John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

[Chris Coles]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

Such a layer could not build up over a large area outdoors, as the driving forces for segregation (which are minuscule) would be vastly smaller than the dispersive forces, even in the absence of wind. Diffusion alone eliminates the possibility, let alone other (convective) mixing factors.

Then I rest my case and bow to better knowledge than I had available when starting to consider the possibility.

[Slimprofits]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

This book has been promoted recently:

The Big Flatline:
Oil and the No-Growth Economy

Jeff Rubin. Palgrave Macmillan, (272p) ISBN 978-0-230-34218-7



Rubin in the Bloomberg.com opinion page yesterday:
How High Oil Prices Will Permanently Cap Economic Growth

The Financial Times checked in with a review on Friday:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d11922b6-0...44feabdc0.html

[Shakespear]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

I certainly believe that the environmental impact in terms of groundwater pollution could be dramatic.

This is the one that I would worry about the most followed by effects on weather. Fracking is not like it appears in a simulation model. In the end they have little clue as to where actually the fracture migrated. It looks nice in the written reports but reality is most likely quite different. It is more like "faith based fracking".

[c1ue]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

This is the one that I would worry about the most followed by effects on weather. Fracking is not like it appears in a simulation model. In the end they have little clue as to where actually the fracture migrated. It looks nice in the written reports but reality is most likely quite different. It is more like "faith based fracking".

While certainly anything is a possibility - given that it is impossible to disprove a negative - you might consider that fracking is at a depth completely separate from water levels.

If in fact the existing barrier between water and natural gas/oil were so fragile, it would be more than likely that it would have already been breached. There are areas this is true - Pennsylvania for example.

Perhaps you could communicate some data on something a little more factual to base your concerns on?

[cbr]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

this has become the most absurdly ridiculous thread i have ever seen. please refrain from posting in a supposedly rational forum if you believe that dark spirits control the flow of gaseous substances from hades across the surface of the flat earth, which is at the center of the universe and every night is covered by a large cheese grater backlit by the fiery eyes of god.

or, please, if you have designed a frac truck that can crack the earth for miles around from an 18 wheel trailer, please allow me to buy stock.

if you can redirect the flow of water/hydrocarbons for thousands of feet on a whim, again, I'll buy.

bottom line, the well casing through the water table is the only issue, which has not changed since the the 1800's. horizontal drilling actually reduces the fieldwide potential impact.

any hydrocarbons that migrate into water formations were already doing so, and not significantly impacted by fracing.

guess what: i have seen many a ranch that had black oil gushers blowing thousands of barrels of oil onto it, and had every waste you can imagine dumped on it, since the '20's. unless the government gets involved and demands a 'cleanup', there is no environmental impact.

i am all for responsible citizenship, but for crying out loud, the BS here and in the government/media is UNBELIEVABLE.

i know people that have held a chunk of plutonium. hell, the manhattan project had a criticality event on a kitchen table with three guys standing around. one died. bikini atoll, where hundreds of nukes were detonated, is evacuated because of government, but is full of flora and fauna, as is chernobyl. as will fukushima.

did the Macondo well destroy the gulf coast? no. the government almost did.

do i want companies doing/hiding bad practices, no; do i want to pay for the absurd fantasies of cooks with no concept of physics, chemistry, or pragmatic experience as i currently am? no.

let juries and judges redress these wrongs.

[metalman]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

this has become the most absurdly ridiculous thread i have ever seen. please refrain from posting in a supposedly rational forum if you believe that dark spirits control the flow of gaseous substances from hades across the surface of the flat earth, which is at the center of the universe and every night is covered by a large cheese grater backlit by the fiery eyes of god.

or, please, if you have designed a frac truck that can crack the earth for miles around from an 18 wheel trailer, please allow me to buy stock.

if you can redirect the flow of water/hydrocarbons for thousands of feet on a whim, again, I'll buy.

bottom line, the well casing through the water table is the only issue, which has not changed since the the 1800's. horizontal drilling actually reduces the fieldwide potential impact.

any hydrocarbons that migrate into water formations were already doing so, and not significantly impacted by fracing.

guess what: i have seen many a ranch that had black oil gushers blowing thousands of barrels of oil onto it, and had every waste you can imagine dumped on it, since the '20's. unless the government gets involved and demands a 'cleanup', there is no environmental impact.

