Download or read book The Fracking Debate written by Daniel Raimi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over roughly the past decade, oil and gas production in the United States has surged dramatically—thanks largely to technological advances such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as “fracking.” This rapid increase has generated widespread debate, with proponents touting economic and energy-security benefits and opponents highlighting the environmental and social risks of increased oil and gas production. Despite the heated debate, neither side has a monopoly on the facts. In this book, Daniel Raimi gives a balanced and accessible view of oil and gas development, clearly and thoroughly explaining the key issues surrounding the shale revolution. The Fracking Debate directly addresses the most common questions and concerns associated with fracking: What is fracking? Does fracking pollute the water supply? Will fracking make the United States energy independent? Does fracking cause earthquakes? How is fracking regulated? Is fracking good for the economy? Coupling a deep understanding of the scholarly research with lessons from his travels to every major U.S. oil- and gas-producing region, Raimi highlights stories of the people and communities affected by the shale revolution, for better and for worse. The Fracking Debate provides the evidence and context that have so frequently been missing from the national discussion of the future of oil and gas production, offering readers the tools to make sense of this critical issue.

Download or read book When Fracking Comes to Town written by Sabina E. Deitrick and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-15 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Fracking Comes to Town traces the response of local communities to the shale gas revolution. Rather than cast communities as powerless to respond to oil and gas companies and their landmen, it shows that communities have adapted their local rules and regulations to meet the novel challenges accompanying unconventional gas extraction through fracking. The multidisciplinary perspectives of this volume's essays tie together insights from planners, legal scholars, political scientists, and economists. What emerges is a more nuanced perspective of shale gas development and its impacts on municipalities and residents. Unlike many political debates that cast fracking in black-and-white terms, this book's contributors embrace the complexity of local responses to fracking. States adapted legal institutions to meet the new challenges posed by this energy extraction process while under-resourced municipal officials and local planning offices found creative ways to alleviate pressure on local infrastructure and reduce harmful effects of fracking on the environment. The essays in When Fracking Comes to Town tell a story of community resilience with the rise and decline of shale gas production. Contributors: Ennio Piano, Ann M. Eisenberg, Pamela A. Mischen, Joseph T. Palka, Jr., Adelyn Hall, Carla Chifos, Teresa Córdova, Rebecca Matsco, Anna C. Osland, Carolyn G. Loh, Gavin Roberts, Sandeep Kumar Rangaraju, Frederick Tannery, Larry McCarthy, Erik R. Pages, Mark C. White, Martin Romitti, Nicholas G. McClure, Ion Simonides, Jeremy G. Weber, Max Harleman, Heidi Gorovitz Robertson

Download or read book Fracking 101 written by Eric George and published by XinXii. This book was released on 2016-04-24 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing to give its proper name, has become part of our lives recently, due to the massive exploitation of America’s shale oil and gas fields. Along the way it has stirred up controversy, with passionate opponents fighting against the oil companies. The fight has generated a lot of heat, but not much understanding. This guide, written by some-one who knows what he is talking about takes a detached, neutral view of the subject. Without pushing a view for or against, it provides the factual background you need to form an opinion of your own. An Informed and Neutral Introduction Like most people I have heard of fracking, but did I really understand what it was? To answer honestly, no. I knew it had something to do with mining and was perhaps destructive to the land. To me, it was just one of those words of the moment. This guide has given me a real sense and understanding of what fracking is. It allowed me, someone who has no experience in this field, to learn about the pros and cons of fracking, without having the good and bad of it forced down my throat. If you want an informed and neutral introduction into fracking, then this is the guide for you. ~ Debbie Prewer

