Fracking in the NE - Here to Stay!  

Jul 3, 2015

Below the Marcellus Shale is a much bigger, thicker, energy rich layer of shale called Utica Shale.  So, anyone that thinks fracking might go away when the gas runs out, well, it won't and it's not.  Oddly, drilling this deeper layer would have been far more environmentally safe, so you'd have thought energy cos. would have started with it to avoid PR problems, like tap water bursting into flames.  Yes, it would have cost a bit more, but, being bigger, returned more in the end.

I tripped across this factoid in geo tech reports years ago, but here's an easily accessible explanation of the massive gas deposits that will keep every well head drilled fracking for generations.  http://geology.com/articles/utica-shale/

Given the 50 years or so of easy to get gas, and who knows how many decades of marginal production after that, don't you wonder why the energy industry will not invest anything for infrastructure to keep wells from contaminating ground water, keep well waste now dumped in open ponds from flooding into local streams, to clean up and recycle waste water, create pipelines to send wastes for treatment, bury pipelines and power lines to minimize local impact, reinforce roads and bridges the thousands of 20 ton tankers full of fracking chemicals will beat to dust over the decades, paying continuing royalties to land owners for use of the land (in NYC it's a law they only have to pay once to use whatever land they want for pipelines) or even just donate a few bucks to local little league teams?

It's like energy cos. just don't care about anything but wringing every penny of profit possible as fast as possible to fatten the swollen investment accounts of their executives (my effort at rhetorical sarcasm - how did I do?).

Keywords: Fracking, Marcellus Shale, Utica Shale, gas, energy, infrastructure, well, contaminating ground water,   waste, global warming, sustainable renewable energy, pollution.