Fracking Protests

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Profile Wiggo
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Message 1487368 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 9:36:21 UTC

There's large growing opposition to it over here and mainly due to most of it being carried out over the Great Artesian Basin and in major food bowl areas.

The Lock The Gate Alliance being the largest opposition group here.

2 companies have recently been fined, 1 for polluting a river and the other for polluting groundwater. These have actually helped in increasing the opposition to this practice here.

There was also a report last month some time that blamed a lot of the drought conditions currently being suffered in the central USA on fracking as a lot of ground and surface water reserves were being pumped into the ground to the gas out which would've been better used by farmers for their crops and land (if I remember rightly it was reported at over 10 times that that the farmers would've used).

Cheers.
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Message 1487378 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 10:37:08 UTC

I agree, but there are certainly much better places (here at least) to try this out and study/refine/understand the process better, even if they are more remote, without endangering productive food bowl areas (which we don't have a lot of here).

Cheers.
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Message 1487380 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 10:39:53 UTC - in response to Message 1487353.  

Fracking


Fracking involves pumping a mixture of water and chemicals into shale rock at high pressure to extract gas and oil.

So water isn't a chemical then...

Heaven forfend there should be chemicals in the ground, next thing we know there'll be molecules in the air!
Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.
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Message 1487388 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 11:45:22 UTC

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Message 1487399 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 12:23:28 UTC

Fracking is just a distraction. Natural gas is running out, and rather than look for an alternative, we spend our time and energy on increasingly ineffective ways to still get some gas out of the ground. Spend the same amount of time and energy into setting up sustainable alternatives, and we wouldn't need all that gas anymore.
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Message 1487420 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 13:34:07 UTC - in response to Message 1487399.  

Fracking is just a distraction. Natural gas is running out, and rather than look for an alternative, we spend our time and energy on increasingly ineffective ways to still get some gas out of the ground. Spend the same amount of time and energy into setting up sustainable alternatives, and we wouldn't need all that gas anymore.

Please show me the sustainable alternatives that are available today 24/7/365.
Bear in mind that the European country that shouts loudest about it's green policies has increased its reliance on dirty brown coal.
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Message 1487431 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 14:21:49 UTC - in response to Message 1487399.  

Fracking is just a distraction. Natural gas is running out, and rather than look for an alternative, we spend our time and energy on increasingly ineffective ways to still get some gas out of the ground. Spend the same amount of time and energy into setting up sustainable alternatives, and we wouldn't need all that gas anymore.


Alternatives? Such as?

1. Nuclear fission - high level radioactive waste dangerous for > 200000 years.
2. Nuclear fusion - 60 years ago, it was 30 years away. Today, it is still 30 years away. It doesn't yet work, and may never.
3. Solar - the amount of sunlight reaching a point on the earth goes to zero once a day and remains there for hours over most of the earth's surface. Plus making the panels is energy expensive and highly polluting.
4. Wind turbines - Kills the birds, plus they depend on various 'rare earth' elements to make magnets strong enough to be economically viable. Plus, the wind doesn't blow all the time.
5. Geothermal - not available everywhere, plus uses much the same stuff as fracking gas. Plus the turbines are high maintenance due to corrosive chemicals that come back up with the steam.
6. Hydroelectric - nice, but the dams screw up river ecosystems, not to mention that most of the good sites for it have already been developed (for instance, the TVA in the USA).
7. Tidal power - messes with marine life, and tides are only periodic during the day, not continuous


Did I forget any? Do you know of others? The point is that there are problems with the so-called 'alternatives' to oil/gas/coal.

Sure, the alternatives can help out some times in some places, but they can NOT (except for nuclear fission -- and how many people want those near them) carry the base load. For that, you need oil/gas/coal power plants.

Of the three (oil, gas, and coal), natural gas is by far the cleanest to burn (both in CO2, and in most other pollution as well).

What are we all gonna do? Use the technology available to extract all we can, and hope we can develop nuclear fusion before it all runs out?

Or turn out the lights, and go back to living in caves and trees?
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Message 1487435 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 14:26:38 UTC - in response to Message 1487420.  

