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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

David Olive: Natural gas “fracking” carries unexamined risks (in the Toronto Star)- thestar.com

"New York City’s unfiltered water system is unique only in being the largest among the countless unfiltered municipal fresh-water supply systems on the continent. Which could be big trouble if critics of fracking — effectively mini-earthquakes, as veteran environmental reporter and author Andrew Nikiforuk accurately labels the brutal process — are vindicated in their fears. Chief among those is contamination of water tables from migration of the toxic brew of chemicals that gas producers force into the ground along with tremendous amounts of water and sand to force the natural gas to the surface. ...

"While natural gas emits half the greenhouse-gas emissions of oil, a study to be published this week suggests shale-rock gas may be worse for the planet than burning coal. The problem is that huge quantities of planet-warming methane escape into the atmosphere from shale gas wells, according to research by a team led by Robert Howarth, a professor of ecology and environmental geology at Cornell University. The study was reported on yesterday by The New York Times."

Full article: Olive: Natural gas “fracking” carries unexamined risks.

And here is one of Tyler Hamilton's consistently well-written articles on the same subject: Industry transparency needed on shale gas emissions.

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