Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Shale Wars ...

If fracking isn't on your list of common words then I guarantee in the next decade or so it will be.

The end of all the easy oil has already happened, we are using all the dirty oil up such as the Alberta Tarsands, and now we are being told not to worry because there is a huge abundance of shale gas underneath our feet around the world.

First thing to note is that said shale deposits are very far underground and the amount of water that will be required to process it is immense as in trillions of liters.

The wells for processing shale are also notorious for releasing a cocktail of carcinogens into the atmosphere with some companies investing heavily in minimizing the fallout while other smaller companies don't have the financial means to be as clean.

Fracking has been going on for some time and has inadvertently created a glut of natural gas which has tanked prices in North America.

Add to that a lack of communication and transparency with the general public about the dangers versus the benefits of fracking, and we have a communications conundrum that the industry will have to work hard to fix.

The BP oil spill isn't that far from peoples minds and with the climate getting ever so warmer and a growing energy hungry population, it behooves the oil industry to be a little more diligent in how it sells fracking to the masses.

I personally am weary of relying on another finite resource to power a large portion of our way of life.

There are predicted to be another three billion people joining the world population by 2050 so I have to reasonably ask if all this shale is going to be able to meet that demand.

The short answer might very well be a yes, but the long answer is most certainly no.

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