Please show me the sustainable alternatives that are available today 24/7/365.
Bear in mind that the European country that shouts loudest about it's green policies has increased its reliance on dirty brown coal.

I assume you mean Germany. Yeah, I know. Its kinda what happens when you are closing nuclear power plants before you have replaced their capacity with windmills and solar panels.

Also, wind and solar are pretty much available at all times. And one can use them to create hydrogen or charge batteries during times of low power draw which you can then use as fuel in times where you need more.

Also, focus on reducing the power we need to begin with.
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Message 1487441 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 14:41:50 UTC - in response to Message 1487431.  

forgot one, sorry.

8. 'Bio'power schemes: things like bio-diesel and ethanol. They have some promise, but tend to drive food prices up... WAY up...
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Message 1487446 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 14:46:23 UTC - in response to Message 1487435.  

Please show me the sustainable alternatives that are available today 24/7/365.
Bear in mind that the European country that shouts loudest about it's green policies has increased its reliance on dirty brown coal.

I assume you mean Germany. Yeah, I know. Its kinda what happens when you are closing nuclear power plants before you have replaced their capacity with windmills and solar panels.

Also, wind and solar are pretty much available at all times.
You sure, I'm not. And in some places I can almost guarantee they are not.
And one can use them to create hydrogen or charge batteries during times of low power draw which you can then use as fuel in times where you need more.
If hydrogen was so easy to produce we would have been using it in cars years ago, try another one.
Batteries, one they don't last long, two they are full of 'orrible chemicals, three there is about a 50% loss in just charging them and then discharging them, when used under the most favourable conditions. Try again.


Also, focus on reducing the power we need to begin with.
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Message 1487451 - Posted: 11 Mar 2014, 14:49:56 UTC - in response to Message 1487441.  

forgot one, sorry.

8. 'Bio'power schemes: things like bio-diesel and ethanol. They have some promise, but tend to drive food prices up... WAY up...

And recent studies show they can be bigger pollutants than "straight" oil, and also bio-diesel give less mile/gallon, km/ltr.
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Message 1487608 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 2:21:55 UTC
Last modified: 12 Mar 2014, 2:41:32 UTC

In Europe communities are highly sensetive of any environmental harms of a new industries while in America largely a fracking motherland anything related with oil and gas immediately belongs to Oil Mafia category and largely gets covered up (by corporations plus by their government) although many of their locals quietly oppose.

But this new proven water pollution revealings are quite unusual for fracking motherland: fracking water pollution 01/2014

In at least four states that have nurtured the nation's energy boom, hundreds of complaints have been made about well-water contamination from oil or gas drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of them, according to a review that casts doubt on industry suggestions that such problems rarely happen.
... Pennsylvania received 398 complaints in 2013 alleging that oil or natural gas drilling polluted or otherwise affected private water wells, compared with 499 in 2012. The Pennsylvania complaints can include allegations of short-term diminished water flow, as well as pollution from stray gas or other substances. More than 100 cases of pollution were confirmed over the past five years.
January 5, 2014 USA Today

Mandtugai!
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Message 1487614 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 2:28:47 UTC

So who is going to be the first to get totally unplugged and go live in a cave somewhere? Grow your own food, make your own clothes and live in the dark from sunset to sunrise to be completely green.
Bob DeWoody

My motto: Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow as it may not be required. This no longer applies in light of current events.
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Profile MOMMY: He is MAKING ME Read His Posts Thoughts and Prayers. GOoD Thoughts and GOoD Prayers. HATERWORLD Vs THOUGHTs and PRAYERs World. It Is a BATTLE ROYALE. Nobody LOVEs Me. Everybody HATEs Me. Why Don't I Go Eat Worms. Tasty Treats are Wormy Meat. Yes
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Message 1487657 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 4:33:26 UTC

No. 9: Antarctic Circumpolar Current

Transfer The Energy from Dat Bad Boy and yOu Can POwer dA VOrld fO a Very Long Time.

Put Trillions N2 Antarctic Circumpolar Current Current Generator. Snazzy Name. Now, DO IT VORLD.

Brainiacs, Get To Work. My Cave is Cold and I Need FOOD.

