Article: No fracking for now

[Archer]

Sounds much better!

How do they ensure the construction guidelines & rules are followed here in Africa where we see poor policing of most things?
How do they ensure proper geological surveying is done? Do we trust them?

As a private company would you:
A) Do a poor job and fark up the Karoo, which is one heck of a cool place, and then lose money by protesting customers boycotting you and/or fines. And note this has been in worldwide news...
B) Do a proper job and make lots of money

 

[daveza]

Seriously ?

Have people stopped filling up with BP and ExxonMobil products ?

 

[Archer]

@Archer. Are you saying that cases of chemicals associated with fracking had leaked into ground water are false? Most notably a fairly recent report out of Wyoming confirmed by the EPA.
... and are well blowouts just a myth perpetuated by the greenie-beanies?

Maybe you should quote where I said that, and then I'll answer (hint - you'll find I never said anything of the sort). You'll notice I accept there are risks, and never once said "OMG you hippies fracking is 1000% safe, its the bestest thing ever!!"
And the case you have mentioned here, two wells intersected. Something that imo is preventable

Seems fluids can infact travel upwards contrary to the effects of gravity ... just saying

Just saying, its unlikely, and can be prevented from entering the water supply. So its not inevitable

 

[Mila]

Where will they get the water they want to frack with?

 

[Mila]

Maybe you should quote where I said that, and then I'll answer (hint - you'll find I never said anything of the sort). You'll notice I accept there are risks, and never once said "OMG you hippies fracking is 1000% safe, its the bestest thing ever!!"
And the case you have mentioned here, two wells intersected. Something that imo is preventable



Just saying, its unlikely, and can be prevented from entering the water supply. So its not inevitable

how unlikely? % And how will they prevent it?

 

[McSack]

As a private company would you:
A) Do a poor job and fark up the Karoo, which is one heck of a cool place, and then lose money by protesting customers boycotting you and/or fines. And note this has been in worldwide news...
B) Do a proper job and make lots of money

Ahhahahahahaha... since when do the big energy companies put the opinion of joe public before making massive amounts of money?

 

[McSack]

Maybe you should quote where I said that, and then I'll answer (hint - you'll find I never said anything of the sort). You'll notice I accept there are risks, and never once said "OMG you hippies fracking is 1000% safe, its the bestest thing ever!!"
And the case you have mentioned here, two wells intersected. Something that imo is preventable



Just saying, its unlikely, and can be prevented from entering the water supply. So its not inevitable

I agree with most of what you are saying mate, just that IMO "unlikely" coming from big business probably means "50/50 but we'll give it a go anyway and PR our way out of the mess if and when it happens later"

 

[Archer]

Where will they get the water they want to frack with?

I dont know.

how unlikely? % And how will they prevent it?

I dont know, and its prevented by the way they build the pipes going down. Just because I may be pro fracking, doesnt mean I know everything. I could just as easily ask you for arbitrary number I know you wouldnt have. Is this an attempt to discredit me in some manner?

Ahhahahahahaha... since when do the big energy companies put the opinion of joe public before making massive amounts of money?

When you have a for profit company, they tend to avoid situations that decrease their profit.

 

[Mila]

I dont know.



I dont know, and its prevented by the way they build the pipes going down. Just because I may be pro fracking, doesnt mean I know everything. I could just as easily ask you for arbitrary number I know you wouldnt have. Is this an attempt to discredit me in some manner?

.

I'm gathering information.

Seems like people do not know a lot of things.

 

[daveza]

Nigeria -

The ongoing disaster at the Niger Delta, the US’s fifth-biggest source of oil, almost makes the current Gulf disaster look innocent. There have been 7,000 oil spills there between 1970-2000, according to the BBC. That’s roughly 300 spills per year, writes Newsdesk, and “over 13 million barrels of oil. That’s the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez spill every year for 40 years.”

Ecuador -

In 1964, Texaco started drilling in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The company eventually exported as many as 220,000 barrels a day to the US.
During this black gold rush, the Cofan, indigenous people who drink, bathe, and fish in the Amazon, began noticing a stench coming from the water. Texaco’s run-off system, in which “the pollutants come from a pool through a tube into the swamp and the swamp feeds the river from which the Cofan take their water,” didn’t seem to be working. Indeed, 18 billion gallons of run-off were found in the river–30 times the Exxon-Valdez spill.

Texaco defended the run-off system, saying that it was, “within industry standards.” Now the Amazon Defense Front is fighting back by representing the 30,000 plaintiffs who are tired of the damage to the river, cleaning up behind Texaco, and the unusually high levels of cancer they’ve been experiencing. As of May 2010, the damages sought were up to $27 billion.

Ivory Coast -

In response to an article that appeared in The Guardian on May 14, 2009, Trafigura says that Compagnie Tommy, the contractor, acted on its own when it set sail to Nigeria to drop off some oil cargo, then went to neighboring Abidjan and dumped slops.
The spin goes on to deny that it’s impossible the slops, dumped in August 2006, could have caused the deaths it did. It also denies that slops could have anything to do with the thousands of people who had everything from diarrhea to upper respiratory illnesses.
But Trafigura must not believe its own spin. The company, after denying damages, suddenly agreed to settle for $198 million.

