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Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Regarding the letter “Fracking hurts land owners”: It is amazing that I cannot even open the Sunday paper without seeing somebody complaining again about fracking oil and gas wells. I have been in the oil and gas drilling industry for more than 30 years, working offshore and onshore. I have been a roughneck and a representative for major companies. Fracking is done deep into the payzones, and all water tables are cased and cemented, which prevents any high-pressure fracking fluids from entering. It is just amazing how many people turn on their stoves (gas or electric), stick a nozzle in ...
Would you rather get your natural gas here at home and pay into our economy or do you want to buy it from a foreign source and lose this money from our economy. And kept our nation dependent of foreign middle east countries.
Yesterday Obama issued a report that promoted selling our abundant natural overseas and start bring that money back
Sadly what will really hurt farmers, especially small family ones, is the Inheritance Tax that will revert back to its original amount with the fiscal cliff dive on January 2, 2013, not fracking. Why? For these small American farmers, the value of the estate is in the land, not the contents. Restore the burdensome Inheritance Tax on the land, as the fiscal cliff will do, and the heirs of the farmers will likely be unable to pay it. And they will lose their family farms, literally, not just figuratively.
CarmineD
Fracking is not anything new to the oil and gas industry but it is new to the public and the public deserves a better explanation of it from industry.
Fracking was being used in the 1960s to coax some additional production from what were then deemed to be depleted oil fields and was one of several "secondary recovery" methods the industry used.
With natural gas so abundant and cheap why bother with expensive, intermittent, low-density sources like solar and wind?
Unless crony-capitalism is your goal.
Thank you, Mr. Wyndle, for taking the Luddites to task. They like their modern amenities but have no idea what it takes to bring them to life. I guess they still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Fairy Godmothers. After all, all those modern appliances they use must grow on trees, use no electricity or fuel and were invented by Al Gore.
Dear Bob
No one is questioning the need for oil and gas.
If fracking is so safe, then why are the chemical and compounds used in the hydraulic fluids a secret.
I'm probably as liberal as they come, but I am also a pragmatist.
I believe we should be using as much foreign oil as possible. Use theirs up first and use ours later. That my friend is the smart thing to do in the long run.
Right now, we get a $5 return for every $1 we spend on oil. So if we buy a trillion dollars worth of foreign oil, then we profit $4 trillion in refining and crude oil use in our economy.
I also know we need oil and gas until we hit upon another viable energy source. Remember, the United State supplanted Great Britain as the world super power when we switched our economy to a petroleum base from a coal base. Crude gave us a 500:1 return when coal was a 10:1 return.
So we had better be the ones who come up with this new source, whether it's solar, wind, geothermal or whatever. We don't to wind up like Great Britain.
But in the mean time, we need to make sure that in the short term, we are not doing tremendous environmental damage. Which might lead to a very expensive fix.
An example of this was MTBE poisoning the water in our lakes and wells around the country. It's replacement ethanol, is causing high food prices and poisonous run off into our lakes and streams from the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers. The long term costs of these programs far exceed their initial return.
Short term gains leads to long term pain.
The method of fracking being used in bringing gas to the surface for consumer us is needed.However it is not 100% full proof without some sort of mishap occuring from time to time.
Some of the things that have happened on fracking sites.Include explosions from the gas wells,gas storage area explosions,well or pipe line explosions,fuel spills,just to name a few things that can and have happened.
The biggest problem that has happened from fracking is contaminated drinking water which has happened in Dimock, Pennsylvania where area residents are suing oil and gas corporations.They claim that 2 wells have above levels of arsenic.
I believe oil and gas corporations will need to improve safety concerns from fracking in our country.Who knows what will happen with a well 8,000 ft.below the surface once it's caped and closed and no longer being used.
If fracking is so safe, then why are the chemical and compounds used in the hydraulic fluids a secret.
They are not in states like Texas they are part of the public
The EPA has all the info