Fracking for Europe [video] | Hacker News Reader

Fracking for Europe [video]

arte.tv

40 pointscar50 comments

Some interesting bits:

Total is fracking in the middle of residential areas, drilling sites hidden from view by portable walls, protected by police from investigations of air pollution, while asthma rates are over twice as high as in the rest of the country.

"They [Total] don't get to go everywhere they want to go, but we have a great relationship so I'm happy with Total" (Arlington mayor after revealing a new fountain sponsored through oil and gas revenue.)

There is no correlation between asthma and fracking. There is not even a plausible mechanism for such a causal relationship. That is a very odd point to make.

The video mentions a variety of hydrocarbons emitted from fracking sites (and a noticeable smell), which would be a plausible cause, no? That said, I don't have a dog in this fight and no strong opinions, and happy to be educated with better facts.

EDIT: Potentially of interest - "Fracking is linked to asthma increase, study finds" https://www.proquest.com/openview/38707d6ad223efa2d5ac7f3bb8...

Here the publication from 2016:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

How exactly can fracking affect the air quality, through which mechanisms? It's known to pollute underground waters and thus the soil, but air?

EDIT: nevermind, I've seen another answer explaining it. Leaving the comment just for the consistency reasons...

Fracking for Europe, by a (mostly) French company, done in the United States.

Would be interesting to see if methane gas emissions can be actually detected - of course they're not going to flare the gas when the extraction site is in a residential area, that would be too conspicuous.

Which of course also begs the question why this has to be done in a residential area. I looked at Arlington, TX on Google Maps and realized that this must be a side effect of the American sprawl: if there is oil/gas to be extracted in the area, you have to do it in a residential area, because there is no open space to be seen anywhere nearby...

The linked video is /extremely/ opinionated and contains much misinformation. Just need to level set on that first --

> Would be interesting to see if methane gas emissions can be actually detected

Obviously. But unlike in the video you need to actually use gas detectors instead of a thermal camera and look around the wellheads and gathering pipelines where the gas /is/ and not at some random compressor's engine exhaust heat. Fortunately the folks who maintain these things have qualified engineers who actually know how to use their equipment and the agencies who regulate them have standards that are actively monitored and enforced without requiring the oversight of well meaning old ladies with too much free time.

> why this has to be done in a residential area

Because it's where the field is, and you have to build gathering systems where the wells are. There is even more oil and gas infrastructure crammed into urban Los Angeles than there is in DFW though.

There's definitely enough blame to be spread around between several countries for the current mess we're in and for the people suffering from fracking, that I don't know how this could be fixed and make everyone happy.

If there was enough cheap, clean, abundant energy for everyone, we wouldn't be in this mess, but since the global energy demand is much higher than the supply of clean energy, it's natural that the less wealthy and influential people and nations get the short end of the stick in the process of supplying enough energy for everyone.

Also, capitalism and highly profitable energy production require that the supply be controlled in order to always be below the demand, see the OPEC cartel, so barring momentary fluctuations due to unforeseen events, we'll always have an energy shortage to a degree no matter what.

I don't know how this can be solved so that everyone wins and everyone is happy, without creating more global turmoil in forms of economic depression, wars and climate change.

Late stage capitalism. Money will find the dirty way to get the gas that makes most profit I guess. Governments should probably encourage more solar, more heat pumps, less gas usage. For the environment and national security.

It's hilarious that you would attribute that to capitalism when the Fossil Fuel and Gas industry was one of the most subsidised industries over the last 100 years. Capitalism is against government helping any kind of company :)

>Capitalism is against government helping any kind of company :)

Was that ever the case? I can't think of many industries that didn't see direct help from the government in one way or another.

> I can't think of many industries that didn't see direct help from the government in one way or another.

That might be a necessary evil but has nothing to do with Capitalism. Throughout the time we've seen different degrees of government involvement in the market. Capitalism claims the less government involvement, the better. There can be a discussion if a purely Capitalistic market (0 government involvement) can exist but claiming government helped industries are the result of capitalism is just wrong.

Capitalism is financial democracy. The market (aka the people) vote with their money. If a company goes down, that's ok, another one will replace it if it was a company that produced a necessary product. The Government getting involved in this process is very anti-capitalistic. Takes away the freedom of people to vote with their money and instead incentivizes companies to ignore the people and just lobby and play the system that the government put in place. So calling that Capitalism when it's the very thing Capitalism tries to avoid is an anti-truth.

You do realize that governments created both markets and capitalism right? Markets are older than capitalism and have been tools for governments to provision themselves. In fact, anthropologists couldn't find a society that voluntarily chose markets. Markets are a product of conquest. Capitalism is a product of the feudal system collapsing. Capitalism cannot exist without a strong government because it requires markets, a legal framework that allows you to own property, and a working financial system.

I don't know exactly how you define markets or capitalism but I'm pretty sure when small tribes meet and exchanged merchandise (money was not even a thing then) that's a text book definition of a market. And a Capitalist market at that, 0 government involvement. The person who had the best cows was getting all his/her's cows sold while the person who's cows were not taken care of was run out of business. That's Capitalism in it's essence. That's long before even the concept of a country existed.

