fracking has been used for a long while. The impacts are pretty well known by now. It is being used at greater depths than it typically has in the past, but there's no reason to believe that that will provoke some special class of risks.

Also the nation does not have a water supply. There's no way that fracking can impact 'our nation's water supply'. Fracking may impact potable water in some regions, and require remediation, but it's silly to assert that it's a national threat. Frankly Leonard doesn't seem familiar with the issue, but is very impressed that regulators want to regulate it, and legislators want to legislate.

Here's an open secret - environmental groups will oppose all energy innovation because they don't approve of the things that energy enables. That's the real reason that they're suddenly going ballistic over fracking.

I'm with you Pluto until your open secret. I know people I think are environmental whackos and people who self identify as environmentalists that don't seem like such Kool aid drinkers. Point being solar and wind power. It's all the rage now. And as much as I don't like our dear leaders, they are all about subsidizing those forms of energy as much as possible and I don't think they intend the destruction of civilization. Intentions of course being one thing, and what happens another.

Fracking the Marcellus Shale has polluted a lot of water and poisoned a lot of people in Pennsylvania. Enormously toxic chemicals (trademarked, so we don't even know what all of them are, in which combinations, which proportions) are used in fracking.

I, too, want to see us get off the oil teat (eek -- quel metaphor!), but I think it's a complicated issue. And no, I don't disapprove of "the things that energy enables."

Regardless of the merits of the arguments for and against the fracking technology, it's always fun when a web site, magazine, or even a radio station creates something counter to the sensibilities of most of its audience. The first page of comments were a hoot, but that was about as far as I bothered to go.

When I was stationed in the UK, I would sometimes listen to a BBC Radio 5 show called "Desert Island Disks" during my commute. In it, celebrities in various fields would talk about what records they would like to have with them on a desert island, and then we would get to hear the music. I imagine Radio 5's audience was a bit like NPR's here. Sometime after they had Conservative Prime Minister John Major on the show, the hosts read reactions from outraged listeners -- you'd have thought the Dalai Lama turned Baptist or something!

Lisa Simeone makes some entirely unsupported claims about "pollution" in Pennsylvania.

For those who want facts and not hysteria, go read Matt Ridley's discussion of shale gas, and, even better, download the paper he links to and read it. Very informative, both as to shale gas, and as to the ridiculous extremes anti-energy activists (read: "environmentalists") will go to mislead the public.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/shale-gas-shock

Also, a response to the recent Howarth study purporting to show how polluting shale gas is:

http://blogs.cfr.org/levi/2011/05/20/rebutting-the-howarth-shale-gas-study/

And Pluto hit the nail on the head with his "open secret." The radical environmentalists hate human progress and development, they know energy is key to such, and they fight any progress in obtaining clean, cheap energy.

If you believe otherwise, show me an energy technology that some branch of environmental radicals is NOT fighting. And that includes nuclear, solar, wind, and biomass.

Enviro-leftists are the modern equivalent of the feudal lords who opposed the advances of the Renaissance. They remind me of the Jevlans in James Hogan's Giants Trilogy, who wanted to de-industrialize the Earth so that they would all have extensive country estates to themselves, and the hundreds of millions who would die without the benefits of modern technology was simply not their concern. Lisa, if someone discovered a new energy source that was free, limitless, and had no environmental impacts whatsoever, you can be damn sure that it would take the environmentalists about five minutes to fire up the lawsuit machinery.

We ran out of oil in the '70's. Jimmy Carter said so.

Anti-oil people hate old people who will not be able to afford the higher and higher gas prices without significantly cutting other necessary expenses. But anti-oil people know that inexpensive cars that do not use oil are right around the corner. Just like they knew we would run out of oil in the 70's.

Oh and Jim Elwell, you have to cut lisa some slack. She means well.

What Cousin Dave said. Preach it, bro! :-)

Also, Amy: apologies for (again) threadjacking but I thought you'd enjoy this link to an article about the DC Food Cops, by Steven Malanga at City Journal:

The Washington Diet: Following the government’s nutritional advice can make you fat and sick.

Interesting viewpoint from Ronald Bailey at Reason:

http://reason.com/archives/2011/05/10/environmentalists-were-for-fr

As for contaminated wells, Bradley notes:

A 2010 Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection report “concluded that no groundwater pollution or disruption of underground sources of drinking water have been attributed to hydraulic fracturing of deep gas formations.”

On the other hand, the drilling companies did their industry no favors by keeping their proprietary fracking fluid formulas secret....

It should be noted that the wells were not tested for methane before gas drilling began.