But we must trust the big oil co's to ' do the right thing' ?

 

[Archer]

daveza - thats such a poor argument. We might as well stop doing everything because somewhere sometime something bad happened.

But I see you can not even entertain the notion that maybe fracking is a good thing overall, therefore a discussion with you is pointless

 

[DJ...]

Thx for the explanation sounds very very risky. And there is very little incentive for the oil company to care.

Of course there is incentive. If they contaminate a water supply, it increases their cost of extraction exponentially as well as the fallout costs. There are huge fiscal risks on the company. People need to remember that this is a private venture, not a government venture. People seem to think that there's a board meeting of wealthy individuals who then determine which areas they can fsck up (because this is the myth perpetuated by the green-hippies that we all want to believe), when in fact from a financial point of view, it makes absolutely no sense for them to contaminate anything, quite the contrary in fact...

Ahhahahahahaha... since when do the big energy companies put the opinion of joe public before making massive amounts of money?

When they have a fiscal reason to do so...

 

[daveza]

But I see you can not even entertain the notion that maybe fracking is a good thing overall, therefore a discussion with you is pointless

Because the worst-case scenario should be ignored ?

As for fracking being a good thing overall, let's be honest and accept the frackers motivation is nothing else but hard cash.

Yes, I'm sure there are many positives but there are just too many unanswered questions - which by experience implies they have something they don't want us to know.

We might as well stop doing everything because somewhere sometime something bad happened.

What I'm saying is before these disasters happened there were assurances that what they were doing was safe.

That's what we are being told now as well.

 

[McSack]

...
When you have a for profit company, they tend to avoid situations that decrease their profit.

I guess BP and Halliburton considered that they would avoid decreasing their profits by cutting costs and ignoring risks out at Macondo

In September 2011, the U.S. government published its final investigative report on the accident. In essence, that report states that the main cause was the defective cement job, and put most of the fault for the oil spill with BP, also faulting Deepwater Horizon operator Transocean and contractor Halliburton. Investigations continue, with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder stating on April 24, 2012, "The Deepwater Horizon Task Force is continuing its investigation into the explosion and will hold accountable those who violated the law in connection with the largest environmental disaster in US history". The first arrest related to the spill was in April 2012; an engineer was charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly deleting 300 text messages showing BP knew the flow rate was three times higher than initial claims by the company, and knew that Top Kill was unlikely to succeed, but claimed otherwise

Not the first time Halliburton has been in trouble either

 

[daveza]

Oh, and what's with the green-hippie thing still ?

Just because some of us care about the planet and would like it not to be f'ed up please, doesn't mean we are all lentil eating pot heads.

But for the record I would rather be a green-hippie than a grey-suit drone.

 

[Archer]

Because the worst-case scenario should be ignored ?

Where did I ignore the possibility of something bad happening? Are they not doing a 2 year survey to assess the situation?

As for fracking being a good thing overall, let's be honest and accept the frackers motivation is nothing else but hard cash.

A company doing work for profit? No ways!

Yes, I'm sure there are many positives but there are just too many unanswered questions - which by experience implies they have something they don't want us to know.

Where have you asked questions other than myBB? I'd wager you'd find most of the answers if you really tried.

What I'm saying is before these disasters happened there were assurances that what they were doing was safe.

That's what we are being told now as well.

Accidents. They happen. So we learn, and do better to prevent them. Planes are safe, but they crash. Cares are pretty safe, but people still die in road accidents. etc etc. Life would be pretty sad if nobody was allowed to take a risk. Yes, the potential disaster could be big, but you are overly paranoid if you think anyone will go in with a cowboy attitude and just shoot from the hip ignoring safety/enviromental issues.

 

[McSack]

Of course there is incentive. If they contaminate a water supply, it increases their cost of extraction exponentially as well as the fallout costs. There are huge fiscal risks on the company. People need to remember that this is a private venture, not a government venture. People seem to think that there's a board meeting of wealthy individuals who then determine which areas they can fsck up (because this is the myth perpetuated by the green-hippies that we all want to believe), when in fact from a financial point of view, it makes absolutely no sense for them to contaminate anything, quite the contrary in fact...



When they have a fiscal reason to do so...

DJ you can't deny that there are more than enough examples where "fiscal considerations" have far outweighed the impact of public perception and environmental issues. And they aren't myths perpetuated by green-hippies, they are actual cases where corporates knew there were problems with what they were doing but chose to ignore the risks because they thought they would get away with it.
There just seems to be way too little transparency from government and the companies they want to get into bed with when it comes to fracking in the Karoo.

 

[Archer]

/snip

Another one sided mind. You claim otherwise, but its obvious you are not open to really discuss anything

 

[McSack]

Another one sided mind. You claim otherwise, but its obvious you are not open to really discuss anything

Yet by your own admission you do not know what the likelihood of fluid and gas leakage into groundwater is ... but you are willing to put your faith in what big business and government assure you is true

 

[daveza]

You claim otherwise, but its obvious you are not open to really discuss anything

Seems nobody is open to discussion if their opinion differs to yours.