500,000 The number of abandoned gas and oil wells in PA. Many are leaking already, most will eventually leak, and we have no record of where 95% are! 30,000 The number of miles of gas and oil pipeline the PA DEP predicts will be built before 2035 in Pennsylvania. 0 The number of inspections actually
PennLive reporter Wallace McKelvey says a recent reorganization of the Pennsylvania DEP has resulted in less oversight of drillers. This should be shocking news but it’s not. Our state’s record of protecting its citizens from the depredations of the energy industry is far from admirable, and the legislature routinely acts against the interests of locals
I attended the October 28th meeting of Governor Wolf’s Infrastructure Task Force. It was conceived in an attempt to harmonize the development of pipelines needed by the shale gas industry with Pennsylvanian’s fears and concerns about the impact of pipeline and compressor station construction. Steamfitters are needed to weld together these pipelines because each pipeline
Physicians for Social Responsibility just released their updated compendium of studies that link fracking to health problems. It’s been well established that more science will not cause those who choose to deny climate change to rethink their beliefs. Such change requires peer pressure – the sense that one’s belief or opinion is out-of-step with reality
With each passing day more evidence gets published exposing the terrible risk and cost of shale gas extraction and its negative impacts to people and communities. This post considers the claimed benefits and pairs them with the downside risks and costs. Energy Independence The US has been overly dependent on the big Middle Eastern oil
I was at the live presentation and I highly recommend that you watch the video. Professor Ingraffea, like so many brilliant scholars, makes his talk interesting and at times amusing despite its complexity. This lecture is very accessible and rigorously grounded in factual information. You can trust Ingraffea’s analysis, and if you are skeptical, you
On Wednesday night (9/9/15) the Supervisors of Newtown Township took the lead in passing a resolution supporting a permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware Basin. That’s big, even thought it doesn’t of itself prevent drilling and fracking. Because Pennsylvania is a Commonwealth, the state legislature is in charge of granting permission for shale gas
In a perfect world all the stakeholders would want accurate information about the health effects of shale gas extraction. But alas industry and politicians avoid inconvenient facts and have even defunded efforts to collect the data. Nonetheless there was a log kept and some 85 official reports were recorded. Here’s what the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported
Who’s gonna stand up and save the Earth?
That’s right, Pennsylvania has about 200,000 abandoned oil and gas wells and doesn’t know where 96% of them are. We also don’t know if they have been plugged. This is a problem when new wells are fracked because the old wells can be an open conduit between the newly fractured strata and other layers or the
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