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Fracking the World: Energy Companies Set Their Sights Globally
Africa, Latin America may see biggest growth in fracking
While the drilling technique known as fracking has primarily occurred in North America, energy companies are now setting their sites far and wide to extend its use across the globe. The U.S. can expext to see even more fracking in the near future.
screengrab from the trailer for the film 'Gasland' The energy news service Platts reports:
And although the US and Canada comprise the largest chunk of the hydraulic fracturing market by far -- just shy of 90% -- activity in other markets is expected to rise over the next several years, Richard Spears, vice president of oilfield consultants Spears & Associates, said during a Credit Suisse conference call about the hydraulic fracturing market. "If that international piece is $4 billion, $5 billion [in 2011], I think five years from now it grows to $10 billion," Spears said. Areas likely to show the biggest growth globally are Latin America, particularly Argentina, where shale drilling has gotten off to a running start, and parts of Africa. "Argentina sounds, looks and smells very much like West Texas," said Spears, adding Latin America currently accounts for $1.7 billion/year of fracturing revenues.
Meanwhile, the consultant projected that horizontal drilling -- most commonly used in shale and unconventional plays -- in the US would rise nearly 16% this year to around 18,600 wells, up from 16,100 last year and 12,225 wells in 2010.
Concerns of earthquakes in Ohio and the UK, well blowouts and water contamination following fracking operations have not deterred most companies' plans. Platts continues:
"Of the 15 frac companies I've visited with in the last three months, [just] one is cautious" about adding capacity this year, he said, while the rest are adding capacity at about the same pace as they did last year.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllThis post is an example of how the real (often exaggerated) future risk of Arctic methane feedbacks can be used to downplay the real (usually neglected) current release of methane from human activities.
The amount of methane leaking from fracking operations is unknown and largely unmonitored. Most probably, it's much greater than Arctic sources for the foreseeable future, and should not be minimized by the comparison to Shakhova's catastrophic 50 GtC Arctic scenario.
Methane is about 100 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over a span of 20 years. Even small methane sources can make a big difference in how much the Earth warms up, escalating the risk from Arctic permafrost and hydrates in the future. The US Dept of Energy has been surprisingly critical of the EPA for obstructing the monitoring of leakage from fracking, in a report Joe Romm discusses in the following:
Message for your modification:
Hydrofracking for gas has negative economic and environmental consequences. In the Marcellus Shale regions, an overwhelming number of citizens want it stopped. The New York State Dept of Environmental Conservation SGEIS comment period just closed, receiving over 40,000 comments of which 10 -1 comments are against fracking. Problems from fracking around the US are becoming more publicly acknowledged and documented; accidents and disasters are increasing as the technology spreads. Continued development of fossil fuels needs to be halted for a postive "energy future" that cuts carbon emissions. We urgently need to address health and climate change by lowering emissions now.
There is a new look at "The Limits to Growth" (1972) in the January New Scientist. The article, "Doomsday Book", points out in the clearest language that the delayed response of the public and politicians is a primary reason why the curves do not stabilize, but collapse.
In this we are consistent. We do not react in time, either to JFK's warnings and solutions (1961 address to the UN) - or to the admonitions of the writers of the original "Limits to Growth" - or to the people on the ground opposing fracking.
--------"Humanity's use of energy and materials is now so far above the globe's long-term, sustainable capacity that collapse of some sort is inevitable. Thus I do not pay much attention these days to discussions about how one or another technology will "save" us. It is nevertheless very gratifying to see our message succinctly and accurately conveyed." (Dennis Meadows - recent - see link)
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328480.500-doomsday.html
It is this slow response time that is crucial - and that the mountaineer (all old mountaineers), have learned to avoid, but hierarchial civilizations and their citizens have not. The seemingly built in inertia is thus a killer. Can this be addressed in the age of the Internet - or is human nature inside civilizations doomed to prevaricate?
I would explore this further?
"The Limits to Growth" (Abstract, 1972)
http://www.ratical.org/corporations/limit2growth.html
Mike
=====Hi Robert !
I can only answer instinctively, which, by the way, I regard as more accurate than an analytical response.
I think disaster capitalism, the "shock doctrine", is also an instinctive response, but on the part of those already so far compromised ethically that it too is but a symptom of a bigger problem.
They do want all the marbles, of course - that's how they keep track of their progress - ergo - mental illness in action - or, to be kind - permanent adolescence.
They aren't really smart, when you consider - there really is only planet - and their children are on it too.
We could spend lots of time and space diagnosing their illness - but we are out of time - and perhaps even space.
But they are extremely dangerous - and the public and our political systems are too slow in reacting to timely information, for whatever reason or reasons one may wish to discuss. We are also out of time for this dialectic.
I recommend we switch to instinctive response. It has stood the test of time, is natural to all, and can be rather easily re-learned.
I suppose I am recommending something I disparaged earlier - a world-shift in consciousness.
But I have no other concrete suggestions - other than perhaps to begin climbing mountains, or its equivalents.
In citing the Club of Rome pamphlet, i.e., "The Limits to Growth" (1972), I have myself come full circle - back to the day long ago, when as a twenty-two year old, I first read the "Doomsday Book."
Word can spread like wildfire - especially bad news.
I suggest we abandon these feel-good strategies, which are pointless tactics before the rout, and all become prophets of doom - and then - take action.
Mike
===The question is, what right have the rich to spend our drinking water and our grandchildren's climate on their precious hour-long megashowers? Fracking reaches under some neighbor's land to steal methane, and fracking pollutes some neighbor's well water with carcinogens. Every ton of carbon released from the earth is a ton of greenhouse gas carbon that someone else will want to put back into the earth, probably in the form of algae cell husks buried in huge lignite mountains in the world's arid areas (where the sun is optimal for growing algae).
I'll note that bringing up natural gas carbon isn't, per million BTUs produced, half as bad as mining coal or tar sands. However, it isn't putting any carbon back down, nor is it coming close to breaking even.
I expect fracking to be the hallmark of a third world country. That's where peons won't complain about what has been stolen from them.
Once again, I defer to the deepest thinker of our modern era to issue an opinion on the subject, no one but him could say better:
"Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighborhoods.” George W Bush, Austin, Texas, Dec. 20, 2000
PS: Of course, there's also this tidbit. Lucky people of Ohio. They'll be the next Nigeria.
"Chesapeake Energy to drill in Ohio’s Utica shale with $2.32 billion boost from French firm"
http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/chesapeake-energy-to-drill-in-ohio-s...