began large-scale fracking in the region of her home community of Rosebud Alberta in the early years of the 21st century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPsefMA-70

Provincial regulator abandons unreclaimed Cogmagun well site

Oil industry self regulation in Nova Scotia falls short

I have been writing about this for nearly two years now, usually about regulatory failures. Complete list of articles.

Miles Howe writes about Elsipogtog and other Mew Brunswick. Some of his articles have been posted in various Babble threads. He also wrote about shennanigans here before I pretty much took over that 'franchise'. His list.

California aquifers contaminated with billions of gallons of fracking wastewater

Quote:

Industry illegally injected about 3 billion gallons of fracking wastewater into central California drinking-water and farm-irrigation aquifers, the state found after the US Environmental Protection Agency ordered a review of possible contamination.

According to documents obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, the California State Water Resources Board found that at least nine of the 11 hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wastewater injection sites that were shut down in July upon suspicion of contamination were in fact riddled with toxic fluids used to unleash energy reserves deep underground. The aquifers, protected by state law and the federal Safe Water Drinking Act, supply quality water in a state currently suffering unprecedented drought.

Despite these damning findings, the extent of wastewater pollution is still undetermined, as the Central Valley Water Board has thus far only tested eight water wells of the more than 100 in the area, according to the documents.