Amidst the gas drilling frenzy across Australia and the limp coverage of it by our media I’ve found this recent blog by one of my favourite energy writers, James Kunstler, and some of it is here:

“• The fracking fluid is a secret proprietary cocktail formula amounting to 5 percent of the liquid injected into the earth. It’s composed of: sand; a jelling agent to suspend the sand because water is not “thick” enough; biocides to kill bacteria that thrive in jelling agent; “breakers” to thin out jell-thickened water after fracking to get the fluid out of the way of released gas and improve “flowback;” fluid-loss additives to decrease “leak-off” of fracking fluid into rock; anti-corrosives to protect metal in wells; and friction reducers to promote high pressures and high flow rates. Of the 5.5 million gallons of fluid injected into each well, 27,500 gallons is the chemical cocktail.

• Mr. McClendon said on 60 Minutes that it couldn’t possibly harm the public’s water supply because they were drilling so far below the 1000-foot-deep maximum of most water wells. He left out the fact that they have to drill through those drinking water layers to get down to the shale gas, and pump the fracking fluid through it, and then get the gas up through it. He also left out the fact that the concrete casings of drill holes sometimes crack and leak at any depth.

• The fracking fluid cannot be re-used. You have to mix new cocktail fluid for each injection.

• “Flowback” fluid inevitably comes back up with the gas, sometimes spilling over the ground. In any case, the stuff that does come back up is stored on the surface in lagoons. Often it contains heavy metals, salts, and radioactive material from drilling through strata of radon-bearing granite and other layers. Liners of flowback fluid lagoons have been known to fail.

• Gas well failures in Pennsylvania, where production was ramped up quickest in recent years, have ended up polluting well water to the degree that residents can no longer use their wells.

• Little is known about the migration of fracking fluids underground.”

kunstler.com…

And there’s a new documentary about fracking doing the rounds of town halls, community groups and places where mining is underway or proposed, called, Gaslands, directed by Josh Fox.

May the fracking not be with you,

Michael