Jim and Pluto-
Yes, environmentalist wackos seem to hate humanity. I don't think anyone is arguing against that. There are other people who profess to care about the planet and (wrongheaded or no) tout nuclear power, wind, or solar as the answer to all energy problems. A lot of those people do not "hate innovation because they don't approve of the things that energy enables". I'm trying to clear the water here, not muddy it. One problem is anyone and everyone can be called an environmentalist. It's a really porous definition. Some people are crazy and most everyone writes them off. The fight ought to be winning over people to see the light. The true believers on the fringe are beyond help. Not everyone is beyond help.

"There are clearly reasons to be concerned. Just this week, Texas--Texas!--passed a "fracking disclosure" law requiring oil and gas well operators who perform hydraulic fracturing to disclose the volume of water and chemical ingredients of the fracturing fluids used"

This by itself does not suggest anything sinister, unless Leonard believes there's an alternate universe where companies are perfectly free to pour any quantity of any chemicals down any wells without regulators taking the slightest interest. Yes the companies should have been more upfront with their proprietary formulas,

What do you think happened the first time our distant ancestors drilled water wells that intersected coal seams or natural gas deposits, and then lit a spark nearby? Keep that in mind the next time you see one of those flammable tap water videos that imply this is a brand new phenomenon, and the consequence of fracking.

I'll just quickly mention here that the Athabasca oil sands are a 100% natural deposit, and that Indians were using the stuff to patch their canoes thousands of years before paleface activists got hysterical over it.

I read somewhere that the Chinese are building coal plants as fast as they can. Having nothing and starting relatively from nothing, I wonder why they are starting with coal. Surely they know that coal is evil and there are better methods. Or, maybe they want modern conveniences for their citizens and know that the alternatives are not really viable.

The Chinese know that coal is cheap and plentiful. The damage done to the climate by this choice seems relatively distant, while their population and industries demand more energy now.

Damage. What Damage?

Dave B. wrote:

Damage. What Damage?

As someone who has lived in Beijing, and had to pick the black soot out my nose every night, I can tell you, there's already damage. Don't want to think what a lung x-ray would have shown.

I'm no environmental activist, but uncontrolled coal burning is pretty disgusting, especially in a city with 15 million residents. And that's the capital. I visited other cities, particularly in Inner Mongolia, where the comrades were less careful about air pollution. Picture a black cloud where a city should be.

Or, maybe they want modern conveniences for their citizens and know that the alternatives are not really viable.

Not really. The Three Gorges hydrodam is definitely viable, although they drowned a lot of their culture. I also recently met a Chinese student at a top-rung B-school who had a background in utilities and is working on alternative power sources. They're using coal, but they can see that they're poisoning their own people, and sooner or later its going to cause political trouble. So they're looking at everything, not just coal.

"Enormously toxic chemicals (trademarked, so we don't even know what all of them are, in which combinations, which proportions) are used in fracking."

Bzzzt. "We" simply do not have an interest in learning about that stuff. Chemistry isn't secret.

Damage. What Damage?

While Dale brings up very good points about the more immediate effects of coal burning, I was referring to coal's contributions to climate change, which affects all of us, not just the Chinese. But we can also include water pollution, acid rain and other fun byproducts.

Don't forget climate change, which affects us all. That's what I was referring to. Plus acid rain, water pollution from mining, etc., etc.

I see why the Chinese are choosing coal now, but that doesn't make it a great plan.

Whoops, sorry about the multiple similar posts. Consequences of commenting via iPad.

I was informed by someone who also lived in Beijing for many years. His background was in accounting, so he may have been misinformed. Cleaning, Pressing and Alterations aren't infallable.

I thought they used our advanced technology with coal and not starting from zero.

They have a lot of people to feed and clothe. I would hope they would use the most modern tech and stop building fake cities.

My concern on climate change - very little to none. I need much more proof before coercion is used. On second thought I didn't mean that - no coercion.

Here's an open secret - environmental groups will oppose all energy innovation because they don't approve of the things that energy enables.

True Pluto. Part of the problem is that from the outside the environmental movement in general looks homogenous, but in reality contains a huge number of differing agendas. So every time you try to do something (anything!), some part of it pops up to stop you.

Take my city, Melbourne, as an example. It's grown from roughly 3 million to 5 million population over the last 20-30 years. So you would think some increase in water storage and supply would be in order. The last dam was completed in 1983. There is a great candidate for a new dam on a river nearby that floods massively every few years (the dam would pay for itself in flood control alone). But no, that would spoil the river, so the state government made it a protected park to put that option off the table. Ok, they said, we'll build a desal plant instead. Guess what? The concentrated brine waste from a desal plant has all sorts of environmental implications, uses power, yada, yada. Doesn't matter what you do, there's a group out there to oppose it.

