the frack thread

[Ralph]

(this post brought to you by 10% wind-fired electricity and we're working on the other 90% )

13.8% for me, and it doesn't even require rationalizing it with peak oil, powerswitching, or a raging desire to imitate the Amish!

Shooting for 30% by 2020!! Woo Hoo!!

Big chunks of the rest provided by abundant and clean burning molecules in such abundance around the world that I am amazed everyone doesn't go out and round up their own domestic supplies!

[RenewableCandy]

Mum says go and tidy your room.

[emordnilap]

Meanwhile, more seriously:

Source

Some states allow the contaminated material to be buried at the drill site. Some is hauled away, with varying requirements for tracking the waste. Some ends up in roadside ditches, garbage dumpsters or is taken to landfills in violation of local rules, said Scott Radig, director of the North Dakota Health Department’s Division of Waste Management.

In that state’s Bakken oilfields, “it’s a wink-and-a-nod situation,” said Darrell Dorgan, a spokesman for the North Dakota Energy Industry Waste Coalition, a group lobbying for stricter rules. “There’s hundreds of thousands of square miles in northwestern North Dakota and a lot of it is isolated. Nobody’s looking at where all of it is going.”

Must remind people to look up the word 'clean' again; some are giving out conflicting meanings.

[RenewableCandy]

In other words they're just shoving it all under the bed. Fils grew out of that when he was about 10.

[raspberry-blower]

Caroline Lucas cleared of obstruction charges

Green MP Caroline Lucas and four co-defendants have been cleared of obstructing a public highway during an anti-fracking protest in Balcombe, West Sussex.

Brighton Pavilion MP Ms Lucas and her co-accused were also found not guilty at Brighton Magistrates' Court of a public order offence.

Ms Lucas was arrested outside energy company Cuadrilla's exploratory oil drilling site on 19 August last year.

[biffvernon]

American numbers:
http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/218 ... ting-shale

[Ralph]

American numbers:
http://www.postcarbon.org/blog-post/218 ... ting-shale

It sounds as though David agrees that the EIA is the heavyweight in these kind of analysis, and can't dispute their numbers, and is unhappy that a "bottom up" analysis, and an economic model designed from a supply side basis, doesn't reach the conclusion he wants them to.

Fortunately, the EIA is paid to be independent, and has far more resources to do this right compared to David.

[RenewableCandy]

is paid to be independent

whatever one's opinion of the EIA, that phrase contains more irony than even I can cope with

[Ralph]

is paid to be independent

whatever one's opinion of the EIA, that phrase contains more irony than even I can cope with

It doesn't take much googling to verify this one. I recommend more googling, certainly there is no doubt relating to the difference in advocacy between PCI and the EIA.

By law, EIA's products are prepared independently of policy considerations. EIA neither formulates nor advocates any policy conclusions. The Department of Energy Organization Act allows EIA's processes and products to be independent from review by Executive Branch officials; specifically, Section 205(d) says:

"The Administrator shall not be required to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the Department in connection with the collection or analysis of any information; nor shall the Administrator be required, prior to publication, to obtain the approval of any other officer or employee of the United States with respect to the substance of any statistical or forecasting technical reports which he has prepared in accordance with law."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Inf ... nistration

[RenewableCandy]

I don't think you understood my comment at all. I wasn't slagging-off the EIA. All organisations, and for that matter individuals, who receive pay that may be withdrawn, are subject to a certain bias. Sometimes it's not even intentional. I myself cheerfully ignore things like "A report by Renewables UK says we could get by on wind power alone"...etc.

You also have to factor-in what else the guys at the EIA have on their resume/s. If they're in and out of the oil industry between their EIA-ing, then, well you get the idea. People are only human. Ooops, sorry.

[Ralph]

I don't think you understood my comment at all.

Possible. English is my first language, and I don't understand all the cute semantic tricks employed by those desperate to avoid contact between reality and their belief system.

I wasn't slagging-off the EIA. All organisations, and for that matter individuals, who receive pay that may be withdrawn, are subject to a certain bias. Sometimes it's not even intentional. I myself cheerfully ignore things like "A report by Renewables UK says we could get by on wind power alone"...etc.

Why? The objective analysis of any position involves understanding both sides of an issue. That includes not only examining the scientific work done on a topic but the advocacy positions. Of BOTH sides.

Such study would then make the average reader aware of what both sides think their strong points are, talking points versus scientific points, what each advocacy position thinks it needs to discount from the other advocate, etc etc.

How else would anyone ever make an informed opinion? You utilize different method perhaps? Darts and a big signs on the wall…"DOGMA" and a much smaller one, "Try thinking for yourself for a change"?

You also have to factor-in what else the guys at the EIA have on their resume/s. If they're in and out of the oil industry between their EIA-ing, then, well you get the idea. People are only human. Ooops, sorry.

So. We take an industry professional with, say, 20 years of experience, and hire them to guide EIA projections using expert knowledge of resources and whatnot, or we hire a 24 year old newly minted college grad, call them "industry analyst", and charge them with the same assignment.

Is it reasonable to assume that naiveté is more valuable than decades of experience in this regard?

[RenewableCandy]

All these points would of course be valid if everybody were a machine (setting aside, as ever, the condescending tone). However, real people are subject to bias (professional or otherwise, conscious or unconscious), and in worse cases to corruption (deliberate, as in bribes, or accidental, as in wondering where their next contract's going to come from if they diss a presently-lucrative industry or technology).

This is of course not an argument for handing this type of work to people with no experience at all (I believe I have been the subject of a straw man here, ta-daa!). It is an argument for making sure that the people doing it have a wide knowledge of the system as a whole (including the ability to assess reliability of sources), and have no "interest" (in the economic sense) in any particular outcome. This is why I found the phrase "paid to be independent" so funny. Presumably you just meant, not paid by anyone in the industry.

There's nothing wrong with a bottom-up analysis. Provided that the people at the bottom (who, of course by definition, are in the industry up to their eyeballs) are telling the truth.

[emordnilap]

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/vie ... sc&start=0

[emordnilap]

Texas family plagued with ailments gets $3M in 1st-of-its-kind fracking judgment

Here's to many, many more such vindications.

[PS_RalphW]

House of lords shows its true colours (black and sticky)

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... -shale-gas