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Post by dgriffin on Apr 13, 2011 7:05:56 GMT -5
 A drilling debate over natural gas heats up in New YorkBY Robert Dominguez DAILY NEWS BUSINESS WRITER Wednesday, April 13th 2011, 4:00 Natural gas is seen as a cleaner, cheaper way to fill that energy need for decades. Environmentalists have a message for New York State landowners who are sitting on what is considered the world's second-largest natural gas field - and who hope to cash in on it like their neighbors in Pennsylvania did. No fracking way. Hydraulic fracturing - aka fracking - is the drilling process that blasts water and chemicals deep into the earth to fracture dense shale and allow natural gas to escape. With President Obama calling for the nation to become less dependent on foreign oil, natural gas is seen as a cleaner, cheaper way to fill that energy need for decades - except that fracking may also pollute drinking water supplies. It may also release more methane into the air than coal, according to a recent Cornell University study. The issue came to a head this week, as lawmakers and Environmental Protection Agency officials met in Washington to assess the safety of hydraulic fracturing. On Monday, anti-fracking activists rallied in Albany against the proposed lifting this summer of a three-year moratorium on drilling in the southwest portion of New York. The area sits on the Marcellus Shale formation, which stretches from Tennessee to New York and may hold nearly 500-trillion cubic feet of gas - enough to heat U.S. homes and power electric plants for 20 years, according to estimates. Marcellus would be the world's second-largest gas field behind South Pars, a region shared by Iran and Qatar. Caught in the middle are New York residents who saw their neighbors get rich in Pennsylvania, where nearly 3,000 shale-gas wells have been drilled - and land values have soared. "There are people who have very legitimate economic concerns for whom this represents the possibility of a windfall," said Kate Sinding of the Natural Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental organization. "That cannot be allowed to come at the expense of drinking-water supplies and clean air and safe communities." While New York state regulators expect to draft rules for work in the Marcellus Shale this summer, several companies have already purchased drilling rights, promising royalties to property owners once gas is produced. Read more: www.nydailynews.com/money/2011/04/13/2011-04-13_a_drilling_debate_over_natural_gas_heats_up_in_new_york.html#ixzz1JP6i6pCo |
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Post by clarencebunsen on Apr 13, 2011 8:00:48 GMT -5
US oil production revives despite offshore disruption www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8698ae80-4503-11e0-80e7-00144feab49a.html#axzz1JLTfA7pSPlease respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8698ae80-4503-11e0-80e7-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1JPKSftPIUS oil production last year rose to its highest level in almost a decade, thanks to an increase in the use of “unconventional” extraction techniques . As a result, analysts believe the US was the largest contributor to the increase in global oil supplies last year over 2009, and is on track to increase domestic production by 25 per cent by the second half of the decade. The rise would still not be enough to end America’s dependence on imported oil, which accounted for roughly half of US demand in 2010. But it would reduce the country’s vulnerability to supply shocks and its trade deficit. According to the US government’s Energy Information Administration, domestic production of crude oil and related liquids rose 3 per cent last year to an average of 7.51m barrels a day – its highest level since 2002. The rise enabled a 2 per cent drop in US oil imports to 9.45m b/d, in spite of rising demand as the economy recovered. US oil imports have fallen steadily since 2006. The revival of US production has been made possible by a rush of small and mid-sized companies into onshore regions such as the Bakken shale in North Dakota, the Permian Basin in west Texas and the Eagle Ford shale in south Texas. North Dakota’s production has doubled since 2008, reaching 355,000 b/d in November. Extraction of oil reserves in these regions was thought to be uneconomic, but has been made commercially viable by the transfer of techniques successfully used to extract shale gas; in particular, long horizontal wells and “fracking”, pumping water under high pressure to crack the rock and enable the oil to flow.
