Is the harvesting and use of natural gas (like we do with oil) inevitable?

That does not change the fact that Yellowstone is an active volcanic area with the potential (due to the extremely high viscosity and therefore gas retention) of its magma to explode with more force than any other volcanic eruption in human history. The volume of debris it would inject into the atmosphere would blacken the sky for many years, making agriculture impossible, and if it did not wipe out the human race, would certainly put an end to our industrial economy and starve a very large percentage of the world's population. It would be akin to a nuclear war without the radiation.

 

Well, there IS an upside ... with all those VOC's in everyone's wells, think of all the money they'll save on heating and transportation fuel:

On a serious note, in our 1st Montana home (see the affected map area) we were out in the boonies, and thus on a well. There WAS a major smell of funk, off and on. Makes me glad we sold the place, and moved into town on city water. Hey - we're running out of energy. It won't surprise me if we revert back to a lot more of the dirty ways we used to do things. I mean what's the difference if we import fuel that was created toxicly elsewhere, or whether we DON'T off-shore our dirty fuel excavations ... and in stead, jeopardize the locals, instead of the foreigners? Someone evidently has to pay the price for our energy gluttony.

There you go. Never mind the sea lanes. Never mind the giant dead zones with floating trash. Never mind fishing fleets. Never mind.

 

Sadly, you can take that both in a metaphoric and literal sense.

 

You are not taking into account the resistive losses from transporting electricity long distances.

And while you may like birds better than fishes, nearly all our oxygen comes from phytoplankton. Stop the sun from getting to them and we will all suffocate.

But it's a moot point, because we don't have enough money to make that many solar panels, and we don't need that many. Just cover all our roofs and we'll have all we can use.

 

As someone deeply involved in preventing the irreversible environmental degradation attendant to the type of gas drilling Josh Fox documented in GasLand (high volume hydraulic fracturing), I urge people in the shale states (much of the continental US) to press Congress for passage of the "FRAC Act" which would restore EPA oversight to gas drilling. The 2005 Energy Act, strongly supported by the Bush Administration (read: Cheney), took energy extraction out of the purview of the Federal Government. The states' regulations and enforcement agencies are ill-equipped to keep the gas companies in line. Our website is Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy.

 

I must admit that I hadn't seen GasLand until just 2 nights ago. HBO rant it via our local cable company. I knew all the material already, but watching it was still worse. Mankind ... it really knows how to turn a profit no matter what the (extraordinarily high) cost is.

But it gets better. The Fracking industry ran a "We're not so bad" add, countering GasLand the documentary. It's like watching a Prius commercial! Forget that Fracking is deadly ... all they'll show you is sunshine and Children ... healthy happy people dancing and smiling:

Hell - from the Fracker's spin, I'll be shocked if Fracking isn't discovered to be the next cancer cure. I wonder how much Colorado had to pay to have that advertising piece put together. Maybe if someone required the Colorado legislators to regularly drink a big ol' glass of brownish-yellow water from one of their constituent's wells (since the legislators keep claiming it to be safe), in order to vote Fracking in on any given land parcel - then perhaps they wouldn't need to pay for "We're not so bad" advertising.

.

 

2011 was an absolutely terrible year for nuclear power. Japan put 10 GW of nuke power in a tsunami zone. In USA, we had one nuke plant almost flooded out, another one almost burned out in a massive forest fire, and another one damaged in the Virginia earthquake. Government/management said these were impossible scenarios; they were not.

I personally favor the SMR approach (small modular nuke reactors) as the next step in the right direction. But obviously nuke power is not going to be the short-term bridge to clean energy many had hoped for going into 2011. So that probably leaves nat gas as the cleanest bridge to the future.

I of course strongly favor environmental stewardship in going after nat gas resources, failure to do so could put nat gas in the similar position nuke power finds itself in (back to the drawing board).

Meanwhile, I am reminded of a classic Steve Martin quote: "Comedy is NOT Pretty!!". Providing energy to 7 billion people may not be pretty all the time no matter what we do.

 

And don't forget,, the price of installed PV solar is lower than ever, even as connected wattage continues to increase. Installed PV is now competitive with conventional grid power even if you don't include the not paid for environmental cost(s). At peak times, it is even cheaper!

What is not to like?

Icarus

 

if they only had the same level of concern in regard to coal and the chemical plants.

 

People don't want those in their backyard, either. (And for good reason!)

 

Not with the same level of paranoia though

 

There is a fine line between paranoia and reality.

 

...now you're getting into perception of risk and risk communication.
People will inherently be outraged about infinitessimal small teeny tiny risk if they do not profit from it or control it, and people will be accepting of risk if they do profit from it (eg; host community $$ benefit for coal plant or trash dumps in VA), or if they control it (smoking, driving).

 

yeap; remember swine flu?

I would argue that long term exposure to common household chemicals imposes more risks then unlikely nuclear fallout.

 

Gas, oil, and coal all have such excellent energy density that we're going to dig up and burn every ounce we can get to. It's an economic reality. The best we can realistically do is stretch out the supplies long enough that renewable replacements will be ready to pick up the slack.