Download or read book A Field Philosopher s Guide to Fracking How One Texas Town Stood Up to Big Oil and Gas written by Adam Briggle and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Writers' League of Texas Book Awards Finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize From the front lines of the fracking debate, a “field philosopher” explores one of our most divisive technologies. When philosophy professor Adam Briggle moved to Denton, Texas, he had never heard of fracking. Only five years later he would successfully lead a citizens' initiative to ban hydraulic fracturing in Denton—the first Texas town to challenge the oil and gas industry. On his journey to learn about fracking and its effects, he leaped from the ivory tower into the fray. In beautifully narrated chapters, Briggle brings us to town hall debates and neighborhood meetings where citizens wrestle with issues few fully understand. Is fracking safe? How does it affect the local economy? Why are bakeries prohibited in neighborhoods while gas wells are permitted next to playgrounds? In his quest for answers Briggle meets people like Cathy McMullen. Her neighbors’ cows asphyxiated after drinking fracking fluids, and her orchard was razed to make way for a pipeline. Cathy did not consent to drilling, but those who profited lived far out of harm’s way. Briggle's first instinct was to think about fracking—deeply. Drawing on philosophers from Socrates to Kant, but also on conversations with engineers, legislators, and industry representatives, he develops a simple theory to evaluate fracking: we should give those at risk to harm a stake in the decisions we make, and we should monitor for and correct any problems that arise. Finding this regulatory process short-circuited, with government and industry alike turning a blind eye to symptoms like earthquakes and nosebleeds, Briggle decides to take action. Though our field philosopher is initially out of his element—joining fierce activists like "Texas Sharon," once called the "worst enemy" of the oil and gas industry—his story culminates in an underdog victory for Denton, now nationally recognized as a beacon for citizens' rights at the epicenter of the fracking revolution.

Download or read book Under the Surface written by Tom Wilber and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the updated paperback edition of Under the Surface, Tom Wilber has written a new chapter and epilogue covering developments since the book's initial publication. Chief among these are the home rule movement and accompanying social and legal events leading up to an unprecedented ban of fracking in New York state, and the outcome of the federal EPA's investigation of water pollution just across the state border in Dimock, Pennsylvania. The industry, with powerful political allies, effectively challenged the federal government’s attempts to intervene in drilling communities in Pennsylvania, Wyoming, and Texas with water problems. But it met its match in a grassroots movement—known as "fractivism"—that sprouted from seeds sown in upstate New York community halls and grew into one of the state’s most influential environmental movements since Love Canal.Wilber weaves a narrative tracing the consequences of shale gas development in northeast Pennsylvania and central New York through the perspective of various stakeholders. Wilber's evenhanded treatment explains how the revolutionary process of fracking has changed both access to our domestic energy reserves and the lives of people living over them.He gives a voice to all constituencies, including farmers and landowners tempted by the prospects of wealth but wary of the consequences; policymakers struggling with divisive issues concerning free enterprise, ecology, and public health; and activists coordinating campaigns based on their respective visions of economic salvation and environmental ruin. Throughout the book, Wilber illustrates otherwise dense policy and legal issues in human terms and shows how ordinary people can affect extraordinary events.

Download or read book Up to Heaven and Down to Hell written by Colin Jerolmack and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-20 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting portrait of a rural Pennsylvania town at the center of the fracking controversy Shale gas extraction—commonly known as fracking—is often portrayed as an energy revolution that will transform the American economy and geopolitics. But in greater Williamsport, Pennsylvania, fracking is personal. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell is a vivid and sometimes heartbreaking account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public's consent. The United States is the only country in the world where property rights commonly extend "up to heaven and down to hell," which means that landowners have the exclusive right to lease their subsurface mineral estates to petroleum companies. Colin Jerolmack spent eight months living with rural communities outside of Williamsport as they confronted the tension between property rights and the commonwealth. In this deeply intimate book, he reveals how the decision to lease brings financial rewards but can also cause irreparable harm to neighbors, to communal resources like air and water, and even to oneself. Up to Heaven and Down to Hell casts America’s ideas about freedom and property rights in a troubling new light, revealing how your personal choices can undermine your neighbors’ liberty, and how the exercise of individual rights can bring unintended environmental consequences for us all.

