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Fracking for Gas in New Zealand

Tuesday, July 26, 2011
There is nothing good that can be said about fracking. In what Naomi Klein calls "extreme energy" it is one of the ways in which humanity is taking extreme risks to get fuel. But in this case they are potentially deadly -to you. And I wish I was being alarmist, but I fear not.

Anna Chinn in the Otago Daily Times last week put it very well -"We must ban hydraulic fracturing, a highly toxic process used to extract natural gas and oil from the earth. It involves sending several hundred hazardous chemicals whizzing down a high-pressure hydroslide — wheee! — directly into the ground in order to break up rock to release gas and oil. This is otherwise known as fracking. Many of the chemicals used are not publicly known, either because the exploration companies are not required to disclose any information about them, or because they are able to protect the secret recipe for fracking fluid as their intellectual property."

Fracking has been controversial in the United States for a long time. It has been strongly opposed by residents whose water is affected and by environmentalists. It has lead to massive contamination of groundwater to the point where they are drinking water with so many chemicals you would think that no company could do this to people.The state of New York recently imposed a moratorium.
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Your comments:

by Ecobob.co.nz 27 Jul 11, 3 replies : Last Post Sort by:
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Author Post
Ecobob.co.nz
291 posts
Dirty energy 
Posted 27 Jul 11 7:30 PM
On the topic of dirty energy, if you haven't heard of the Tar Sands in Canada, this is the dirtiest of the lot:

http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/canadas-tar-sands
Dirty energy
Solar Mike
101 posts
Re: Dirty energy 
Posted 28 Jul 11 10:57 PM
No NZ has its lignite, which if Solid Energy have their way, which they will, then say goodby to any CO2 emission reduction targets and other pollutants.

Where there is a buck to be made, big business will exploit it and to hell with the consequences.
Dean Buckeridge
254 posts
Re: Dirty energy 
Posted 2 Aug 11 7:04 PM
It appears to me that the problem with governments is that they tend to allow the big businesses to make the big bucks without actually assessing the real or total financial costs.

If the real costs of cleaning up after fracking for example were to be imposed on the companies undertaking this work, plus they were to be held liable for any future environmental costs that arose then it would be significantly less financially attractive to take environmental risks and they might be a bit less gung ho about the techniques used.

I suspect that administrations that approve such extraction might be aware of the potential issues, but where the economic benefits are attainable within their term of administration, and any potential clean up issues would occur under somebody else's reign, then they might be more likely to place less emphasis on the negative issues.
Ecobob.co.nz
291 posts
Re: Dirty energy 
Posted 13 Sep 11 7:38 PM
Another article on why fracking in NZ is a very bad idea:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/perspective/5612408/Don-t-believe-scare-stories-about-fracking-its-far-worse
 

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