America’s economy is once again reinventing itself

Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by disbelief on Saturday July 14, 2012 @03:20PM (#4245077)

I was a bit shocked by that. Not sure I would want Fracking to be the engine driving my economic growth — you're trading a financial crisis for a potentially massive environmental catastrophe.

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by msellout on Saturday July 14, 2012 @03:45PM (#4245142)

Don't judge them too harshly. Fracking isn't clearly bad or good. As the article pointed out: coal is worse.

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by Danieru on Saturday July 14, 2012 @04:11PM (#4245204)

Natural gas is also much easier to store than coal and gas turbines have much shorter startup times. Thus Natural gas provides an excellent base power to complement renewable energy.

So while I am sure many would prefer a direct to renewable energy situation, natural gas is fine too.

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by ams6110 on Saturday July 14, 2012 @08:44PM (#4245738)

In what way is natural gas easier to store than coal? Coal can just sit in huge piles on the ground.

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by Danieru on Saturday July 14, 2012 @11:43PM (#4246039)

True, but what happens once the coal is a pile? Unless said pile is being turned into a giant bonfire it will need further transportation.

This means big machines and their operators. It means trucks, trains, barges, and yet more drivers.

Gas needs storage tanks and pipelines. Ignoring maintenance the entire chain from well head to plant can be automated. A trans-continental coal conveyor belt would look nice on a popular mechanic's cover page but would never compare to what already exists for natural gas.

Granted natural gas' infrastructure is capital intensive. Yet in exchange for this capital you get a transportation network that functions like a classic graph flow problem.

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by jussij on Sunday July 15, 2012 @02:52AM (#4246362)

After watching the film Gaslands, fracking should leave you scared. It paints fracking as a greed driven, accident waiting to happen.

http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by laut on Sunday July 15, 2012 @06:21AM (#4246648)

It's a movie filled with lies and shouldn't be taken as a serious documentary.

For instance when the guy sets fire to gas coming out of his tap it is assumed that it is caused by fracking, but the movie doesn't tell you that these things happen naturally also in areas without any gas drilling.

Take a look at this video: http://www.fightgaslandcensorship.com/

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by jussij on Wednesday July 18, 2012 @10:07AM (#4260745)

There are lots of independent sources that back up the details presented in the film:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing_in_the_Uni...

Also if the fracking process is so safe why did they have ask for and get special exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act?

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Re:America’s economy is once again reinventing itself by lcargill99 on Saturday July 14, 2012 @03:32PM (#4245103)

Isn't that the tradeoff? You either join the circle of people selling each other insurance, or you get a real job.

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