They're fine with subsidies when it suits them.

Only some factions of capital use that rhetoric, and often don't even mean it.

Capitalism is only maintained through state power exercised by the capitalist ruling class.

> Capitalism is only maintained through state power exercised by the capitalist ruling class.

Your confusing Capitalism with Government Aided Corporatism :)

This is the same argument that communists use all the time

"Socialism/Communism is great and we should all live under that system as it is self-evidently the best"

"Well, there were some pretty bad aspects of the USSR and communist China, maybe we should take heed of those."

"Actually, I now choose to define communism as a perfect, not-yet-realised ideal. Any criticism you have of the closest existing system is actually a criticism of State Capitalism and not applicable to real communism."

---

"Capitalism is great and we should all live under that system as it is self-evidently the best"

"Well, there are some pretty bad aspects of the capitalist systems, maybe we should take heed of those."

"Actually, I now choose to define capitalism as a perfect, not-yet-realised ideal. Any criticism you have of the closest existing system is actually a criticism of Corporatism and not applicable to real capitalism."

Fair point. That might be the case... I fail to see how Capitalism inevitably requires Big Government in the same way that Communism inevitably requires centralized power but it might be my problem and you might be right. I'll have to spend more time thinking about it.

I always thought about it as an indirect connection. Capitalism -> Economic Prosperity -> People become more socialist -> Big Government that undermines Capitalism. But that might be wrong. Have to think about it some more.

Thank you for your reply!

Have you talked to actual capitalists? Like, people who actually own capital? They don't want handouts to their competitors, but want them for themselves. If you own a business, of course you want government subsidies.

But wait, you are probably talking about market purists. Those don't really exist in the business world.

I mean, it would be stupid if the government involved itself into the market to not take advantage of that. What exactly are you proposing? That a company would want the competitors to get handouts and not want them for themselves? That's dumb. So of course if you take it as a given that the government will manipulate the market, companies would want to take advantage of that to get a leg up.

Companies that are market purists don't exist? Any company that outperforms their competitors wants the government to stay out of it. Any company that's behind will want the government to step in so they can take advantage of that and not get run out of business.

Regulatory capture is part of capitalism

Didn't find any mention of capitalism here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture.

Not sure on what basis you make this statement.

I'm so tired of the phrase 'late stage capitalism' as if someone can just throw it out on the table like it's a reverse-uno card and it ends the discussion.

There's so much more to this topic than just 'late stage capitalism'

Not to mention that the phrase has existed for over 100 years, which is quite a long "late stage" for an economic system that's arguably only a few hundred years old. It's used in conversations like religious doomsday predictions, to conjure up the idea that the collapse of capitalism (and subsequent revolution) is coming Any Day Now.

It wears especially thin when people use the phrase to imply that companies overlooking the environment in the following of money is a brand new thing.

Thanks you actually made me laugh out loud with the uno reference. I did say a little bit more. I guess I played another turn in the uno game.

The only clean energy that is capable of producing constant power is nuclear power.

The notion of clean in context of energy is environmental in nature. Nuclear is “clean” in context of green house effect and carbon footprint only. It is not clean in the wider scope of Earth’s environment. For it to be truly clean, we need to address operational risk and by product disposal to an extent that damage to the environment, thus “clean”, is effectively impossible.

The ‘substantial’ aspects of nuclear energy place generational demands on humanity and whoever will inherit the earth after humans. No other energy source places this burden on humanity. None.

Not at all true that nuclear puts more generational demand that any of the other energy sources, taking scale into consideration. Just compute how many wind-turbine poles, how many eventually-leaky solar panels, how much surface of land used up, or flooded, for a given MWh of generated power: Nuclear is arguably least impact. And scrubbing CO2 is going to be a massive undertaking, most likely will not be undertaken, again the generational impact is enormous, a lot more than some localized dump with Cesium, even if not buried as it should, and will, be.

Be honest. Are you worried e.g. that some future post Armageddon creatures are going to bring disaster to themselves because of mucking around with some remnants of wind turbines out in the sea? The risks of nuclear fission by products are open ended. The effects you are mentioning are all bounded, and well understood.

“Substantial” aspects mean nuclear fission by products. This matter is just that: matter. It exists regardless of any other consideration. It comes into being because of the fission process. This coming into being creates the “burden” I was talking about.

Until we can safely send them to orbit and then to deep space it will not be “clean”. Of course then we’re polluting deep space.

Storing spent nuclear fuel is a well understood problem, we can do it safely and it doesn't put future generations at risk.

I am interested in learning more. Can you elaborate on the parameters of the risk models? Is continuity of any technological competencies assumed? Stuff like that. (TIA)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_Isolation_Pilot_Plant

Thank you.

Vitrification(solidification) and store safely underground somewhere with smaller risks of earthquakes. Ideally you would want the fuel to be reprocessed(like France did it) or to be used by a breeding reactor, this way the waste will be more dangerous only for about 300 years(it'll still be radioactive after but much less compared to waste that wasn't reprocessed or used by a breeding reactor. Why it's not done? It costs more money and most countries decided for now it's ok without these steps and breeding reactors kinda exist but are too few and not very well studied to build more

Thank you.

