EARTHblog » Bruce Baizel
Fracking Causes Democratic Outbreaks Across the US
A funny thing happened on the way to the shale revolution – an outbreak of democracy that will send tremors through the oil and gas industry and its political backers.
Voters in three elections in three different cities (Boulder, Ft. Collins and Lafayette), located on the voter-rich Front Range of Colorado, followed the city of Longmont’s lead and decisively passed bans or moratoria on fracking or drilling. A fourth election in Broomfield is still too close to call.
Tagged with: fracking, colorado, ohio, vote, democracy
Begging for Data from the Oil and Gas Industry
Why the new EDF report doesn’t mean natural gas is a climate friendly fuel
The Environmental Defense Fund, partnered with the oil and gas industry, published a paper yesterday that reports the results of direct measurements of methane emissions from 27 natural gas well completions (out of more than 20,000 well completions that occur in any given year).
The EDF report released today is a direct response to the challenge identified by Howarth: we need direct measurements of methane emissions from all natural gas development to make informed decisions about the climate impacts of natural gas. Unfortunately, the EDF report does not get us what we need.
What is most notable about today’s report is that the methane measurements were all made at sites offered by the industry participants – they were not a random sample of typical gas well sites. Participating companies cherry-picked sites for the study, and the scientists went and studied them.
Tagged with: fracking, oil and gas, methane, edf, measurements
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