Richard Heinberg and Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty
What do you know about hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” of natural gas? Probably depends on who you’re listening to.
What do you know about hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” of natural gas? Probably depends on who you’re listening to.
•France reaffirms opposition to shale gas exploration •Fracking bonanza eludes wastewater recycling investors •Lord Browne: fracking will not reduce UK gas prices •Midnight Sabotage with Transylvania’s Anti-Fracking Activists •Banks Reluctant to Lend in Shale Plays as Evidence Mounts on Harm to Property Values Near Fracking •Shale gas could restrain rising energy costs, says reportFor IEA, shale has no long-term impact on oil price •Beneath the Hype: Track Records and Physical Evidence Cast Doubts on Stories of Oil Plenty •How threatened is Uinta Basin’s rare desert flower?
New analysis shows that the Monterey shale is likely to greatly disappoint those who hold hope for a new golden age of oil in the Golden State.
Episode 69 features Timothy Mitchell and Richard Heinberg. Timothy Mitchell is author of ‘Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil’. Richard speaks about his recent book ‘Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future’.
•Methane Emissions in U.S. Probably Top Estimates: Study •Top 10 beneficiaries of fracturing dollars in Congress •From sunset to new dawnColorado creates rules to reduce fracking emissions •Boom city keeps optimism as gas drilling slows •Americans Uninformed About Fracking Says New Study
•Light tight oil does not diminish the importance of Middle East supply, IEA says in latest World Energy Outlook •IEA warns of future oil supply crunch •Oil crumps: Libya, Iraq ‘pay the price for chaotic Western intervention’ •North Dakota’s Salty Fracked Wells Drink More Water to Keep Oil Flowing •Alabama Oil-Train Derailment Raises Questions About Crude Shipment Safety
•Could California’s Shale Oil Boom Be Just a Mirage? •Could fracking boom peter out sooner than DOE expects? •More mineral owners seek to join gas lawsuits •Bakken field haste fuels massive natural gas waste •Shale gas fracking a low risk to public health -UK review •Underground Carbon Dioxide Injections Triggered Earthquakes in Texas in 2009-2011 •Colorado an energy battleground as towns ban fracking
Most of the easy energy is gone. Are we heading for a dead end?
Might the shale boom be coming to an end in the next two years?
•New York Shale Play Gets Major Downgrade •America’s natural gas revolution isn’t all it’s ‘fracked’ up to be •Scientists Wary of Shale Oil and Gas as U.S. Energy Salvation •Shale gas firms to be brought under ‘robust’ new EU law •Lock the Gate Webisodes •Hundreds of North Dakota spills went unreported •Underground Truths: Shale Won’t Save Us •Romanian farmers choose subsistence over shale gas
When we inquire who benefits from the fracking frenzy, the intuitively obvious answer is, “the oil and gas industry, of course.” Yet this may be a simplistic assumption.
Energy independence. It’s so easy to say, but oh so hard to actually accomplish, which is why the United States has been a consistent importer of oil since the late 1940s.