Fracking fueling U.S. economic growth - CNN.com Video. Fracking hits home in Nevada. More than 2 miles beneath the surface of Nevada's high desert, they're cracking open rocks in search of oily wealth. Fracking, it's called. And in Nevada, it's new. In a state world-famous as a gold producer, Houston-based Noble Energy Inc. is looking deep underground to make big bucks from previously untappable oil deposits, spending up to $130 million to identify the possible rewards.
The venture is still in its early stages, with company representatives saying they have yet to assess the true potential, but word is out it could be significant. So is concern by critics. Some insist state officials currently crafting new regulations to guide activities are overly influenced by the very industry they're tasked with regulating. Even the oil company's representatives acknowledge they're breaking new ground. "What's unique about Nevada is it really is a frontier area," said Kevin Vorhaben, Rockies business unit manager for Noble Energy. 'Checkerboard' of land targeted "It went great. Inside. Quakes Not Problem for Fracking, Professor Says | 2014-04-17 | Natural Gas Intelligence.
Considering the amount of fracking going on in the United States, any coincident increase in related seismic activity is relatively small, an engineering professor and fracking entrepreneur told an audience at the Conference of Western Attorneys General's Colorado Energy Summit on Wednesday. While it has been documented in other parts of the world as well as in the United States that quakes have been associated with oil/gas production, William Fleckenstein, head of petroleum engineering at the Colorado School of the Mines, said the U.S. association of quakes with oil/gas work has not been with fracking, per se, but rather with fracking water disposal wells.
Fracking and the disposal of the fracking water "are two different things," Fleckenstein told Summit attendees in Denver. "But the news media picks up on the seismicity and says it has to be caused by fracking, and therefore, that is what a lot of people believe. " Does fracking cause quakes? California needs to know. Many concerns have been raised about hydraulic fracturing — also known as fracking — but the one scientists know the least about is the potential for earthquakes. Until recently, evidence linking earthquakes to fracking — the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals into rock to release the oil or gas locked within — has pointed to post-drilling operations as the culprit. In other words, the problem didn't seem to be the original fracking but the re-injection of wastewater into wells. That suggested that if a safer disposal method could be found for the wastewater, perhaps the risk could be avoided. New events, though, indicate that the fracking process itself might also cause seismic instability.
The earthquakes that are possibly connected to both fracking and re-injection have been small, to be sure. A bill that passed the state Senate's Natural Resources and Water Committee last week would take care of that hole in the state's fracking policy. Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times. Why Are Fracking Hopefuls Suing a County in New Mexico. Los Hueros historic common lands of Mora County, New Mexico. (Kathleen Dudley) Colonization is not a foreign concept in Mora County, New Mexico. First it was the Spaniards, in 1598, then Mexico in 1821 and finally, after the Battle of Mora in 1847, the United States laid claim. Now the fossil fuel industry wants a turn. But Mora’s people won’t have it. Last spring Mora became the first county in the United States to strip the legal personhood of corporations involved in hydrocarbon extraction.
In two federal court cases that are the first of their kind, hydrofracking hopefuls are suing Mora for passing the ordinance. The community’s support for the ordinance has deep roots. “It is our feeling that we also have rights, we have community rights, to govern how we live our lives here,” says Jacobo Pacheco, an heir of the Mora Land Grant. But the law is not on their side. County Chairman John Olivas agrees. And Mora is far from alone. Critics say the ordinances won’t hold up in court.
Major oil and gas firm to list fracking chemicals. Fracking near the Texas border has northern Mexico trembling. (David McNew/Getty Images) MEXICO CITY — Tremors that shook the small town of Ramones in northeast Mexico in October were a nasty surprise to residents, including many sorghum and cattle farmers, because the area of the country had little history of earthquakes. But they weren’t a freak occurrence. The vibrations grew more frequent into this spring, cracking the walls of some of the cinder block farmhouses. Between January and mid-April, there were a record 48 tremors across the state of Nuevo Leon, where Ramones is, compared with two in the same period last year, according to Mexico’s National Seismological Service.
When local geologists mapped the tremors and looked for causes, they quickly pointed to one of Mexico’s pioneer shale gas wells right next to the town. “The one thing that has changed is the introduction of fracking,” said Ruperto De La Garza, director of the environmental impact consultancy Gestoria Ambiental y de Riesgos. As legislators called for answers, Nuevo Leon Gov. Idaho Residents Protest Auction of Public Lands for Oil and Gas Drilling. Yesterday, prior to the Idaho Oil and Gas Commission auctioning of mineral rights for 17,700 acres of state endowment land, a small but lively group of residents protested the sale, which saw every tract awarded to Alta Mesa Idaho for $1,148,435 in “bonus bids.” For an hour they sang the climate activism song “Do it Now,” and carried signs calling for more public input on how state lands are put up for auction without warning about the health and environmental consequences that come with development.
The protest was organized by Wild Idaho Rising Tide and Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction (IRAGE). The Muse Project was also represented, and though the protesters may not have belonged to any one group they were all linked by a common concern over Idaho’s future and what hazards oil and gas extraction activities may bring. Chris Wylie, of Boise, protested the sale in concern over what gas drilling will do to water supplies. He has reason to be concerned.