I look forward to protests against large scale solar if that ever gets up. The environmental effects of those will be interesting to say the least. When you can't build a road without taking into account some obscure species of frog, I would love to see the impact statement of several hundred acres of solar collectors. Plus the water usage, runoff, chemicals used in the heat transfer and storage systems all of which have the potential to be released in a minor storm or earthquake, local climate effects (something like that *will* shift weather patterns).

Quite frankly Lisa, injecting a few chemicals as a trace in sand and water several thousand feet underground seems trivial by comparison.

Anyway, have you got any idea what comes up if you just drill at random anywhere? There's a mob in Australia trying out hot dry rocks geothermal - not the few hundred feet down that Iceland, NZ, and California do in the limited places where the heat source is shallow, but drilling thousands of feet down and shattering the rockbed with water to extract heat. Similar to fracking, really, except the water they pump down as their heat transfer medium comes up chemically active enough to collapse their wells - cased with high grade stainless steel. Nasty stuff. At least with fracking the water stays down there and gas comes up.

Belatedly - Cousin Dave, Jim E, and others made similar points to mine.

Lisa, I want to clarify I'm not picking on you specifically. But you said this

And no, I don't disapprove of "the things that energy enables."

Since you seem to have an issue with fracking, what source of energy do you propose then? Genuine question.

The only proven technologies other than fossil fuels are hydro, nuclear and perhaps geothermal energy. Nuclear is the only thing we have now that involves minimal carbon emissions (mining fuel, construction/maintenance) that scales.

Last year I saw a talk by Bob Metcalfe (google as needed), and I thought he made a good point about energy. He likened it to back when Internet bandwidth was at a premium. And some people thought the correct approach was to code your web site or service to use as little as possible.

But what really unlocked the potential of the Internet was when bandwidth got cheap (thanks to bubble expansion and crash to no small degree), and people started building rich, bandwidth-intensive apps. He thought that rather than an increasingly miserly energy future, we should seek to make energy plentiful and cheap (and maintain reliability, one assumes). And that would make lives better and unlock other innovations.

I agree. But I think it's important that in trying to create an energy rich world, that we take care not to make too much of a mess of things. I think right now, nuclear is the best bet.

jeebus folks, if you haven't figured it out yet, lisa is as far left as they come. I picture her as being some daughter of rich folks who dreams of a utopia after her silver spoon upbringing. Oh ya, save them whales

Do you think nuclear engines are in the near future.

Our economy, and that of the world, is based on oil. As long as we keep the price of oil artificially high by making drilling and refining difficult we are hurting the economy. Very cruel to the old and poor.

ronc - I am truly embarrassed. I must have replaced my real lightbulb with one of those curly things that go on slowly. That or old age. Now lisa makes more sense.

We have a vacation home in rural North Carolina. Recently a solar panel array was built on a hillside next to a highway there. Already groups of concerned citizens have formed to oppose any more arrays and regulate the one already there. Whatever you want to do, somebody will oppose it. BTW, if you want to lose all faith in democracy, attend a homeowners association meeting. There will be busy-bodies there who will oppose anything anyone wants to do on their own property.

Our economy, and that of the world, is based on oil.

Which we are running out of, and which is getting increasingly difficult, and environmentally risky to recover, and which contributes to global warming. We need to move away from an oil economy.

oh ya, that global warming religion

Dave B writes: "you have to cut lisa some slack. She means well." Being fairly new here, I'm trying to ascertain whether that comment has sarcasm written all over it.

Abersouth: I was careful to use the term "radical environmentalist." I consider ALL of us to be environmentalists, in the sense that we all want clean air, clean water, etc. It is a fairly small (but largely influential) group that (a) think the environment trumps all other concerns, and/or (b) hate human progress and development, and/or (c) are utterly incapable of scientific reasoning.

Dave B: the Chinese are opening a new coal-fired electrical generation plant roughly every TWO WEEKS, i.e., about 25 a year. However, they are also trying to move to shale gas as rapidly as they can, because (surprise!) they don't want dirty air either. (BTW, the USA has about 18,000 electrical power plants of all types (nuclear, coal, gas, solar, bio, etc.) which puts 25 a year for a population 4 times that of the USA into some perspective.]

Several of you: Matt Ridley's "Shale Gas Shock" (link above) discusses in detail the composition of fracking fluid. Several companies have revealed exactly what they use.

Dave B: just for fun, visit the nuclear museum outside of Arco, Idaho. They have the world's only nuclear-powered jet engine on display. For real! OK, it's the size of a small office building, but a pretty cool engineering project.

