Shale Gas Bubble About to Burst?

[Christ]

Neil - He's saying that if you look at parts of nature without looking at the entire ecosystem around it, there is waste. Carnivorous animals don't use every part of their kills, for instance. Something else comes in and eats what's left.

I'm still wondering why more people aren't growing their own food. Almost everyone has some kind of decorative plants that require nearly constant maintenance... most veggies would rather remain undisturbed to grow on their own.

I'm also wondering just how possible it is to get "legacy" seeds anymore... It's not like there's a veggie out there that hasn't been modified in some way.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Nature doesn't have any waste. Neither should we.

I'm sorry I can't provide a reference, but I read (some years ago) about a organic farm on the East coast. They sold to upscale downtown restaurants and in the space of a two-car garage they had a chicken coop over a pig pen. The pigs ate the chicken poop. They were pulling $x0,000 a year out of 400 sq ft.

Originally Posted by Christ

I'm also wondering just how possible it is to get "legacy" seeds anymore... It's not like there's a veggie out there that hasn't been modified in some way.

The same 1% that won't allow GMO labeling in the food supply is creating bomb-proof crypts in the most inaccessible places and filling them with seed banks.

So after *your* gone they can come out and party like it's 1999.

[suspectnumber961]

It is the fault of companies like Monsanto for using strong-arm tactics and some of the absurd legal moves they make...like suing farmers because their GM crops drift onto the farmers land.

Because the current WH guy SAID he wanted GMOs labeled...then hired a bunch of Monsanto people into his admin.

Most larger countries require the labeling of GM foods...except for Canada and the US?

I'm not BLANKET against GM mods...just the lack of REQUIRED research into their safety BEFORE they are put on the market.

The 'Monsanto Rider': Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?

A so-called "Monsanto rider," quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require - not just allow, but require - the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation's food supply.

I think Monsanto's plan might be to put so many GM mods into the genome environment where they cannot be retrieved to make ORGANIC a moot point.

Poison the planet for profit?

Originally Posted by niky

Again, it saddens me that all GMOs are tarred by the sme brush based simply on the purported unethical practices of one company.

I live near the International Rice Research Institute. A non-proft dedicated to improving rice breeds in terms of yield, hardiness and Hybrid vigor. And they do use genetic modification in their research.

And not to develop pesticide dependent rice.

Yet their efforts have been frustrated by the furore and hysteria surrounding anything with the "GMO" tag. It's like being the one Afghani kid in an American public school after 9/11.

To say that genetic modification per se is bad is like saying that since antibiotics (again) are used in commercial farming, that all instances of antibiotics are bad.

[suspectnumber961]

Fracking Our Food Supply | The Nation


Tonight’s guests have heard about residential drinking wells tainted by fracking fluids in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Colorado. They’ve read about lingering rashes, nosebleeds and respiratory trauma in oil-patch communities, which are mostly rural, undeveloped, and lacking in political influence and economic prospects. The trout nibblers in the winery sympathize with the suffering of those communities. But their main concern tonight is a more insidious matter: the potential for drilling and fracking operations to contaminate our food. The early evidence from heavily fracked regions, especially from ranchers, is not reassuring.

Jacki Schilke and her sixty cattle live in the top left corner of North Dakota, a windswept, golden-hued landscape in the heart of the Bakken Shale. Schilke’s neighbors love her black Angus beef, but she’s no longer sharing or eating it—not since fracking began on thirty-two oil and gas wells within three miles of her 160-acre ranch and five of her cows dropped dead. Schilke herself is in poor health. A handsome 53-year-old with a faded blond ponytail and direct blue eyes, she often feels lightheaded when she ventures outside. She limps and has chronic pain in her lungs, as well as rashes that have lingered for a year. Once, a visit to the barn ended with respiratory distress and a trip to the emergency room. Schilke also has back pain linked with overworked kidneys, and on some mornings she urinates a stream of blood.

Ambient air testing by a certified environmental consultant detected elevated levels of benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene and xylene—compounds associated with drilling and fracking, and also with cancers, birth defects and organ damage. Her well tested high for sulfates, chromium, chloride and strontium; her blood tested positive for acetone, plus the heavy metals arsenic (linked with skin lesions, cancers and cardiovascular disease) and germanium (linked with muscle weakness and skin rashes). Both she and her husband, who works in oilfield services, have recently lost crowns and fillings from their teeth; tooth loss is associated with radiation poisoning and high selenium levels, also found in the Schilkes’ water.

[Joeggernaut]

It is sad they are ruining the environment for the sake of some gas and instant gratification. In North Carolina, there is a big push for fracking. The masses seem to oppose it here due to stories like this while a select few are for it because their pockets will be lined by the gas companies when they lease/sell their land. The gov't never thinks of about long-term costs and is always about the now.

A better solution:
Why don't they just hook up methane tanks to every toilet in american houses and capture that gas instead. I am sure what would create a much larger volume of gas than any land could hold. Then everyone is "recycling".

[niky]

Methane generation works best in medium to large scale, though they do it on the backyard scale out here in the third world.

Transport of the product has typically been a problem. To get good energy density, you have to compress it.

Not hard to do, all you need is a few drums and the proper hoses and fittings.

[freebeard]

Possibly the best use of wind power is to compress air; but it would compress methane just as well.

[drainoil]

Back to the original poster, is the info in this link false info/speculation?

How Surging Shale Production Could Bring Oil Prices Down To $50 Per Barrel - Business Insider

[niky]

I dunno. i've heard that break-even for existing facilities is $60, but industry people are saying optimum ROI for new facilities is at $80-85 per barrel. Current prices just about support new wells, $50 will not.

Wind compressing methane... More attractive than burning methane to generate electricity just to compress itself.