i am all for responsible citizenship, but for crying out loud, the BS here and in the government/media is UNBELIEVABLE.

i know people that have held a chunk of plutonium. hell, the manhattan project had a criticality event on a kitchen table with three guys standing around. one died. bikini atoll, where hundreds of nukes were detonated, is evacuated because of government, but is full of flora and fauna, as is chernobyl. as will fukushima.

did the Macondo well destroy the gulf coast? no. the government almost did.

do i want companies doing/hiding bad practices, no; do i want to pay for the absurd fantasies of cooks with no concept of physics, chemistry, or pragmatic experience as i currently am? no.

let juries and judges redress these wrongs.

dont much bother with the public itulip forums anymore... too much loony tunes crapola like this... gas pools igniting & killing dino

[lektrode]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

While certainly anything is a possibility - given that it is impossible to disprove a negative - you might consider that fracking is at a depth completely separate from water levels.

If in fact the existing barrier between water and natural gas/oil were so fragile, it would be more than likely that it would have already been breached. There are areas this is true - Pennsylvania for example.

and ever since then (well... the 1870's anyway), 'peak oil' has been a 'reality' ?

this has become the most absurdly ridiculous thread i have ever seen. please refrain from posting in a supposedly rational forum if you believe that dark spirits control the flow of gaseous substances from hades across the surface of the flat earth, which is at the center of the universe and every night is covered by a large cheese grater backlit by the fiery eyes of god.

yeah, but... can THIS One make a PIZZA?

or, please, if you have designed a frac truck that can crack the earth for miles around from an 18 wheel trailer, please allow me to buy stock.


bottom line, the well casing through the water table is the only issue, which has not changed since the the 1800's. horizontal drilling actually reduces the fieldwide potential impact.

any hydrocarbons that migrate into water formations were already doing so, and not significantly impacted by fracing.

guess what: i have seen many a ranch that had black oil gushers blowing thousands of barrels of oil onto it, and had every waste you can imagine dumped on it, since the '20's. unless the government gets involved and demands a 'cleanup', there is no environmental impact.

i am all for responsible citizenship, but for crying out loud, the BS here and in the government/media is UNBELIEVABLE.

i know people that have held a chunk of plutonium.

where IS Mr Steve when we need him, anyway???

hell, the manhattan project had a criticality event on a kitchen table with three guys standing around. one died. bikini atoll, where hundreds of nukes were detonated, is evacuated because of government, but is full of flora and fauna, as is chernobyl. as will fukushima.

did the Macondo well destroy the gulf coast? no. (but) the government almost did.

do i want companies doing/hiding bad practices, no; do i want to pay for the absurd fantasies of cooks with no concept of physics, chemistry, or pragmatic experience as i currently am? no.

a century or so ago - by the end of the 1800's anyway - nearly EVERY TREE STANDING had been cut down in NH...

today?
NH is 98 or 99% wooded. (and nears i know, even the beaches where the exxon valdez puked are 'prisitine' once again - unless/until there's some .gov funded evidence to the contrary...and we know who pushes for that)
this gives me the idea there is NOTHING man could do to the planet that would be recognizable a century after man kills off 98 or 99% of life on this planet (incl The Rest of US, led by some idiot savant the lamestream media (vouched for by the beltway aristocracy) holds up as 'our savior'

dont much bother with the public itulip forums anymore... too much loony tunes crapola like this... gas pools igniting & killing dino

poor dino.... eye knew him well....

[shiny!]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

Is frakking for oil the same as frakking for natural gas? How are the processes similar or different? I've heard some stories suggesting a possible link between earthquakes and frakking for natural gas. I'm not panicking, just curious...

[Chris Coles]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

this has become the most absurdly ridiculous thread i have ever seen. please refrain from posting in a supposedly rational forum if you believe that dark spirits control the flow of gaseous substances from hades across the surface of the flat earth, which is at the center of the universe and every night is covered by a large cheese grater backlit by the fiery eyes of god.

Quite fascinating; the only person to use phrases such as "dark spirits", "substances from Hades", "flat earth", large cheese grater" or the fiery eyes of god"...... is you.

