Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
•Reports: Shale Gas Bubble Looms, Aided by Wall Street •Geologist’s provocative study challenges popular assumptions about ‘fracking’ •China slow to tap shale-gas bonanza •Fracking is the only way to achieve Obama climate change goals, says senior scientist •Marcellus Shale Fracking Study To Research Natural Gas Drilling Health Effects
•The Myth of “Saudi America”•Colorado Communities Take On Fight Against Energy Land Leases•Romania reverses course on shale gas•German environment minister: ‘we want to limit fracking’•Shale oil is no threat to oil producers•Shale gas distracts EU “action heroes” from saving the climate•Tech Talk – Future Bakken Production and Hydrofracking
Winter is the rainy season in California, but I knew the previous four months had been very dry all across the Golden State, making people nervous. Water is life in the arid West. A diminished snowpack in the High Sierras has a cascading effect for anything depending on a watercourse all the way down to the sea. A lack of rain meant the land in between was parched too. Friends warned me that the country that I planned to see during my visit “looked tough,” which is code for a bad drought. One quipped “Maybe we should be called the Toasty Brown State instead.”
•A Mysterious Patch Of Light Shows Up In The North Dakota Dark •Poland Stumbles as Shale Gas Industry Fails to Take Off •Is fracking responsible for the flooding of an Upper Egyptian village? •Shale gas is not a game-changer for the UK, says BP
The last and most prevalent myth about shale gas is that it’s a clean, even green, alternative energy.
When industry says hardly ever, that’s a myth. It’s a documented, chronic problem.
The shale gas industry claims that it is doing everything it can to minimize its impact on forests and farms, but therein lies the resource’s second major myth.
After I saw Matt Damon and John Krasinski’s new fracking drama Promised Land, I couldn’t help but compare it to the slew of trite pieces trotted out during the previews.
Industry and government repeatedly claim that hydraulic fracturing is safe because it is a well-regulated technique proven in the field over 60 years. Is that myth or reality?
The Gus Van Sant movie “Promised Land” written by Matt Damon and John Krasinski was recently panned by one reviewer who used “Promised Bland,” to describe her reaction to it. While it is true that this film does not offer an impassioned feud between the good guys and the bad guys by portraying the evil energy company pitted against the innocent, hard-working, salt of the earth town folk, “Promised Land’s” substance lies in the character of one man, Steve Butler, sales executive for Global Corporation, played by Matt Damon.
Looking at technical, economic, energetic, and environmental issues, this is a wide-ranging response for financial advisors by a long-time planner and ASPO board member.
•Methane leaks erode green credentials of natural gas •Fracker Ad Clashes on Screen With Damon’s ‘Promised Land’ •When fracking came to suburban Texas Meet •Anthony Ingraffea—From Industry Insider to Implacable Fracking Opponent