Christopher: the world is most assuredly NOT running out of oil. Sorry to disappoint you. Since I'm limited to one link, try this one:
http://www.cobdencentre.org/2011/05/a-long-way-from-reaching-our-peak/

Jim E - Lisa has been a burr under my saddle for a few weeks. I just chalked it up to her obvious youth. Then, ronc at 9:17am above notes that she is probably a liberal - far left type. Too many senior moments these days I guess - I just missed it, but now it makes sense. So a little sarcasm when I wrote would not be a lot of sarcasm if I were to re-write it.

Clearly the Chinese are way behind in providing a bare minimum type existence for their citizens. I would hope they would use their money to build their country as we re-built Japan - all modern technology of the time.

I now have a valid excuse to expand my search for a used horse trailer to Idaho. I did not think we would have a nuclear-powered engine in my lifetime. Obviously, I was hoping for one that would fit in a car - I have got to get there.

Chrisopher never believes me that we have been running out of oil for over 40 years yet we keep finding record discoveries every year. I blame it on Paul Erlich (sp).

I need to google to see if Lisa got arrested today dancing with the nutcases at the Lincoln Memorial (I'm not sorry, but I am not meaning to offend you Amy if you see this).

This is a good case for State's rights. The Dakota's have faired "The Great Recession" pretty darn well. It seems to me a nation that is obsessed with national security and low economic growth would view this as a no-brainer.

Many of you are saying what to do if Nuclear is more mainstream and yes it can provide the energy needed for out TV's and light but it can not solve the problem of movement aka an engine. Here is the thing a nuclear engine is not needed to get me to the Cafe. The problem is singular thinking. Really in the world of energy it does not need to be an/either or. So John how do we power or cars. Well two ways off the top of my head - batteries - yep electric cars - technology will improve and they will become more viable and better. Next - hydrogen. Made from water. The problem is it is cost prohibitive to make enough hydrogen (plus infrastructure of stations and supply) from energy output. But if nuclear is used and electricity can be more abundant/cheap then hydrogen becomes a good alternative as a engine fuel. Plus with the added bonus of practically C02 emissions. This was explored in the interesting book on nuclear power called "Power to Save the World".

oh ya, that global warming religion

Yes, I'm the religious one, when the position that I think is correct (humans are contributing to global warming through their burning of fossil fuels (among other things) is both consistent with the data, and the preferred theory of nearly everyone who studies the issue. I'd say those who disbelieve in global warming are more like the religious, in that continuing in their beliefs requires that they disregard data and coherent theory.

Personally, I don't think we can prevent some degree of abnormal warming due to human activity, all we can do is mitigate the situation.

Christopher: the world is most assuredly NOT running out of oil.

Demand is skyrocketing at the same time that our ability to meet that demand appears to be nearing its limits. The era of cheap, plentiful oil is coming to an end. The Saudis can't pump any more oil than they are presently – they haven't been able to increase production of desirable grades of oil in either of the last two price shocks. Oil is now more difficult to get to, more expensive and energy intensive to recover, and the consequences of problems harder to control (e.g., Deepwater Horizon) than was the case throughout the 20th Century. The idea that we can build our future economy on a natural resource with only about 50 more years of known reserves does not strike me as a smart one.

Terrestrial Solar, wind, and most of the biofuel schemes don't really factor as viable means of providing energy in the future. Their sources simply don't possess sufficient energy density to be applied as primary, or even secondary, energy sources. At best they are an adjunct.

For instance, the energy density of sunlight is only ~200 MW / Kilometer squared and silicon solar cells are limited to 30% efficiency. So you're really looking at 60 MW / K^2. Which is nothing. The land area that would need to be devoted to solar if it were to be employed as a primary energy source would be absolutely enormous, beyond what people can really conceive. The entire population would need to be herded into super dense urban areas while the rest of the planet would be covered in solar cells. Most wildlife and plant life would need to be exterminated. The planet would literally look like what's depicted in that film The Matrix, though sunnier and less tragically hip.

@Jim E: "fairly new here, I'm trying to ascertain whether that comment has sarcasm written all over it"

I don't think Dave B was sarcastic, Lisa, as far as I can tell, is genuinely concerned; she isn't a shrill, malicious leftist, just an ignorant one. But, sometimes, ideas need to be bounced off other people to find what's going on, which is what I think she is doing (like most of us).

Protect the old and poor - drill now, drill everywhere. Build refineries (Hey Barack - not in Brazil - here).