All I did was open a debate around a scientific paper written in Stanford university about the recent realisation that at several times in the geological history of the planet there may have been moments when a supersaturated column of gas held stable within a water column suddenly released sufficient explosive potential to cause a major extinction event. That in turn prompted me to ask if there was the potential for a lower level event related to NG drilling.

A sensible debate followed which ended in my accepting the various points made and that my own thinking was mistaken.

Which side of the bed did you fall out of today?

[Shakespear]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

While certainly anything is a possibility - given that it is impossible to disprove a negative - you might consider that fracking is at a depth completely separate from water levels.

If in fact the existing barrier between water and natural gas/oil were so fragile, it would be more than likely that it would have already been breached. There are areas this is true - Pennsylvania for example.

Perhaps you could communicate some data on something a little more factual to base your concerns on?

What needs to be done is to pull out the logs and start looking at the log interpretations for each case. Not sure of your background, but from mine this is not possible to do on this forum. It is called "Proprietary Data". I can tell you though that there is plenty of zones down below that are just water or as you already know underlain with water in the HC zones. Each well, field is a special case, but if people are complaining that their tap water tastes funny or is blowing gas, well then we have a huge problem. You think the manager is going to go and shut in that well of his own volition because someone is complaining ??? I don't think so.

My point was that polluting water zones away from the zone of interest is NOT an issue when they are fracking. They just do what is necessary to open up the zones they are interested in. Frac propagation is a process that is not an exact science but more liking to an art or religion. If they over do it they will find out about it, water production will occur and they will do what is necessary not to produce that water. But the chemicals used to frac will have gotten away and there is no way to undo this. Rest assured, THEY WILL NOT tell us about it.

I am not trying to be funny about this but when you look at some of these issues they are almost like dealing with a religious cult. It is all based on faith that they know what they are doing.

[Shakespear]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

Is frakking for oil the same as frakking for natural gas? How are the processes similar or different? I've heard some stories suggesting a possible link between earthquakes and frakking for natural gas. I'm not panicking, just curious...

Yes, it is the same general process. The scale may be different depending on how tight the rock is. You might frac a well just to get beyound what we call damaged zone. Damaged zone may be due to the suspended materials in the drilling mud plugging the porous space around the wellbore or due to fines migrating toward the well bore due to production. Googling may help you to find a visual image to understand this.

When we get into tighter rock that is when larger frack jobs are needed to extract oil but there is a economic limit here as in tight rock that oil far way from the well bore and fracture face just simply comes in too slow. Then you get into tighter well spacing, horizontal wells etc. and a lots of reservoir modeling to see WHAT IS ECONOMICAL.

[shiny!]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

Thanks, Shakespear.

[Southernguy]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

These forum has provided several interesting points. I donīt know how probable a massive explosion due to NG is.
But the fact that fracking is a very environmentaly damaging process is well established (I think).
The most important thing I found, however is this one: How High Oil Prices Will Permanently Cap Economic Growth . Nothing new here to itulipers. But to read someone like Robert Rubin adhering to the PCO economic cycles theory (not as clearly defined as EJ did it, of course) is shocking.
And I think carries consequences. RR is a very famous and very well connected individual.
What he says is much more probable to be taken into account by the mainstream that what EJ says.

[Chris Coles]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

These forum has provided several interesting points. I donīt know how probable a massive explosion due to NG is.
But the fact that fracking is a very environmentaly damaging process is well established (I think).
The most important thing I found, however is this one: How High Oil Prices Will Permanently Cap Economic Growth . Nothing new here to itulipers. But to read someone like Robert Rubin adhering to the PCO economic cycles theory (not as clearly defined as EJ did it, of course) is shocking.
And I think carries consequences. RR is a very famous and very well connected individual.
What he says is much more probable to be taken into account by the mainstream that what EJ says.

Thanks Southernguy, well spotted. The corollary is that we need a new form of energy; that we must move on from burning oil, gas and coal for our energy uses.

[c1ue]

Re: John Bussey writing in the WSJ calls out the Shale Gas Revolution Myth

I can tell you though that there is plenty of zones down below that are just water or as you already know underlain with water in the HC zones.

If this is the case, then the drilling for water itself would cause leakage between zones.

I agree that there can be cases where problems occur - as well as cases where existing problems are blamed on proximate wallets. Truth is always stranger than fiction or theory.

However, I have yet to see a single instance of fracking chemicals themselves actually being detected - every single case to date has been NG.