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The Sky HAS Fallen! Time Magazine Loves (Waterless) Fracking

sky is fallingWell lookie here! Just yesterday MDN was waxing eloquent on alternatives to using water in fracking (see CO2 Instead of Water for Fracking – Seriously?!). Little did we know that two weeks ago Time magazine released its list of the “25 Best Inventions of the Year 2013”. Under the category of five “World-Changing” technologies is a listing for…waterless fracking! Wonders never cease.

This is what Time says about waterless fracking and why it made the list:
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Yet Another “The (Methane) Sky is Falling” Study Released

Yes, MDN has spotted the news circulating around the mainstream media echo chamber that trumpets, OMG!…”fugitive methane” is leaking at, like 50% more than even WE thought in our worst nightmarish dreamworld–and it may be, might, could, possibly be, coming from shale drilling. This latest “scare them while they still believe you” scam comes straight from, yes, another “peer reviewed” so-called “study” published in the prestigious (and it is prestigious) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (or PNAS). The AP/Bloomberg/Reuters et al can’t wait to share this bit of bad news with the general public. Too bad it’s wasted during a holiday week when no one will notice.

This latest study, which attempts to create a boogeyman where none exists, is titled, “Anthropogenic emissions of methane in the United States.” The new study certainly tickles discredited Cornell professors Robert Howarth and Tony Ingraffea who have spun wild yarns about how coal is better than natural gas because of the “fugitive methane” issue. Unfortunately MDN could not get a copy of this study–not without paying good money (money we’d rather spend on something important, like going to see The Hunger Games). However, our friends at the always-excellent Energy in Depth have scored a copy and have written this insightful review:
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New Frack Wastewater Recycling Plant Opens in Carroll County, OH

A new frack wastewater recycling facility is about to open in Sherrodsville (Carroll County), Ohio. The new plant was built by Rettew Flowback (of North Canton, OH) and is owned and will be operated by Iron Eagle, a Youngstown-based company that rents equipment to oil and gas drillers. The new plant will employ 50 people and is set to open it’s doors “by Dec. 1” according to an Iron Eagle spokesperson. It will have the capacity to process up to 588,000 gallons of water per day.

We have to confess, this one flew under the MDN radar. Here’s the few details we know, courtesy Crain’s Cleveland Business:
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2 Anti-Drillers Arrested at Youngstown Injection Well

Two anti-drilling protesters were arrested Sunday for blocking trucks trying to enter an injection well facility in Niles (Trumbull County), Ohio–near Youngstown. Film at eleven.

Oh! You want more details? There isn’t much in the way of information, but here’s what we know about who was arrested, and why:
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Eco Group Schisms & The Heart of the Fracking Debate

An article in the National Journal does a good job of capturing the growing rift among so-called environmentalists on the issue of fracking–or hydraulic fracturing. Every now and again it’s helpful to review the basics here on MDN because we constantly have new readers/subscribers to our service. For years MDN has said the true movement people who oppose fracking (i.e. shale drilling)–people like Josh Fox with his Gasland fictions and the odious Food & Water Watch, and lately even the Sierra Club–oppose fracking not because the practice actually pollutes, but because it frees up large volumes of natural gas, which is a fossil fuel, and they HATE all fossil fuels. Yes, it’s an irrational hatred–but that is what is truly at the heart of this debate: fossil fuel phobia. Movement environmentalists believe humans should stop using fossil fuels now. Bring back the horse and buggy.

Of course anti-frackers are rankly hypocritical as they jet around the world and drive around the country using fossil fuels to spread their anti-fossil fuel message. They go home at night and turn up the furnace–a furnace that burns fossil fuels–to heat their homes. They turn on their stoves that burn natural gas to cook their food. They use electricity which (coming as a shocking surprise to their parochial worldview) is created by big power plants that burn coal or natural gas. But “do as I say not as I do” has always been the credo for anti-frackers. The article in National Journal is about the “fight” over fracking in Colorado among environmentalists, but the story could easily take place in NY, PA, WV, or OH. The arguments, the lies and deceptions by extremist “environmental” groups, are the same wherever you go…
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PA DEP Consent Decree Against Waste Treatment’s Warren Plant

A month ago MDN told you a lawsuit had been filed by anti-drilling Clean Water Action (CWA) against the municipal sewage treatment plant in Warren, PA operated by Waste Treatment Corporation. The lawsuit claimed the Warren plant, based on testing of the Allegheny River, continues to process and dump treated frack wastewater into the river (see CWA Sues/Accuses Waste Treatment Corp of Continued Shale Pollution). A day after that story broke, both Waste Treatment and the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection responded and said that no, the plant does not and has not treated shale frack wastewater since 2011 (see Waste Treatment, PA DEP Respond to CWA Lawsuit).

However, as we said at the time, the fact that the DEP had also (quietly) filed their own lawsuit against Waste Treatment raises more questions than it answers. We now begin to get some of those answers. Yesterday, the DEP announced a “Proposed Consent Decree” with Waste Treatment that will reduce the amount of total dissolved solids it releases into the Allegheny River. The (important) question remains: If the effluent from the Warren plant is not coming from processing shale fracking wastewater, where is it coming from? What is the source of this super-salty wastewater that’s being processed by this plant?…
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Shale Drilling Jobs Among CNN’s Top 100 “Best Jobs in America”

CNNMoney recently posted their “Best Jobs in America 2013” list which is a ranking of the top 100 jobs with “big growth, great pay and satisfying work.” MDN had a quick scan through the list and found many of the jobs are either directly or indirectly related to the shale drilling industry. Here were the six jobs from the list directly related to energy/shale drilling:
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