Thanks Mike, So all generalizations are what is fraccing the world at present, correct? Consider this little issue of reality. Upstate New York and Pennsylvania has had a serious problem of Radon Gas from uranium deposits in the shale. Currently the Oil and Gas people are lobbying to fracc the shale and release the natural gas. They insist it's safe except for the following (see below)
Further note below: the liberal progressive Democratic governor of Pennysylvania has stopped the exploration in Pennsylvian. My point is that the wall street and energy people are completely without morality. The Radon has caused cancer for years in anyone using the shale as building material and yet the article below shows the problem denied by the folks from Texas or wherever. They say the problem is environmental regulation. Is the only solution here a good world war or at least a civil one? Been here before, So what we are speaking of here is what I have been saying for some time. You can only develop a serious society if you are willing to demand reality based solutions and severely test all human theories before being put into practice by politicians and wall street types. Reality will always win. But will you have children or grandchildren and will they be living the life of the poor in London at the height of the Empire. Ten inches shorter than the children of the local oil and gas man. We should never forget that the countries that have a decent split between upper classes and lower are all called "stagnant" by economists and wall street. . Japan, South Korea, the Scandinavian Countries, etc. Of course what they say is that they have culture while the rest of the world has none. Could that be the next issue to discuss? People who are identity less except as the pirates of wherever. What was the lingua franca of the Pirates? English of course. Perhaps we will see that the government here does to everyone's land what the Canadian government only does to Indians. Equality of a sort. REH ScienceDaily (Oct. 27, 2010) But University at Buffalo researchers have now found that that process -- called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking"-- also causes uranium that is naturally trapped inside Marcellus shale to be released, raising additional environmental concerns. The research will be presented at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver on Nov. 2. Marcellus shale is a massive rock formation that stretches from New York through Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and which is often described as the nation's largest source of natural gas. "Marcellus shale naturally traps metals such as uranium and at levels higher than usually found naturally, but lower than manmade contamination levels," says Tracy Bank, PhD, assistant professor of geology in UB's College of Arts and Sciences and lead researcher. "My question was, if they start drilling and pumping millions of gallons of water into these underground rocks, will that force the uranium into the soluble phase and mobilize it? Will uranium then show up in groundwater?" To find out, Bank and her colleagues at UB scanned the surfaces of Marcellus shale samples from Western New York and Pennsylvania. Using sensitive chemical instruments, they created a chemical map of the surfaces to determine the precise location in the shale of the hydrocarbons, the organic compounds containing natural gas. "We found that the uranium and the hydrocarbons are in the same physical space," says Bank. "We found that they are not just physically -- but also chemically -- bound. "That led me to believe that uranium in solution could be more of an issue because the process of drilling to extract the hydrocarbons could start mobilizing the metals as well, forcing them into the soluble phase and causing them to move around." When Bank and her colleagues reacted samples in the lab with surrogate drilling fluids, they found that the uranium was indeed, being solubilized. In addition, she says, when the millions of gallons of water used in hydraulic fracturing come back to the surface, it could contain uranium contaminants, potentially polluting streams and other ecosystems and generating hazardous waste. The research required the use of very sophisticated methods of analysis, including one called Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry, or ToF-SIMS, in the laboratory of Joseph A. Gardella Jr., Larkin Professor of Chemistry at UB. The UB research is the first to map samples using this technique, which identified the precise location of the uranium. "Even though at these levels, uranium is not a radioactive risk, it is still a toxic, deadly metal," Bank concludes. "We need a fundamental understanding of how uranium exists in shale. The more we understand about how it exists, the more we can better predict how it will react to 'fracking.'" