"Mass. gets boost from shale boom; Demand rises for local expertise; firms also save on energy" by Erin Ailworth | Globe Staff, May 23, 2012
SUNBURY, Pa. - Clean Harbors Inc. senior vice president Scott Metzger pulled into the dirt lot of a once-abandoned factory yard here, past gleaming trucks painted with the Norwell, Mass., company’s signature red, and opened the door to the environmental services firm’s newest offices.
It is the third property Clean Harbors has opened or acquired in Pennsylvania in the past year, as the company rides the drilling boom that is unlocking natural gas and oil from shale deposits and increasing demand for its know-how in avoiding, reducing, and cleaning up environmental damage. Last year, work for the shale industry generated 25 percent of Clean Harbors’ $2 billion in revenues, and that number is only expected to grow.
“We just see a tremendous market that needs all of the services we
provide,’’ said chief executive Alan McKim, who estimated his company’s
shale-related business is growing about 25 percent a year. “In the US,
there’s huge potential.’’
But as Clean Harbors also shows, booming gas production is providing a market for one of the state’s main exports: expertise. Consulting, financial services, and even technology firms are finding new customers in the shale industry....
The boom began in earnest when gas producers began using a horizontal drilling technique combined with a controversial process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to get at large quantities of gas trapped in the shale formations. The practice has spurred fears that chemicals and other substances could leak during the drilling process, polluting the air and water....
Hey, don't let the water that burns(?) bother you.
And let us not even talk about what water will do to the fissures and fractures of fault lines in rock.
Such benefits don’t come without risks, however. Extracting gas from shale involves pumping thousands of gallons of chemical-laced water and sand into the shale, creating fissures that release natural gas into the well. Environmentalists, local officials, and nearby residents have worried that this drilling method and poorly built wells could pollute ground water and air.
Yes, the issue is mentioned, but for the most part the agenda-pushing front-page article (same with nuclear power) is coming at you from the moneyed point-of-view.
John Deutch, an MIT professor who chaired a panel established by the Obama administration to find ways to reduce the environmental impact of shale gas drilling, said such concerns can’t be ignored if the nation wants to benefit from the energy supply over the long term.
The ex-CIA director Deutch!
“More should be done in a concrete way to address water and the community impacts,’’ Deutch said. “Otherwise there’s a possibility that the public - and here I mean all sides of the public - will reach the conclusion that the environmental costs are too onerous, and it will threaten this great boom that we have.’’
Clean Harbors makes its money by helping natural gas producers limit their impact on the environment, and cleaning up the problems that do occur.
Yeah, it's all good, even the pollution.
Today, more than two dozen workers bustle around Clean Harbors’ new offices and warehouse in Sunbury, where work trucks and trailers loaded with shovels, generators, containment booms, and other equipment stand ready to go to any one of Pennsylvania’s numerous drilling sites....
I was wondering why that bulldozer ended up in Pennsylvania.
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Related:
"Natural gas drilling project in Utah OK’d" Associated Press, May 09, 2012
SALT LAKE CITY - Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Tuesday the approval of a major natural gas drilling project in Utah that the Obama administration says will support more than 4,000 jobs during its development while safeguarding critical wildlife habitat and air quality....
The move comes at a time when the Obama administration is under fire from critics who say his energy plan falls short and is hurting job growth and the economy with undue opposition to new drilling. The administration says the attacks are political rhetoric....
Maybe we could all sit down, drink some water, and talk. Anybody got a match?
The project is in an area where state and federal scientists are studying elevated wintertime air pollution, which has at times increased ozone levels to nearly double the limit considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. It remains unclear how much emissions from drilling in the region are to blame for the bad air and how much of the pollution is caused by topography and weather....
Oh, now they don't know what the cause of the pollution is when it comes to gas wells but they are damn sure you are causing the alleged global warming, human.
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Related: 4 die in Utah as small plane crashes
"Medical group to study fracking risks" May 01, 2012|Globe Staff, Bloomberg News
Translation: Cover-up being initiated to claim whatever your health and environmental problems they absolutely cannot be blamed on $hale.
WASHINGTON - The Institute of Medicine, which advises the United States government on health issues, will examine whether the process of hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from rock “poses potential health challenges,’’ an official of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
Health concerns related to fracking, in which millions of gallons of chemically treated water are forced underground to break up rock and free gas, include the potential for water contamination and air pollution....
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Related: Vermont bans fracking, just in case
Also see: I'm Not Gonna Hit Ya', Pilgrim
I'm gonna hug Vermonters!
