California's getting fracked | Hacker News Reader

California's getting fracked

facesoffracking.org

26 pointsmaelito12 comments

That is an intensely irritating website to try to read.

I gave up after reading barely any of it.

I like to read with the text at the top of the screen, but it grays it out (for no reason that I can determine).

I don't know what it says, but are they complaining about some aspect of fracking? Overall fracking is great for the environment because the natural gas it produces is the cleanest hydrocarbon we have.

It's excellent for both pollution and CO2.

Hopefully environmentalists will get behind it as a stopgap till we can get some nuclear power going.

(I'm not ignoring solar and wind, but they are not ready to be more than a minority of the power grid.)

"Great for the environment"... until the kilotons of poisonous chemicals pumped into the earth bubble back up to the surface...at which point the frackers are long gone. Also... isn't there a thing with California and earthuakes, which fracking anecdotally effects? What could possibly go wrong?

Most environmentalists complain of the side effects of fracking as the high consumption of water and the pollution of phreatic tables (because of the chemicals used). So fracking is not that great.

Also, methane leaking into the atmosphere.

Environmentalists by definition will complain about anything that even remotely harms the environment, which is good, but not realistic when it comes to crafting policy. I wish there was more of a willingness on the part of environmentalists to pick the lesser of two evils over the short term in order to reach a larger benefit over the long term.

Erm... permanent groundwater contamination?

I'm not sure that I follow your argument about releasing more pollution and CO2 into the atmosphere is good for the environment.

The best way to reduce pollution and CO2 emissions is to stop burning fossil fuels, not resort to destroying farmland in order to find "cleaner burning" versions of the same stuff we've been using.

To get a grasp, nice talk by Dr.Ingraffea (Cornell) about fracking issues/absurdities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSWmXpEkEPg

Fracking is univerally a good idea. NIMBYs don't like it and people who think "chemical" is a swear word are un-convince-able but for the rest of us it's a positive thing.

If not wanting your tapwater to be something you can light on fire with a match makes one a "NIMBY", then I might have a confession to make...

Until they pollute the water table.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-fracking-waste...

If not wanting my backyard covered with toxic effluent from the badly maintained evaporation ponds and failed well outflow dams makes me a NIMBY, then so be it.

If not wanting my rivers suffused with methane and other gases released by the fracking process makes me a NIMBY, then so be it. I prefer my river water still, not sparkling.

Fracking is universally a bad idea.

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