Badly. Oil shale is an environmental disaster.

DNRTFA

I fracked Shale for methane for 4 years when I paid my way through college in Tuscaloosa. Black Warrior River FTW!

Fracking shale proves the existance of a god. In Hell.

Remember that story the World Weekly News and the National Enquirer used to run intermittantly about the Russians breaking through to Hell? Well it's based on a real incident in Central Asia where natural gas drillers hit a pocket of natural gas which collapsed on itself, forming a giant pit. They set the gas on fire, thinking it would burn itself out. It never did. Still burning after decades, like the coal fires of the late town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.

I guess this story qualifies as an urban legend because it 1) happened once and 2) has been multiplied in the telling ever since.

But the lesson is clear: as it becomes hard to get at the easy fossil fuels, we'll go after more and more difficult and dangerous and expensive deposits until the cost greatly exceeds the profits and we left whatever is left in the ground because we'll never have the means to exploit it.

And the Earth will be littered with flaming mouths to Hell. Oh, well. Maybe we'll be able to cap them with boilers and use the Hellfire to warm ourselves.

Is that the dealeo where you make all the water taps for miles around spit fire?
kewl

man will not be happy until we burn everything on this planet

Does not appreciate you trying to 'frack' her.

Lando Lincoln: Badly. Oil shale is an environmental disaster.

That's a bit of a different situation. We're talking mostly natural gas here. Generally, fractionation is done on low porosity formations to permit flow.

Is there a risk to groundwater? Sure. But those risks are generally fairly known because of the relative geology of groundwater and natural gas formations. If groundwater contamination occurs, it's because there wasn't the regulatory framework or oversight in the first place. Gas fracing has been happening in my part of the world now for decades without the sorts of incidents that I hear about from down south.

I'm no industry apologist- in fact, just the opposite. But if we have to burn something (and it doesn't look like we're stopping any time soon), natural gas is the next best thing to biofuels from a greenhouse gas perspective.

This whole "F---ing magnets, how do they work" joke has paled a great deal for me since I found out that it wasn't a random Fark meme, but a quote from an ICP song. It's just not as funny any more. Not that it was all that funny to begin, but it's even less so now.

I was having way too many BSG flashbacks trying to read that.

farkstorm: Generally, fractionation is done on low porosity permeability formations to permit flow.

You're absolutely right, thanks for the correction.

The NG industry around here (Alberta) likes to call these situations 'tight gas'. My guess is that it's a phrase that people will be hearing more of.

Here's a short animation and description (new window) of how the process works.

Why not just send a nuclear bomb down there? That should dislodge enough gas for everyone. No water will get wasted. Sure, the CHUDs and the Morlocks will have a problem with that but as long as we control the Molemen with our chosen Mole-President, we need not fear retribution.

Now, we don't want to incite the Big Nosed Greys but the government has their underground interstate highways mapped out, so we should easily miss them.

Harry Freakstorm: Why not just send a nuclear bomb down there? That should dislodge enough gas for everyone. No water will get wasted. Sure, the CHUDs and the Morlocks will have a problem with that but as long as we control the Molemen with our chosen Mole-President, we need not fear retribution.

Now, we don't want to incite the Big Nosed Greys but the government has their underground interstate highways mapped out, so we should easily miss them.

Don't think for one second that hasn't been conceived of. Well, not THAT specifically but using nukes to mine or make lakes has. See Operation Plowshare.

nekom

Don't think for one second that hasn't been conceived of. Well, not THAT specifically but using nukes to mine or make lakes has. See Operation Plowshare.

When I was a kid, I eagerly awaited the day when the U S government created an instant canal across Nicaragua. I think they had planned on setting off a couple nukes across the country and let the water run through.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plowshare

In the 1960s, a proposal was suggested for a modified in situ shale oil extraction process which involved creation of a rubble chimney (a zone in the oil shale formation created by breaking the rock into fragments) using a nuclear explosive.[3] However, this approach was abandoned for a number of technical reasons.

Oil fer everybody!

Thanks, nekom. Looks like it was already tried. Now, who doesn't want a little radionuclides in their natural gas? Let's call it Freedom Gas.

Natural gas stimulation experiment

The final PNE blast took place on 17 May 1973, under Fawn Creek, 76.4 km north of Grand Junction, Colorado. Three 30 kiloton detonations took place simultaneously at depths of 1,758, 1,875, and 2,015 meters. It was the third nuclear explosion experiment intended to stimulate the flow of natural gas from "tight" formation gas fields. Industrial participants included the El Paso Natural Gas Company for the Gasbuggy test; Austral Oil Company; CER Geonuclear Corporation for the Rulison test; and CER Geonuclear Corporation for the Rio Blanco test.

If it was successful, plans called for the use of hundreds of specialized nuclear explosives in the western Rockies gas fields. The previous two tests had indicated that the produced natural gas would be too radioactive for safe use. After the test it was found that the blast cavities had not connected as hoped, and the resulting gas still contained unacceptable levels of radionuclides.[4]

By 1974, approximately $82 million had been invested in the nuclear gas stimulation technology program. It was estimated that even after 25 years of gas production of all the natural gas deemed recoverable, that only 15 to 40 percent of the investment could be recovered.

Also, the concept that stove burners in California might soon emit trace amounts of blast radionuclides into family homes did not sit well with the general public. The contaminated well gas was never channeled into commercial supply lines.

The radioactive blast debris from 839 U.S. underground nuclear test explosions remains buried in-place and has been judged impractical to remove by the DOE's Nevada Site Office.

The situation remained so for the next three decades, however, a resurgence in Colorado Western slope natural gas drilling has brought resource development closer and closer to the original underground detonations. As of summer 2009, 84 drilling permits have been issued within a 3-mile radius, with 11 permits within one mile of the site.[5]

From the same Wikipedia link.

PunGent: Welcome to my ignore list, astroturf boy.

OH NOES! WHATEVER WILL HE DO!?!?!