As a Fortune 500 company's fracking activities in rural West Virginia leave a polluted and drastically altered landscape, locals are fighting back.

"To bring natural gas from the Marcellus Shale to the earth’s surface, an army of trucks and machinery is needed. First, seismic testing locates the sought-after gas deposits. The pad site is then prepared—trees are cleared, the ground is leveled and a cement slab poured—to hold the derrick, trucks and other equipment. Then the well is drilled thousands of feet down. (The Shale runs about a mile below the earth’s surface.) Next, steel piping is run to the end of the well and reinforced on the outside with freshly poured concrete. Finally, the well is fracked—pumped at high pressure with water, sand, and chemicals—to fracture the underground rock and release the gas."

Read more: http://www.guernicamag.com/features/3320/kramer_12_15_11/

in Shale gas Natural Gas and Cleantech

Hydro-fracking is a controversial mining practice that some scientists say contaminates groundwater.

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An interesting article on Shale Gas from Nathan Myhrvold, the former chief strategist and chief technology officer at Microsoft Corp. and the founder and chief executive officer of Intellectual Ventures - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-26/the-energy-revolution-that-keeps-carbon-on-top-nathan-myhrvold.html

in Shale gas

GE's Mark Vachon: "Gas Is Massive"

How's GE's ecomagination going?

Mark Vachon, who is vice president for ecomagination at GE. He replied by talking about natural gas.

"The large macro trend of gas is massive," he said. "Our oil and gas business will be a huge beneficiary."

An abundance of shale gas in the U.S., and methane gas reserves in Australia present a wealth of opportunities for GE, which plays all along the supply chain for natural gas.

http://theenergycollective.com/marcgunther/61143/ge-s-mark-vachon-gas-massive

in Shale gas

Shale Gas Boom Could Go Global - http://blogs.forbes.com/energysource/2011/06/27/new-eia-report-says-shale-gas-boom-could-go-global/ - even for India, which has a proven resources of 39 tcf - we use only about 1 tcf per year...

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Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming hold oil shale reserves estimated to contain 1.2 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, half of which could be recoverable

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"The literature [about oil shale] would have you believe oil from this rock was coming tomorrow, except the papers were dated 1910!"

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There's an estimated 2.6 trillion barrels of oil shale reserves scattered across the globe - the world consumes about 30 billion barrels per year, so that's about 90 years worth of oil at current levels of consumption

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Oddly enough, oil shale is neither oil nor shale; it's an immature source-rock which hasn't generated any oil. It seems more akin to coal or peat. The rock does contain a large amount of kerogen, from which hydrocarbons can be extracted.

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