Download or read book Fracking and the Environment written by Daniel J. Soeder and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-11-11 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a systematic scientific approach to the understanding of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) as a hydrocarbon extraction technology and its impact on the environment. The book addresses research from the past decade to assess how fracking can affect air, water, landscapes and ecosystems, and presents the subject in the context of the history of fracking and shale gas development in the United States, describing what is known and not known about environmental impacts, and the broader implications of fossil energy use, climate change, and technology development. In 9 chapters, the author lays out how and why hydraulic fracturing was developed, what driving forces existed at the beginning of the so-called "shale revolution", how success was achieved, and when and why public acceptance of the technology changed. The intended audience is scientific people who are concerned about fracking, but perhaps do not know all that much about it. It is also intended for lay people who would be interested in understanding the technical details of the process and what effects it might or might not be having on the environment. The book is written at a level that is both understandable and technically correct. A further goal is to give some useful insights even to experienced petroleum geologists and engineers who have been doing fracking for many years.

Download or read book The Green and the Black written by Gary Sernovitz and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gary Sernovitz leads a double life. A typical New York liberal, he is also an oilman - a fact his left-leaning friends let slide until the word "fracking" entered popular parlance. "How can you frack?" they suddenly demanded, aghast. But for Sernovitz, the real question is, "What happens if we don't?" Fracking has become a four-letter word to environmentalists. But most people don't know what it means. In his fast-paced, funny, and lively book, Sernovitz explains the reality of fracking: what it is, how it can be made safer, and how the oil business works. He also tells the bigger story. Fracking was just one part of a shale revolution that shocked our assumptions about fueling America's future. The revolution has transformed the world with consequences for the oil industry, investors, environmentalists, political leaders, and anyone who lives in areas shaped by the shales, uses fossil fuels, or cares about the climate - in short, everyone. Thanks to American engineers' oilfield innovations, the United States is leading the world in reducing carbon emissions, has sparked a potential manufacturing renaissance, and may soon eliminate its dependence on foreign energy. Once again the largest oil and gas producer in the world, America has altered its balance of power with Russia and the Middle East. Yet the shale revolution has also caused local disruptions and pollution. It has prolonged the world's use of fossil fuels. Is there any way to reconcile the costs with the benefits of fracking? To do so, we must start by understanding fracking and the shale revolution in their totality. The Green and the Black bridges the gap in America's energy education. With an insider's firsthand knowledge and unprecedented clarity, Sernovitz introduces readers to the shales - a history-upturning "Internet of oil" - tells the stories of the shale revolution's essential characters, and addresses all the central controversies. To capture the economic, political, and environmental prizes, we need to adopt a balanced, informed perspective. We need to take the green with the black. Where we go from there is up to us.

Download or read book The Politics of Fracking written by Sarmistha R. Majumdar and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-29 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade, the oil and gas industry has garnered a lot of support from the United States federal and state governments in the name of energy independence and economic prosperity. More specifically, hydraulic fracturing or fracking is said to not only make the production of affordable energy possible but also reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by substituting coal with natural gas in the utility sector. Behind the façade of many socio-economic and political benefits, the process of fracking causes serious environmental concerns. Dismissing the negative externalities of fracking simply raises the question, to what extent have communities close to fracking sites been adversely impacted by it? In this book, Sarmistha R. Majumdar studies four communities close to fracking well sites in Texas to help illustrate to what extent fracking regulations have been developed in Texas and how effective these regulations have been in safeguarding the interests of individuals in local communities amidst the lure of economic gains from the extraction of oil and natural gas from shale formations. Majumdar has developed a model to show stage by stage community actions to regain their quality of life and the consequences of their actions, if any, on state and local regulations and ordinances, and the oil and gas industry. This book will be an important resource for scholars of environmental and natural resource politics and policy in the United States.

