Natural Gas Exposed (Edited Version) Dr. Anthony Ingraffea

Job Creation Numbers Different from Oil and Gas Industry Claims

from a report by Public News Service - WV

A new report finds that while fracking has created
jobs and helped some drilling-intensive areas
 from the worst effects of the recession,
the actual number of jobs is far below industry claims.
 Photo courtesy of Environment Ohio

Job creation from shale drilling is not all that it's cracked up to be, according to a new six-state study. The Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative, a group of state-level research organizations tracking the impacts of shale drilling, found shale drilling has produced far fewer jobs than the industry and its backers claim. In Ohio, researcher Amanda Woodrum said, shale-related employment on the whole has been relatively minor.

New Study Predicts Frack Fluids Can Migrate to Aquifers Within Years

From an ProPublica article by Abrahm Lustgarten

A new study has raised fresh concerns about the safety of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, concluding that fracking chemicals injected into the ground could migrate toward drinking water supplies far more quickly than experts have previously predicted.

More than 5,000 wells were drilled in the Marcellus between mid-2009 and mid-2010, according to the study, which was published in the journal Ground Water two weeks ago. Operators inject up to 4 million gallons of fluid, under more than 10,000 pounds of pressure, to drill and frack each well.

Scientists have theorized that impermeable layers of rock would keep the fluid, which contains benzene and other dangerous chemicals, safely locked nearly a mile below water supplies. This view of the earth's underground geology is a cornerstone of the industry's argument that fracking poses minimal threats to the environment.

Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future Richard Heinberg

by Richard Heinberg

The rapid spread of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") has temporarily boosted US natural gas and oil production... and sparked a massive environmental backlash in communities across the country. The fossil fuel industry is trying to sell fracking as the biggest energy development of the century, with slick promises of American energy independence and benefits to local economies.

SNAKE OIL casts a critical eye on the oil-industry hype that has hijacked America's energy conversation. This is the first book to look at fracking from both economic and environmental perspectives, informed by the most thorough analysis of shale gas and oil drilling data ever undertaken. Is fracking the miracle cure-all to our energy ills, or a costly distraction from the necessary work of reducing our fossil fuel dependence?

BUY Now Paperback

BUY NOW Kindle

Endorsements:

Those who think fracked gas is a panacea for our energy future would do well to read this cautionary account--it has an undeniable whiff of reality about it.