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Post by Clipper on Apr 13, 2011 9:14:39 GMT -5
I can tell you that there has been an ongoing uproar of over gas companies and Virginia state government avoiding or ignoring payments to landowners in Virginia. It has been all over the media here. The energy business, coal and gas, coupled with the crooked politics and the power wielded by the coal and gas lobby upsets me. The mountain top removal mining in the area is simply justified in most people's minds because it "creates and maintains" jobs in the mining field. It is a serious and selfish assault on the environment, and unregulated or improperly regulated "fracking" for gas is also an assault and can destroy an aquifer forever. www2.tricities.com/news/2009/dec/06/underfoot_out_of_reach_money_made_from_southwest_v-ar-239880/Hopefully it will be controlled by well thought out regulations at the state level. God knows that NY State Government is good at OVER regulating some things, and taxing almost EVERY little thing. But being NY State, and not being much different than any other state when it comes to payoffs and corruption, the people of the state need to keep a close eye on how it ends up being regulated, and insure that no one gets paid to push through any lax legislation. |
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Post by virgilgal on Apr 13, 2011 17:49:26 GMT -5
I have been in the thick of the fracking research fracas for several years. I am one of only a handful of people in my town who have not signed leases for drilling (leases were offered here as much as 6 yrs ago in a very serious canvassing my several companies) but after all the leases were signed and the experiences of Pa. started coming in the town passed a local ordinance that will attempt to limit and control road and water use in the event that we do get pegged for drilling. My email is filled each day with 20 news stories of polluted wells, streams, land, fires, deaths, yawning holes opening in the ground and recently, in Arkansas several companies stopped drilling voluntarily as research is pointing to fracking quite possibly being the cause of recent tremors that could be ushering in earthquakes in the areas of drilling. Toxins that are not named (proprietary information!), and a lot of sick people who gladly sold rights on their land originally. I put this in the same hat as nuclear power. Too much action and not enough information; but MOST of all NO standards for safety of those around it! Watch the movie "Gasland". It's getting panned as a result of a mass of propaganda from the corporations who stand to make billions on this "product". I didn't bother to watch it as everything I have heard about it is already information I have acquired from other news reports and research.
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Post by dgriffin on Apr 13, 2011 22:31:12 GMT -5
And the bitch of it is that sometime this year we're going to be paying $5.00 for a gallon of gas. It matters little who owns it, which continent or country it comes from or which nationals are drilling it.
Even if the American oil industry instead of having to import oil from the Mid East can get it half as cheap and twice as plentiful right in their own back yard, they'll still charge what the market will bear and just pocket more of the $5you pay the pump.
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Post by Clipper on Apr 14, 2011 10:46:01 GMT -5
That is the sad part Dave, and the thing that pisses me off the worst is when a gas station raises the price of what is already in their tanks and paid for at a lower price when the oil price goes up. When we went into Libya, or when the crap hits the fan in the middle East, the first indication here is a rise in gasoline prices, almost before the conflict hits the media. They are a bunch of disgusting crooks with our testicles in their hands, and they are not against squeezing them a little harder each day.
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Post by virgilgal on May 18, 2011 7:09:51 GMT -5
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Post by virgilgal on May 18, 2011 7:18:30 GMT -5
Here's one more; Pa. has been scrambling to repair a ton of damage done when they invited in the gas drillers w/o having anything in place to ensure safe practices for the people or the environment. When NY established the moratorium on drilling they left our state in droves and set up shop in Pa. to await their time here. The results have been catastrophic to Pennsylvanians and to their resources. We are close to inviting all this drilling back to NY and yet our state does not have checks and balances in place STILL! Chesapeake holds leases on most of my town's land and every other town for 100 miles around me. And they are headed north... www.theithacajournal.com/article/20110517/NEWS01/105170360/Pa-s-drilling-wastewater-deadline-nears?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s |
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Post by firstamendment on May 18, 2011 8:36:06 GMT -5
One of the issues with fracking is that the methane they are releasing is also entering into the water tables and into people's wells. There is a problem when a person can turn on the tab and actually light it on fire. Might be a cool trick for show and tell in school but not so much for the people living with it.
Actually, there was a CSI episode this season about fracking.
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Post by virgilgal on Jun 5, 2011 15:51:55 GMT -5
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Post by dgriffin on Jun 5, 2011 22:39:40 GMT -5
That sounds pretty nasty.
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Post by Clipper on Jun 6, 2011 10:01:41 GMT -5
Many years ago, before any of this was a widely recognized issue, My father's uncle was building an new house on a hill overlooking Seneca Lake, South of Geneva. When they drilled his well for water, they hit a methane pocket and it was evident in the water. I don't remember what they did about it, but there are quite a few natural gas wells in the finger lakes region of NY State.
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Post by virgilgal on Jun 21, 2011 6:59:00 GMT -5
Back to the world of hydrofracking in the Cortland area. This video of the Town of Dryden Town Board meeting discussing disallowing fracking in the town shows the comments portion of the meeting and the type of concerns faced. The Board voted to ban gas drilling in the town. shaleshockmedia.org/2011/06/18/dryden-town-board-6-15-11/ |
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Post by Swimmy on Jun 21, 2011 7:02:20 GMT -5
New Hartford's town board voted to join the moratorium and ban any fracking in their neck of the woods too.
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Post by virgilgal on Jun 21, 2011 7:27:17 GMT -5
Very glad to hear that people are moving so fast on this in the Utica area, too. In Dryden the school was actually approached and asked to allow drilling on the school grounds. The state is going to make major decisions about fracking regulations in the next week or two. I hope people are staying up to date on the state's position and sending their opinions on to our politicians.
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