Tuesday, December 02, 2014

THERE WILL BE CIVIL WAR: As 1st municipal fracking ban in Texas takes effect, towns test state's oil and gas supremacy


From the Star Tribune:
RENO, Texas — A Texas hamlet shaken by its first recorded earthquake last year and hundreds since then is among communities now taking steps to challenge the oil and gas industry's traditional supremacy over the right to frack. Reno Mayor Lyndamyrth Stokes said spooked residents started calling last November: 
"I heard a boom, then crack! The whole house shook. What was that?" one caller asked. The U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that Reno, a community about 50 miles west of Dallas, had its first earthquake. 
Seismologists have looked into whether the tremors are being caused by disposal wells on the outskirts of Reno, where millions of gallons of water produced by hydraulic fracturing are injected every day. 
Reno took the first step toward what Stokes believes will be an outright ban by passing a law in April limiting disposal well activity to operators who can prove the injections won't cause earthquakes. 
Reno and other cities are taking their lead from Denton, a university town north of Dallas where the state's first ban on fracking within city limits takes effect Tuesday. 
The Denton ban has become a "proxy for this big war between people who want to stop fracking and people who want to see it happen," said Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. 
"Regulation doesn't work very well in the state of Texas because the Railroad Commission doesn't work on the public's behalf," said Dan Dowdey, an anti-fracking advocate in Alpine, a college town a few hours from two major shale formations, the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford. Dowdey and others are calling for Alpine's city commission to ban fracking — even though the closest drilling is more than 100 miles away.
Just a few months ago, it became accepted fact that America is now the #1 Oil-Producing nation in the world. 

The price of oil has gone down commensurately with America's increased production.

We see Saudi Arabia and the rest of OPEC are attempting to deal with the consequences, but they have failed to come to an agreement, and their price-fixing coalition is on the verge of collapse after 40 years of holding the world by the balls.

And Leftist agitators are now trying to put this success in it's grave one municipality at a time.

Slowly, moderate Conservatives will have to come to grips with the fact that those on the Left, who control the media, Academia, the Courts, and increasingly the halls of "Religion", simply do not want America to succeed.

Democracy and Free Enterprise in America will not survive the constant onslaught of disinformation campaigning from the Left.

There will be Civil War.

10 comments:

Ciccio said...

he beauty of this moment is that the Saudis cannot do anything right. If they cut production it helps make fracking competitive and helps above all their two enemies, Russia and Iran. If they keep production and prices as tehy are they are hoping it will make some fracking uncompetitive.

Pastorius said...

Yep. I agree.

But we live in a time where it seems that the Leftists in our midst are as dangerous as our exterior enemies.

Pete Rowe said...

Fracking is not the problem. Disposing of the saltwater produced when you drill a hole is the problem. If you deal with the problem on the top side rather than forcing it back deep underground and under pressure, then you will eliminate the small tremors.

Pastorius said...

That's beyond my technical knowledge. Do you have knowledge in that area?

Pete Rowe said...

Yes, a little. Anytime you drill an oil or gas well, saltwater comes up to the surface. This is true whether the hole produces oil/gas or is a "dry hole." You have to do something with the saltwater; you cannot allow the water to collect at the surface.

The predominant method of disposal is to truck the saltwater away from the drilling site and pump it down a disposal well. The disposal well sends the saltwater down the earth about a mile deep or even farther. These holes used to be dry before the saltwater was introduced to them. The introduction of saltwater lubricates previously dry joints under the surface and also creates some pressure under the earth's surface. It is my opinion that this lubricating of previously dry joints is what is causing the minor earth movement.

There are other ways to deal with saltwater besides pumping it down beneath the surface. There is no need to stop fracking. We just need to deal the waste saltwater differently.

Anonymous said...

At the risk of sounding simple minded, would it not be possible to develop additional economic activities out this problem? Water shortage is a serious problem (ask Californians) and once salt and water are separated, the water could be used for irrigation, if not for drinking, and I'm sure the salt could also be valuable. Why do they dump it back into earth?

Pastorius said...

One would think so. I imagine the objection would be that desalinization is prohibitively expensive.

Pete Rowe said...

Anonymous gets it. If you deal with it topside using evaporation (evaporation can be accelerated by the use of atomizing blowers), then you can get fresh water. It may not be potable, but you can probably use it for agriculture. You see this process used in commercial mining, but it has not experienced wide scale acceptance in the O&G business yet.

Pete Rowe said...

See this picture for an example of what I am talking about:

http://www.mining-technology.com/contractors/waste-management/slimline/slimline1.html

Pastorius said...

Awesome, Pete. Thanks. You have taught me something new.