Download or read book The End of Country written by Seamus McGraw and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A rare, honest, beautiful, and, yes, sometimes heartbreaking examination of the echoes of water-powered natural gas drilling—or fracking—in the human community . . . vivid, personal and emotional.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune Susquehanna County, in the remote northeastern corner of Pennsylvania, is a community of stoic, low-income dairy farmers and homesteaders seeking haven from suburban sprawl—and the site of the Marcellus Shale, a natural gas deposit worth more than one trillion dollars. In The End of Country, journalist and area native Seamus McGraw opens a window on the battle for control of this land, revealing a conflict that pits petrodollar billionaires and the forces of corporate America against a band of locals determined to extract their fair share of the windfall—but not at the cost of their values or their way of life. Rich with a sense of place and populated by unforgettable personalities, McGraw tells a tale of greed, hubris, and envy, but also of hope, family, and the land that binds them all together. “To tell a great story, you need a great story. Seamus McGraw . . . has lived a great story. . . . [He] is just one of its many characters—very real characters—caught up in a very human story in which they must make tough, life-altering decisions for themselves, their community, and ultimately their country.”—Allentown Morning Call “Compelling . . . The End of Country is like a phone call from a close friend or relative living smack-dab in the middle of the Pennsylvania gas rush. . . . Anyone with even a passing interest in the [fracking debate should] read it.”—Harrisburg Patriot-News “This cautionary tale should be required reading for all those tempted by the calling cards of easy money and precarious peace of mind.”—Tom Brokaw “A page-turner . . . McGraw brings us to the front lines of the U.S. energy revolution to deliver an honest and humbling account that could hardly possess greater relevance.”—The Humanist

Download or read book Amity and Prosperity written by Eliza Griswold and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2018-06-12 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction In Amity and Prosperity, the prizewinning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold tells the story of the energy boom’s impact on a small town at the edge of Appalachia and one woman’s transformation from a struggling single parent to an unlikely activist. Stacey Haney is a local nurse working hard to raise two kids and keep up her small farm when the fracking boom comes to her hometown of Amity, Pennsylvania. Intrigued by reports of lucrative natural gas leases in her neighbors’ mailboxes, she strikes a deal with a Texas-based energy company. Soon trucks begin rumbling past her small farm, a fenced-off drill site rises on an adjacent hilltop, and domestic animals and pets start to die. When mysterious sicknesses begin to afflict her children, she appeals to the company for help. Its representatives insist that nothing is wrong. Alarmed by her children’s illnesses, Haney joins with neighbors and a committed husband-and-wife legal team to investigate what’s really in the water and air. Against local opposition, Haney and her allies doggedly pursue their case in court and begin to expose the damage that’s being done to the land her family has lived on for centuries. Soon a community that has long been suspicious of outsiders faces wrenching new questions about who is responsible for their fate, and for redressing it: The faceless corporations that are poisoning the land? The environmentalists who fail to see their economic distress? A federal government that is mandated to protect but fails on the job? Drawing on seven years of immersive reporting, Griswold reveals what happens when an imperiled town faces a crisis of values, and a family wagers everything on an improbable quest for justice.

Download or read book Hydraulic Fracturing written by Michael Berry Smith and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-12-16 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hydraulic Fracturing effectively busts the myths associated with hydraulic fracturing. It explains how to properly engineer and optimize a hydraulically fractured well by selecting the right materials, evaluating the economic benefits of the project, and ensuring the safety and success of the people, environment, and equipment. From data estimation

Download or read book The Fracking War written by Michael J. Fitzgerald and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2014-03-19 with total page 405 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Veteran investigative reporter Jack Stafford leaves California to take a job with a newspaper in Upstate New York, where he discovers a citizen rebellion modeling itself after Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang. In The Fracking War, activists use sabotage to defend against what they perceive as industrial terrorism, perpetrated by multinational corporations' environmentally damaging practice of hydrofracking for natural gas and oil. Set in the pristine Finger Lakes wine country of New York and neighboring Pennsylvania, Stafford and the newspaper staff witness the tragic impacts of hydrofracking--the health risks, water and air pollution, and a rapid increase in crime. The fictional events of The Fracking War were pulled from newspaper headlines offering a glimpse into an escalating conflict between citizens who want to protect their communities and the out-of-control expansion of the natural gas industry's controversial method of extracting natural gas.

