Hydrofracking more dangerous than thought / Fracking ist 1000 mal giftiger als gedacht

"While the existence of the toxic wastes has been reported, thousands of internal documents obtained by The New York Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators and drillers show that the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood. ,,,The Times also found never-reported studies by the E.P.A. and a confidential study by the drilling industry that all concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways. ...The risks are particularly severe in Pennsylvania, which has seen a sharp increase in drilling, with roughly 71,000 active gas wells, up from about 36,000 in 2000...." (via NY Times)

So not that it was not obvious that hydrofracking is utterly insane, it seems the EPA got itself into a bit of a mess there, not really acting on the information they had. And in the light that now soo hydrofracking will also be used for oil... what a mess!

Wo wir gerade dabei waren - beim "fracking". Anscheinend hat die ganze Sache noch deutlich mehr negative Auswirkungen als man ohnehin schon vermutet hat. Und die amerikanische Umweltbehörde EPA hat sich auch nicht gerade mit Ruhm bekleckert, indem sie zwar Studien dazu gemacht haben, die dann aber für sich behalten und offenbar geflissentlich ignoriert haben. Na servus!

Frack you once, Frack you twice / Hydrofracking jetzt auch für Öl

"Oil engineers are applying what critics say is an environmentally questionable method developed in recent years to tap natural gas trapped in underground shale. They drill down and horizontally into the rock, then pump water, sand and chemicals into the hole to crack the shale and allow gas to flow up.
Because oil molecules are sticky and larger than gas molecules, engineers thought the process wouldn't work to squeeze oil out fast enough to make it economical. But drillers learned how to increase the number of cracks in the rock and use different chemicals to free up oil at low cost." (via yahoo news)

Not long ago the broad public learnt about hydrofracking for the first time when the movie "Gasland" showed how this already widespread prectice can lead to burning tap water, gas-bubbling streams and poisenous chemicals in the groudwater. Now it seems not even the oil bearing rocks are safe from this extraction method, potentially covering even more ground with boreholes and fractured rock beneath, addind additional chemicals. But "we" need more and more oil, right? Especially now that Saudia Arabia seems to run out of oil earlier than thought and peak oil is here...

Kaum hat sich der Schock über die Auswirkungen von "Hydrofracking" gesetzt, den der Film "Gasland" ausgelöst hat, hatte Deutschland zu schlucken, daß dies nicht nur in den USA sondern auch hierzulande gemacht wird. Jetzt kommt noch mal ein Sahnehäubchen oben auf, denn offenbar kann man mit noch mehr Chemikalien und mehr Druck das Gestein noch feiner zerbrechen, so daß man jetzt auch Öl aus Ölschiefern extrahieren kann. Das kommt ja gerade recht, jetzt wo Saudi Arabien das Öl auch langsam ausgeht.