' '

May we All have a METAMORPHOSIS. REASON. GOoD JUDGEMENT and LOVE and ORDER!!!!!
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Message 1487686 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 6:18:28 UTC - in response to Message 1487435.  

Please show me the sustainable alternatives that are available today 24/7/365.
Bear in mind that the European country that shouts loudest about it's green policies has increased its reliance on dirty brown coal.

I assume you mean Germany. Yeah, I know. Its kinda what happens when you are closing nuclear power plants before you have replaced their capacity with windmills and solar panels.

Also, wind and solar are pretty much available at all times. And one can use them to create hydrogen or charge batteries during times of low power draw which you can then use as fuel in times where you need more.

Also, focus on reducing the power we need to begin with.

Your last sentance says it all. We seem to get more energy dependendant the more are technical expertise gets. How many of us plug our doodads in at the end of the day now compared to 30 years ago. And everyone wants us to get an electric car, Me thinks that would need to be plugged in also.

I think the world needs an invention where you throw organic waste into a bin and the bacteria and or nanobots turn it into energy.
[/quote]

Old James
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Message 1487744 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 10:08:07 UTC - in response to Message 1487388.  

The hazards of some of these chemicals.

http://lockthegategippsland.com/information/fracking-chemicals-their-uses-and-hazards/

Rather biased list. Take their entry for Hydrochloric acid as an example:
Extremely corrosive. Inhalation of vapour can cause serious injury. Ingestion may be fatal. Liquid can cause severe damage to skin and eyes. Threshold Limit Value – 5 ppm. Lethal to fish from 25 mg/l or more. Toxic for aquatic organisms due to pH shift
They neglected to mention we have a stomach full of it.

Or Acetic acid (aka vinegar):
Extremely corrosive and flammable. Causes severe chemical burns to eyes and skin. Very harmful if swallowed
These things can be true, of the acid neat, but by their own admission it is used as a buffer, meaning that only minute quantities are added to the water to maintain a consistent pH.
Life on earth is the global equivalent of not storing things in the fridge.
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Message 1487746 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 10:15:16 UTC - in response to Message 1487744.  

The hazards of some of these chemicals.

http://lockthegategippsland.com/information/fracking-chemicals-their-uses-and-hazards/

Rather biased list. Take their entry for Hydrochloric acid as an example:
Extremely corrosive. Inhalation of vapour can cause serious injury. Ingestion may be fatal. Liquid can cause severe damage to skin and eyes. Threshold Limit Value – 5 ppm. Lethal to fish from 25 mg/l or more. Toxic for aquatic organisms due to pH shift
They neglected to mention we have a stomach full of it.

Just because you have a stomach full of it doesn't mean it can't hurt you or that its good to pump it into the ground.
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Message 1487747 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 10:15:36 UTC - in response to Message 1487384.  

Heaven forfend there should be chemicals in the ground, next thing we know there'll be molecules in the air!

Too late mate. There is evidence that fish and other species are developing both male and female organs due to Chemical and hormone runoff from farms and wastewater treatment plants.

Oooer

I think you missed my sarcastic tone, my point was that everything is a chemical.

Too much synthetic hormone from birth control pills, that's a different problem.
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Message 1487749 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 10:19:14 UTC - in response to Message 1487746.  

Just because you have a stomach full of it doesn't mean it can't hurt you or that its good to pump it into the ground.

"The dose makes the poison", -Paracelsus.

High concentrations of oxygen are lethal to cells, yet if we removed it from the air we'd all asphyxiate.
What the list fails to mention is how much is used and what happens to it afterward, context is important here.
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Message 1487801 - Posted: 12 Mar 2014, 13:45:11 UTC - in response to Message 1487754.  

As a mate of mine observed a couple of years ago "Women have been causing trouble in this world ever since the garden of Eden, and they haven't stopped yet".


...and someone else said.....

"You can't live with 'em and you can't live without 'em"

...in other words, whichever way we turn we get screwed!

Now there's an idea!

How about wiring up all fertile couples, the energy produced should be able to light up the world for approx. 30 seconds a day :-)
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