Dave B: this museum is well worth your time, even aside from the nuclear jet engine:

http://www.visitidaho.org/attraction/historic-sites/experimental-breeder-reactor-i-ebr-i-atomic-museum/

Christopher: well, riffing on Don Boudreaux (Cafe Hayek) (who is riffing on the famous Erlich/Simon bet), how about you and I bet a small sum (say $10,000) on whether proven oil reserves are higher or lower in 10 years? Are you willing to put your money where your beliefs are?

I certainly am.

I'm going to steal from P.J. O'Rourke again, and remind everyone that we're completely out of whale oil. Which used to be a major commodity. I have faith (while we're talking religion) that by the time oil, or some other hydrocarbon, runs out something else will have come along.

We ran out of whale oil but not out of whales.

Jim E - I googled the area yesterday. I do not know why I did not know it was the first nuclear meltdown. I was ten at the time, and I had relatives in the business. I am working on plans to get there this summer.

Christopher - the same people that were saying we would run out of oil forty years ago are saying it today. Someday they will be right, but probably (based on real evidence) not in our lifetimes, nor my childrens.

By not going forward full tilt on oil discovery and refining punishes old people and the poor; and, almost as important, causes such a severe negative impact on the economy that funds are not available to do research on alternatives. The more we hurt the economy the less likely we will be to provide alternatives in the future. To borrow a democrat refrain - Christopher, why to you hate old people and the poor?

@Christopher:

Even according to the geological survey:

http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—

I'd like to see something other than fossil fuels used, but what? It's less polluting than many of the green alternatives.

A better question is does it impact the enviormnet less then avalible green alternitives and their start up costs.

Each and every windmill would require its own road, and how many windmills are needed to replace one oil rig? How much vegitation and wild life will have to be destroyed to install however many windmills that is?

Are you willing to put your money where your beliefs are?

Already done, thanks. It's called my portfolio and life choices.

Christopher, why to you hate old people and the poor?

They smell funny.

I'd like to see something other than fossil fuels used, but what?

In the long run, nuclear for electrical plus hydrogen for vehicles seems the best choice.

So to take that ball and run with it, although maybe not quite in the direction Christopher intended: I agree that the recent Peak Oil gloom-n-doom is just another cycle of the same old crap that we've been fed since the 1960s (I recall that in 1970 the UN published a widely received report that absolutely guaranteed that the world would be out of oil by 1980). However, even if our oil and gas reserves are found to be plentiful, it makes absolutely no sense to use those resources for baseline electricity generation, because it's inefficient. It puts an intermediate step in the process, where losses occur; that's why it's a lot cheaper to heat your house with gas than it is to heat your house with electricity produced by burning gas. We should be getting towards using nuclear for our baseline power generation (with maybe gasified coal plants as a short-term stopgap).

It's also possible for a nuclear reactor to produce hydrogen directly, via a reaction within the reactor itself. I could see hydrogen storage being used to cover peak loads; big nukes make hydrogen during off-peak hours, and then small peaking plants burn the hydrogen to cover demand peaks. Hydrogen's also a useful industrial chemical, and the availability of cheap hydrogen would reduce the price of a number of goods.

You are the typical leftist Christopher. You believe more in faith of enviornmentalism than you do the life of others. Just sacrifice the little people is the mantra of the leftist.

Cousin Dave, that's an excellent point.

Dave B, you've got me dead to rights. It's amazing how clearly you can identify my innermost self, given that you have only been around here fora short while.

Several years actually. I go into read only mode for long periods of time. Haven't found the pill to fix that yet. Haven't found the pill for a lot of things yet, including being very opinionated, and sometimes an asshole.

Years of experience on the oil bidness - we are not running out and we really, really need it - now more than ever.

When you find that pill Dave, can you drop me a line? My friends, family, and most especially anyone unfortunate enough to accept me as a partner will be most grateful.

The riches such a pill would bring. I wish the genius god speed.

Dave B, I believe you are correct - we aren't running out of oil. What we are running out of, is cheap, easily recovered oil.

Almost, but not quite, as big a problem.

Dave B, I believe you are correct - we aren't running out of oil. What we are running out of, is cheap, easily recovered oil.

This.

"Dave B, I believe you are correct - we aren't running out of oil. What we are running out of, is cheap, easily recovered oil.

Almost, but not quite, as big a problem."

I do not agree completely (shallow water drilling for example); however, that is why the government should not make it prohibitive to find and drill. Talk about a high cost of search, find and drill imposed by government, cheered on by enviornmental activists. Does the government unknowingly hurt the economy, or do they do it on purpose? If you go back and listen to Obama - on purpose.

@biff

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate—

The US consumption per year is 7 Billion Barrels, so you got 8 month?

the world consumption is 30 billion barrel a year, so that's 2/3 month world consumption.

And then?