I mentioned risk models in another comment. In your opinion, is nuclear energy safe from irrational (state) actors? For clarification, note that even hydroelectric energy has a risk factor that it can not be protected against irrational state actors. Recent events in Ukraine a case in point. And that ‘system failure’ did have environmental impact.

The point I am trying to make regarding nuclear (fission) energy is that hazard and catastrophe are a continual concern, and will remain so long after we are gone. Unquestionably, nuclear fission is far less damaging than many other energy systems but on the hazard side of the equation it stands alone. We rely on various wishful thoughts, such as assured grasp of human competence, greed, rationality, to say nothing of failures in other systems (such as software guidance for missiles) and also acts of God such as geological events. And for how long? For the lifetime of the existence of the hazardous material and processes.

I'm not an expert, just an anon)) but with current new reactor designs and if at least vitrification is done, I don't think there's too much danger(I mean Fukushima lvl, Chernobyl imo is not possible at all), it's just storing some solid rock underground(or export that rock to countries like sweeden that do have storage space). Again, if planing longterm is too risky, reprocessing and storing for 300 yrs should be ok, there are enough geologically stable regions for such small timeframes. Reprocessing is also nice bc with it you get extra fuel called MOL that can be reused in classic reactors and that fuel can be reprocessed again.

Thanks!

> The risks of nuclear fission by products are open ended.

This is just FUD.

The orders of magnitude worse CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere where it is in such low concentration that we'll have no chance of ever removing it from there is much worse than nuclear waste for humanity's future. At least nuclear waste is concentrated and there is very little of it, so it can be treated and handled appropriately.

We’re discussing the notion of ‘environmentally clean’ energy sources. Your red herring of known dirty energy sources is the “FUD”.

Nuclear is not environmentally clean. I remain mildly amazed that this is debate worthy.

I just wanted to call out this particular statement for being FUD. It's a common "argument" from anti-nuclear folks who are just scared of nuclear waste because "but it's radioactive and I'm scared of it". Really it's just an inability to look at the facts and be rational.

I also remain mildly amazed that the adoption of nuclear is still debate worthy. I suppose there are whole generations scared beyond repair from the Cold War and nuclear weapons, so that they cannot see past that.

Please. And you managed to shade generations “scared” (do you mean old folks?) to make a point.

Make the case that the material from nuclear fission can be disposed of without any risk whatsoever to whoever is coming to inhabit this planet after you. Short term analysis is what got us here but it is fine and “practical” but does not merit the “clean” badge.

To spare any additional non rebuttals, no, I am not “scared” of there existing nuclear reactors for energy. It is not a matter of immediate concern to me personally and I find the industry’s claims of safety to be believable. What is not believable is that we have found a means of disposing of radioactive material which is guaranteed to not pose any danger in the future, “environmentally” speaking.

Hydro also fits the bill, mostly, and when there's not enough water in your river for hydro, well the nuclear plant's also got to respect heat-emission norms...

Not really, hydro does a lot of damage to ecosystems, blocks fish migration and can be weaponized (like it was in Ukraine during WW2 and earlier this year). And when it comes to greenhouse emissions it takes many years to offset carbon from decaying matter when a new reservoir is built.

The only clean energy that's capable of producing constant power is if we put the power plants on the sun!

There may be minor technical hurdles but only nattering naysayers think they're impossible to overcome.

If we can put people on the moon, we can certainly put them on the sun.

This is, of course, satire. There is every evidence that yes, nuclear energy is a viable base load generator that would be tremendously useful for a wide variety of scenarios (as putting power plants on the sun would also be a tremendously useful technology). It's also clear that there are serious, possibly impossible to overcome technical reasons why these plants haven't really been deployed in great numbers (other than france in the 70s), and haven't been proven to be economically viable. "It would be economically viable if we focused our whole global economic output on developing the technology to make standardized, modular power plants, and then if we eliminate most regulation everywhere except where I and my kids live and go to school" is maybe true, but also probably not realistic.

Fusion power from the sun, though, has proven to be pretty economically viable.

> The only* clean* energy that is capable of producing constant* power is nuclear* power.

That's quite the definitive statement to include so many subjective things.

What the actual heck? I thought this was declared illegal everywhere in the EU? How and when did this happen and how did I miss this? Figures it would be Germany leading the charge in something this corrupt. Is this happening in other EU countries as well?

Edit: I'm an idiot. I'm halfway through the documentary now and realized this is about fracking in the US FOR the EU that made buying pipline gas from Russia illegal. Instead we're forced into buying 6x more expensive US gas. Heavy industry is dead, some of my friends are out of work. Enjoy the pollution. At least it's not just the EU population that is getting the shaft by US industrialists.

Old and busted: American companies destroying Americas environment.

New hotness: France companies destroying Americas environment.

Green movement successes are mostly just moving the dirty work from places that do not tolerate it, to places where it can be done without the locals making noise.

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