…[It] was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

- Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address

On Thursday, Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu visited the National Energy Technology Laboratory in South Park, PA:

Chu said the Department of Energy’s experiments between 1978 and 1992 helped develop the widespread practice of horizontal drilling and fracturing that made capturing natural gas from rock formations such as shale cost-effective enough that private industry could take over. (Source.)

This is some pretty serious revisionist history, and it’s all directed at justifying continued “investment” in green clean energy research*.

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…[It] was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground.

- Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address

On Thursday, Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu visited the National Energy Technology Laboratory in South Park, PA:

Chu said the Department of Energy’s experiments between 1978 and 1992 helped develop the widespread practice of horizontal drilling and fracturing that made capturing natural gas from rock formations such as shale cost-effective enough that private industry could take over. (Source.)

This is some pretty serious revisionist history, and it’s all directed at justifying continued “investment” in green clean energy research*.

Read More →

Another day, another distorted and fear-mongering attack from the Old Grey Lady on America’s natural gas industry.

Headline: Add Quakes to Rumblings Over Gas Rush
(originally published under the headline “Some Blame Hydraulic Fracturing For Earthquake Epidemic”; link may require subscription/signup)

Nine quakes in eight months in a seismically inactive area is unusual. But Ohio seismologists found another surprise when they plotted the quakes’ epicenters: most coincided with the location of a 9,000-foot well in an industrial lot along the Mahoning River, just down the hill from Mr. Moritz’s neighborhood and two miles from downtown Youngstown.

At the well, a local company has been disposing of brine and other liquids from natural gas wells across the border in Pennsylvania — millions of gallons of waste from the process called hydraulic fracturing that is used to unlock the gas from shale rock.

Here, the Times conflates two dissimilar processes in an attempt to create fear and worry about natural gas. Follow below the jump, and allow me to explain.

Read More →

Another day, another distorted and fear-mongering attack from the Old Grey Lady on America’s natural gas industry.

Headline: Add Quakes to Rumblings Over Gas Rush
(originally published under the headline “Some Blame Hydraulic Fracturing For Earthquake Epidemic”; link may require subscription/signup)

Nine quakes in eight months in a seismically inactive area is unusual. But Ohio seismologists found another surprise when they plotted the quakes’ epicenters: most coincided with the location of a 9,000-foot well in an industrial lot along the Mahoning River, just down the hill from Mr. Moritz’s neighborhood and two miles from downtown Youngstown.

At the well, a local company has been disposing of brine and other liquids from natural gas wells across the border in Pennsylvania — millions of gallons of waste from the process called hydraulic fracturing that is used to unlock the gas from shale rock.

Here, the Times conflates two dissimilar processes in an attempt to create fear and worry about natural gas. Follow below the jump, and allow me to explain.

Read More →