"KATHARINE Q. SEELYE" - Gas Boom Aids Pennsylvania, but Some Worry Over the Risk

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/us/hydraulic-fracturing-brings-money-and-problems-to-pennsylvania.html?_r=1

Gas Boom Aids Pennsylvania, but Some Worry Over the Risk

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

A gas drilling site behind a farmhouse in Fairdale, west of Montrose, Pa. Drilling and the businesses supporting it have lifted the Susquehanna County economy.

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

Published: October 14, 2011

MONTROSE, Pa. — In the economic downturn three years ago, Adam Diaz idled the trucks at his bluestone quarry and silenced the saws at his lumber mill.

Montrose is located along the gas-rich Marcellus Shale.

Fortunately for him, the gas companies arrived at about the same time, and Mr. Diaz saw an opportunity.

He started hauling their waste. He parlayed 1 truck into 8 and now has a fleet of 53. Then he revived a weedy rail spur and now leases 210 rail cars to haul more waste containers. His work force grew to 180 from 30 as he created a business that now has revenues of $45 million a year.

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"SSELL MOKHIBER" - Criminalize Fracking -- A New Challenge to the Corporate State

by RUSSELL MOKHIBER

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/10/13/criminalize-fracking/

Activists in New York have drafted legislation that would criminalize the practice of hydraulic fracturing – also known as fracking.

The law was drafted by the Sovereign People Action Network (SPAN) of Ulster and Green counties.

“In early summer, seeing so many anti-fracking people across the state pouring their time, resources and hopes into the State’s Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), we began drafting a law to rip decision making from this illegitimate agency, and drive it into our state legislature,” Richard Grossman, one of the members of SPAN, told Corporate Crime Reporter.

“Our law criminalizes fracking and fracking-related activities,” Grossman said. “Corporate frackers would be Class C felons.”

“In August, a bunch of anti-frackers from different parts of the state, representing various anti-fracking groups, participated in three sequential workshops I presented on at the New York Green Fest gathering in Western New York,” Grossman said.

“Some decided to join SPAN on criminalization.”

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People Speak Truth to Power - Indian Point Rally! [Video]

Gary Null speaks at the highly successful Rally to Close Indian Point and Stop Hydrofracking on Saturday, October 8.

Don't forget to sign the Online Petition to the Governor and State Assemblies of NY:

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"Christopher Mims" - Fracking sadface: U.S. has one-fifth the shale gas once projected

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-08-25-fracking-sadface-u.s.-has-one-fifth-the-shale-gas-once-projected

by Christopher Mims / 25 Aug 2011

"Oops," says the United States Geological Survey, "We used to think the shale on the East coast of the U.S., which gas companies are currently fracking into submission, had a metric buttload of natural gas. Turns out it only 0.2 metric buttloads." (I'm paraphrasing.)

Yesterday, the USGS's estimate of U.S. reserves of gas trapped in the Marcellus shale went from 410 trillion "technically recoverable" cubic feet of gas to 84 trillion in the span of a single report.

Because this week is Ragnarok and, basically, ghouls are in charge, the natural gas industry actually cheered this report, noting that it still represented significantly more reserves than the USGS estimated were in the shale in 2002. Back then, before fracking was widespread, it was estimated there were only 2 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas in the Marcellus.

Also important: none of these estimates reflect how much of this gas can profitably be extracted from the ground. Because that mostly depends on how desperate we become and how hard we decide to ignore the down sides of fracking.

straight to the source

• Geologists Sharply Cut Estimate of Shale Gas, New York Times

"Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall" - Did Fracking Cause the Virginia Earthquake?

August 23, 2011

By Dr Stuart Jeanne Bramhall

Injecting High Pressure Water Deep into Rock Bed by Atlantic Council

Earthquakes in the nation's capitol are as rare as hen's teeth. The epicenter of Tuesday's quake was in Mineral, Virginia, which is located on three very quiet fault lines. The occurrence of yet another freak earthquake in an unusual location is leading many anti-fracking activists (including me -- they have just started fracking in Stratford, which is 40 minutes from New Plymouth) to wonder whether "fracking" in nearby West Virginia may be responsible.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of initiating and subsequently propagating a fracture in a rock layer, employing the pressure of a fluid as the source of energy. The fracturing is done from a wellbore drilled into reservoir rock formations, in order to increase the extraction rates and ultimate recovery of oil and natural gas and coal seam gas.

How Fracking Causes Earthquakes

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Worries Over Water As Natural Gas Fracking Expands

Drive through northern Pennsylvania and you'll see barns, cows, silos and drilling rigs perched on big, concrete pads. Pennsylvania is at the center of a natural gas boom. New technology is pushing gas out of huge shale deposits underground. That's created jobs and wealth, but it may be damaging drinking water. That's because when you "frack," as hydraulic fracturing is called, you pump millions of gallons of fluids underground. That cracks the shale a mile deep and drives natural gas up to the surface — gas that otherwise could never be tapped.

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Report: Dangers of fracking greater than previously understood

The American landscape is dotted with hundreds of thousands of new wells and thousands of drilling rigs, as the country scrambles to tap into this century's gold rush for natural gas. Drilling companies in recent years have developed techniques to unlock these enormous reserves, and energy companies are clamoring to drill.

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