Fracking : Galactica Cuss Or Gas Production Technique

Besides books with their corners cut off, one of the artifacts of the transcendentally excellent remake of Battlestar Galactica is the word "frack" that turned the air blue in the pilot's ready room. Cursing without cursing is a finely developed art on television series. Underneath counties in North Texas, centered roughly at Fort Worth is the Barnett Shale, a hydrocarbon rich stratified rock that was a source of some of the Texas oil that won World War II. The oil is mostly gone, burned up in Sherman tanks, freight convoys through the battle of the Atlantic and early drag racing. The oil boys always knew there was lots of natural gas in the rock, but the technology and expense blocked development of the resource. No Longer. Gas prices are not at a historical high, but they are way up on the shoulder and the process called Fracking provides the technology. It's no secret that there are concerns about the process of pumping water and other chemicals at high pressure into slant wells to break or "frack(ture)" the resource laden stone.

The Environmental Protection Agency is starting investigations into the effect that fracking has on the aquifer. Burning water from the faucet makes an impressive show for the evening news, but it's those undisclosed chemicals added to the fracking water that cause concern. Therein lies the future fight. The gas & oil business has little patience for meddling feds. The Texas State regulators are slathering, peeing poodles for the Ahl Bidness, and are as likely to investigate the possible poisoning of rural families by fracking as I am to start laying solid gold eggs. The reach of Texas politics doesn't quite control the EPA (yet) so the EPA will slowly get up to some actual research. This finding will be one of the most important ever made by any federal agency. Trillions of dollars are in play by some very wealthy individuals and corporations. Affordable, if CO2 producing, energy versus clean water make the decision an existential decision for all of us. Fracking may meet a century of energy needs from the East coast to the Rockies. There may even be natural gas under thousands of feet of lava here in Washington State.

The oil companies will be pouring however much money is needed to win the next presidential election, along with his (Her) right to name the EPA's next administrator. It'll be a great time to own a TV station.