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rendell halts further leasing in Pennsylvania state forests Oct 27, 2010 Nick Snow OGJ Washington Editor WASHINGTON, DC, Oct. 27 -- Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell signed an executive order halting further oil and gas development in state forests on Oct. 26. Rendell said he acted after the commonwealths Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) determined that more leasing could endanger the forests environment. Critics responded that he was simply holding state land hostage after the states general assembly was unable to pass a natural gas severance tax. Rendell said a DCNR study over 7 months found that additional oil and gas leases could jeopardize the forests environmental quality and character, and jeopardize Pennsylvanias certification that it manages the its forests in a sustainable manner, which he said is important for the states nearly $6 billion forest products industry. The governor, who is a Democrat leaving office in January, said the executive order was necessary after the states Senate, which Republicans control, refused to take up House Bill 2355, which would have instituted a moratorium and which the states Democrat-led House passed, with some Republican votes, in early May. Drilling companies rush to grab private lands across the state has left few areas untouched by this widespread industrial activity, Rendell said. We need to protect our unleased public lands from this rush because they are the most significant tracts of undisturbed forest remaining in this state. The House led the way to protect these lands, but the Senate failed to do so. Thats why its clear we need this executive order. But his action came 5 days after Rendell declared a gas severance tax dead for 2010 and blamed the Senates GOP leaders for refusing to hold a lame duck session after the Nov. 2 elections and work to reach a compromise with a 39¢/Mcf levy which the House approved on Sept. 29. Rendell proposed a severance tax in February of 5% of the gass value at the wellhead, plus 4.7¢/Mcf. On Oct. 11, he offered a compromise which would have called for a phased-in tax of 3% the first year, 4% in the second, and 5% in the third. Somewhat of a puzzle Pennsylvania oil and gas organizations immediately questioned Rendells move. The governors moratorium is somewhat of a puzzle to PIOGA, said Louis D. DAmico, president and executive director of the Pennsylvania Independent Oil & Gas Association. The industry had been told several months ago that [DCNR] had no intention of having further leasing in the foreseeable future. It would seem that the moratorium announcement is more of an opportunity for the governor to campaign once again for a severance tax than an announcement of something new. This will have no long-term impact on the industry. In a May 12 announcement that Anadarko Petroleum Corp. would pay the state $120 million to lease 32,896 acres of state forest around which producers already had leases, Rendell and DCNR said the agreement would help the state meet its budget, but that no additional state forest land would be made available for leasing during the 2010-11 fiscal year. Holding hostage important natural gas development and the creation of new jobs and revenues over a political impasse is not sound energy policy, observed Rolf Hanson, executive director of the Associated Petroleum Industries of Pennsylvania, on Oct. 26. The Keystone State continues to struggle with high unemployment and budget deficits, and natural gas is part of the solution to the states economic problems. The natural gas industry has safely and responsibly been operating on taxpayer-owned lands for years, noted Kathryn Z. Klaber, president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition. And this responsible production of clean-burning, homegrown natural gas is creating tens of thousands of local jobs and hundreds of millions in tax revenues for the commonwealth. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Thursday, October 28, 2010 2:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: Back cover blurb Harry wrote: > Ray, > > Perhaps you can explain to me why my "land theories" have little > connection to reality. As far as I can see, all economic theories have at best a tenuous connection to reality. Some may be tautological, some share the bizarre qualities of Ptolemaic epicycles, some have more exceptions and patches than a creationism that tries to accomodate fossils, speciation and the rest of scientific observables. But they all seem to happily sacrifice connection to reality in the pursuit of theoretical elegance. Economic theorists suffer from Physics Envy. Land? Everybody needs a place to stand. But we can (or could, when Brunner's novel was written) all "stand on Zanzibar". For the present, there's an insuperable requirement for soil to support basic food requirements. But you're not thinking of elementary physics or biological energy budgets. In general, any economic theory is about human behavior, collective human behavior in particular. But Bernays notwithstanding, people act individually. As soon as there is an approximately true generalization about collective human behavior, there will be people who try to profit from making themselves exceptions to the generalization. The only way that such economic theories, including "land theories", can be made true is through coercion or manipulation. Of course, "all generalizations are false, including this one". Ho hum. - Mike -- Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~. /V\ [email protected] /( )\ http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^ _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
