Contributors

Friday, March 09, 2012

Energy Notes

An article published in today's Minneapolis paper illustrates the point I made yesterday about the Keystone XL pipeline:
As gasoline prices soar on the coasts, less expensive crude oil from Canada and North Dakota is easing the pain for Minnesotans. 
The average pump price in the state, running this week around $3.60 per gallon for regular, remains 75 cents behind California, where gas has been over $4 for weeks. It's the biggest price gap between the two states since 2009, according to data from AAA.
Once the pipeline is in, that Canadian oil will head to the Gulf of Mexico and from there to Asia. Which means that the people in the Midwest who have the pipeline running through their land—which will inevitably leak and foul their land and water—will get the "benefit" of paying higher gas prices.

In other energy news investigators in Ohio have determined that recent earthquakes there were in fact caused by injecting wastewater from fracking (hydraulic fracturing) into the ground. As the article notes, it's long been known that humans can cause earthquakes:
They point to recent earthquakes in the magnitude 3 and 4 range — not big enough to cause much damage, but big enough to be felt — in Arkansas, Texas, California, England, Germany and Switzerland. And in the 1960s, two Denver quakes in the 5.0 range were traced to deep injection of wastewater.
Which isn't to say that we should stop all fracking. We just need to do it better. In particular, wastewater injection should be banned. Instead, the water should be decontaminated and returned to the environment safely. Yes, that'll make the gas more expensive. But shouldn't the people who make a mess be required to clean it up? Drillers should not be allowed to pass the problem on to others in the form of earthquake damage and poisons in lakes, streams and water tables that cause death and disease in humans and animals alike.

3 comments:

juris imprudent said...

"I'm going to keep doing everything I can to help you save money on gas, both right now and in the future," Obama said. "I hope politicians from both sides of the aisle join me."

So is Obama a liar playing the public for fools, or is he is really that big of an idiot?

Mark Ward said...

Not sure where you are going with this one, juris, but I would agree that the president is fairly helpless with gas prices. Even if we drill more here, the oil companies will still sell their oil to other countries and the prices here will remain the same.

juris imprudent said...

Not sure where you are going with this one

Oh poor M, I'm not conforming to the little slot in his head that I'm supposed to fit into. Couldn't reference a right talking point I'm regurgitating?

It wasn't that tough a question - myself I lean to the former.