Download or read book Bearing Witness written by Thomas A. Kerns and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fracking, the practice of shattering underground rock to release oil and natural gas, is a major driver of climate change. The 300,000 fracking facilities in the US also directly harm the health and livelihoods of people in front-line communities, who are disproportionately poor and people of color. Impacted citizens have for years protested that their rights have been ignored. On May 14, 2018, a respected international human-rights court, the Rome-based Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, began a week-long hearing on the impacts of fracking and climate change on human and Earth rights. In its advisory opinion, the Tribunal ruled that fracking systematically violates substantive and procedural human rights; that governments are complicit in the rights violations; and that to protect human rights and the climate, the practice of fracking should be banned. The case makes history. It revokes the social license of extreme-extraction industries by connecting environmental destruction to human-rights violations. It affirms that climate change, and the extraction techniques that fuel it, directly violate deeply and broadly accepted moral norms encoded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bearing Witness maps a promising new direction in the ongoing struggle to protect the planet from climate chaos. It tells the story of this landmark case through carefully curated court materials, including searing eye-witness testimony, groundbreaking legal testimony, and the Tribunal's advisory opinion. Essays by leading climate writers such as Winona LaDuke, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Sandra Steingraber and legal experts such as John Knox, Mary Wood, and Anna Grear give context to the controversy. Framing essays by the editors, experts on climate ethics and human rights, demonstrate that a human-rights focus is a powerful, transformative new tool to address the climate crisis.

Download or read book Fracking Pennsylvania written by Walter Brasch and published by Greeley & Stone, Publishers. This book was released on 2014-02 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: --70% more content than first edition --updated t0 2014 --30 photos and graphics In his most powerful investigation to date, award-winning journalist Walter M. Brasch digs into the natural gas industry and extracts the truth about fracking. This is the long-awaited second edition to the critically-acclaimed first edition that explored all aspects of the controversies surrounding fracking. Hydraulic horizontal fracturing, better known as fracking, is the process of injecting as much as seven million gallons of water, proppants (like silica sand), and toxins into the earth to fracture the shale and extract methane. Politicians want natural gas drillers to come into their states, primarily because of the numbers of well-paying jobs the industry creates, the overall economic benefits, and the lower costs of natural gas to the consumer. Dr. Brasch investigates those claims, and provides an extensive look at the money trail between the industry and the politicians' campaign receipts. Combining both scientific evidence and extensive interviews with those affected by fracking throughout the country, he concludes that errors made by the natural gas industry as well as the process itself have caused significant public health and the environmental problems that also affect agriculture, wildlife, and livestock.

Download or read book Saudi America written by Bethany McLean and published by Trustees of Columbia Univ - City of New York. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Argues that obtaining energy through the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is based on unstable economic foundations, and is having much more destructive effects on the economy and the government of the United States than its advocates claim"--

Download or read book Cranial Fracking written by Ian Frazier and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dispatches from the front lines of American culture by the great humorist Ian Frazier, “America’s greatest essayist” (Los Angeles Times), has gathered his insights on the most urgent issues of today in Cranial Fracking. From climate change (what did Al Gore say at his colloquium on the rising temperatures in Hell?) to the state of culture (what do you do when you’re afflicted with Loss of Funding?) to Texas (what should we do with Texas?), he has all the answers. Or, at the very least, a lot of questions. Frazier is endlessly curious and perpetually delighted, and seeing the absurdity of the world through his eyes is irresistible. Once more, the author of Hogs Wild and Travels in Siberia has struck oil.