Justin Nobel asserts that radiation levels at some oil and gas facilities within small American towns are higher than those at the exclusion zone around the site of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

How Fracking Is Making Some U.S. Communities More Radioactive Than Chernobyl

A Q&A with DeSmog reporter Justin Nobel about his revelatory new book, Petroleum-238, that takes on the fracking industry for exposing workers to radioactive contamination.

It’s not news to us, but the evidence continues to build that nothing good comes of allowing fracking. Here’s a report from our Bucks County Courier Times, that adds to the irrefutable evidence.

Study shows links between Pa. fracking, health of kids

More asthma, cancer cases found near plantsMarc LevyASSOCIATED PRESS H

The industry continues to assert that fracking can be done safely. Still, the evidence shows that profit-driven businesses are not up to the task and often lobby to prevent authorities from holding them accountable. I should not need to remind readers that taxpayers are paying to close hundreds of thousands of abandoned wells. If fracking can be done safely, then every case of leaks, venting, water degradation, and well abandonment is a case of negligence–is it not? I don’t see the industry stepping up to take responsibility for the damage it has done through past negligence. Nor are they lobbying for rigorous enforcement to keep marginal operators in line and to fund the mitigation of damage done.

“A new peer-reviewed study from PSE suggests that prioritizing plugging wells closest to people may bring extra health benefits. Gas leaking from wells is known to be mostly methane, a potent climate pollutant. Scientists tested gas from 48 abandoned wells in western Pennsylvania and found that gas leaking from wells can contain benzene and other volatile organic compounds, suggesting that leaked gas from abandoned wells is also a health hazard.” ~ PSE Newsletter

Chemical Makeup of Gas Leaked from Abandoned Wells | PSE | Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy

Peer-Reviewed Publications

Corporations are not people, contrary to popular belief. They are legal constructs designed to bundle up real and intangible property and the responsibilities that go with ownership of the bundle. This allows you and me to own a share of General Motors and not be responsible for its debts and liabilities if the enterprise fails.

But what happens if someone games the system? The limitations on liability and the opportunity to escape from responsibility provide an opportunity that has value. Let’s say you own a fleet of taxi cabs. Insurance is expensive, and your drivers, good as they are, can’t avoid accidents with personal injury claims. So you incorporate each of your cabs, buy the minimum insurance that’s allowed, and if there’s an accident? Well, that cab is the only thing of value in the corporation after the insurance pays its limit. The corporate veil protects you as the shareowner.

Now suppose a bunch of wealthy oil barons are worried about future liabilities of their depleted oil wells. Read this.

Wells

Diversified Energy Co. buys up oil wells that other companies no longer want any part of, holding 61,100 wells as of the end of 2020, the most in the country and considerably more than oil majors like Exxon Mobil (36,900 wells) and Chevron (25,800 wells). The rate at which the company is buying up wells is worrying regulators and industry groups because states require a company to plug a well with cement after it runs dry, and some think the rate that Diversified is paying out dividends and buying up wells means that it won’t have the funds to hold up its side of the bargain once bills come. That could leave states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia on the hook to clean up a mess that could cost billions. Many wells have methane leaks, a ton of which causes 80 times the warming over the next 20 years that a ton of carbon dioxide would.

Zachary R. Mider and Rachel Adams-Heard, Bloomberg
via NumLocknews

You probably saw the news that air pollution increases the risk of fatal outcomes with COVID-19. We have all experienced the surprising improvement in air quality with the shutdown of industrial operations and the reduced automobile traffic. In china it was dramatic.

It’s a wakup call. Fossil energy needs to be phased out and fracking’s cheap fuels are the economic enemy of renewables because they kill the market for innovative technology. Despite the adverse market effects both wind and solar have become competitive.

I’m pleased that journalists are picking up on the obvious.

Opinion | Coronavirus May Kill Our Fracking Fever DreamAmerica’s energy independence was an illusion created by cheap debt. All that’s left to tally is the damage.

Living in these areas of the US raises your risk of death from coronavirus, study saysCNN’s Jake Tapper reports.

Pollution made COVID-19 worse. Now, lockdowns are clearing the air.Even before the coronavirus, air pollution killed seven million people a year. Will today’s cleaner air inspire us to do better?

When a government agency grants a permit, it is usually allowing something that is potentially or actually harmful or dangerous. Permits for the construction of public utilities are supposed to weigh the convenience and necessity of the greater public against the harm done to individuals.

Pipelines require a clear right-of-way for their construction and the government delegates its sovereign power to take land by eminent domain to corporations. Takings are supposed to be compensated to make those affected whole. But it’s rare that the compensation is satisfactory or sufficient for the loss of quiet enjoyment of one’s home or business property.

The Mariner East Pipeline is in the news again because people allege construction is harming them. And what public interest justifies this? Who needs the products it carries? Not the US public. It’s for off-shore producers of plastics and other fossil fuel products.

Thanks to big dollar lobbying by the industry, our legislators are not representing us the public. And the permits to do harm get issued for no good public purpose.

‘We can’t live like this’: residents say a corrupt pipeline project is making them sick

A community in Pennsylvania says clay-colored water appeared during a drilling mud spill, but the pipeline company insists it’s not to blame

Rural landowners are often deceived into thinking that the sale of the extraction rights to the shale gas under their property will provide effortless bounty and security. There are some nasty consequences of selling those subsurface rights. The article below is not news to anyone who has browsed this site. But if you need to be reminded, read on.

When Fracking Companies Own the Gas Beneath Your Land — ProPublica

ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

The Trump Administration is loath to admit that climate change is real and is man-made.  I was surprised to see this article in WaPo this morning. One can only hope that the weather extremes and related human catastrophes have become too horrendous for denial to persist as a viable strategy for fossil-backed politicians.

I should not need to explain why this is relevant to fracking, but I will. Fracking and the pipelines that bring its products to market disrupt the lives of those in their path, damage air quality, pollute the water, and consume precious freshwater resources. Energy producers seek to justify the use of our government’s sovereign powers (land condemnation, permitting for pollution, etc.) on the basis that it is a public necessity akin to highways and railroads. Clearly, this is not the case in Pennsylvania. There is a glut of natural gas produced and distributed by thousands of existing wells and about 50,000 miles of existing pipelines. Moreover, the products produced by the extraction of this fossil energy will produce MORE GLOBAL WARMING. And, because they are so cheap, they will discourage the development and deployment of renewable energy.

Read more at the Washington Post.