There's Nobody There

The latest in the fracking madness, is the push to mine the Monterrey Shale.  Supposedly this is a huge deposit of shale oil.  Now, shale oil, is not the regular sweet crude, that long ago was mined out in California.  Shale oil is oil trapped in rock and shale deposits.  It needs a special process, called fracking, high pressure hydronic mining, that injects millions of gallons of water and secret chemicals into the shale, releasing the oil that is then pumped to the surface, alone with the water and chemicals.  

Much of the fracking brew, if you will, remains below, supposedly immune from water supplies.  Fracking proponents promise (cross my heart) that there is no way this toxic brew can affect water aquifers.  Of course, there are already incidents where that is exactly what has happened.  However, the Clean Water Act has been walled off from fracking by a Bill pushed by then Vice President Dick Cheney.  This is called the so-called Halletburton Bill, because it benefits Cheney's former company in that no water tests can be done relative to fracked drilling.

So the first promise is, even though common sense screams that clean water is one, being used in huge numbers, and two, there are several incidents where water supplies were contaminated, TRUST us, we know what we are doing.  

The second promise is Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.  North Dakota is pointed to with the growth of thousands of jobs.  

What they aren't telling you is the vast majority of these jobs are created for a short period of time.  Once the fracking is done, and the wellhead is capped and attached to a pipeline, the work moves on to the next frack.  Once all the wells are done, the number of jobs drops to zero; save an inspector here and there.  In short, there is no net increase in jobs due to fracking...none.

But there is one thing that increases, profit for the gas and oil companies.  Fracking costs a lot of money.  It has been a known process for years.  But, the cost of extracting the oil and gas was so high, that companies did not bother.  

Now, that the public is clamoring for more oil and gas, due to the fact that the less expensive ways of mining it are gone, the oil barons can charge just about what they want.

So, fracking does not make for permanent jobs; it just doesn't.  

What it does do is create the illusion that our energy problems are over.  In fact, peak oil was reached several years ago, and it is all downhill from here.

Fracking once again is used to put off doing what we must do, conserve, change our transportation habits, and learn to live in a limited energy production world.

By encouraging a "glut mentality" fracking only hastens the day when we flat run out; broke, our water supplies ruined, and victimized by oil companies that are just plain evil.