Campaigners protested in London against fracking, a controversial practice of shale gas extraction, amid reports that the UK is to lift the temporary ban on the method. Critics cite the environmental risks the practice poses, including earthquakes.
About 300 demonstrators turned out for a national day of action after a report from The Independent warned that the government had nearly two-thirds of British countryside marked for potential shale gas drilling sites that were now under active consideration for fracking.

However, evidence reveals that an unidentified chemical used in fracking in the United States has been linked to kidney and liver damage. Environmental officials in Pennsylvania have come under fire for their tests on drinking water from a well near a natural gas drilling site. Toluene, benzene and arsenic have been found in the bodies of nearby residents.
The practice has also been linked to earthquakes in the US, witnessed in states such as California, Ohio, and Arkansas.

UK is estimated to sit on 1.5 trillion pounds (US$2.4 trillion) of shale gas reserves, Telegraph reported. Some of the rich shale gas areas include the Weald area in Sussex and Hampshire, and from Cambridge through Oxford and down to Bath.

Nov 30 2012
At the eight-acre, Bayou Corne sinkhole in Assumption Parish, owners of slab houses are waiting for methane-gas monitors to be installed in December. The sinkhole deepened in November and coughed up debris and hydrcarbons late in the month. Cypress trees fell into the gap. Residents are watching natural gas being flared from the site and are ventilating homes while bayous around them bubble.

Over 200 people, who were evacuated or voluntarily left 110 homes since August, are staying away. They felt tremors last summer when the sinkhole formed after an underground cavern wall was breached. The hole on the western edge of the Napoleonville Salt Dome, contains salt water and crude oil, and is on swampland leased by Texas Brine in Houston from Occidental Chemical Corp.
huffington post

The word I’m getting from on the ground is there has been testing for radioactivity but the results have not yet been released. The residents no longer trust anyone in authority so they are doing their own testing. It makes us wonder what else “they” are not sharing.

Texas Brine was using the cavern for drilling waste so fracking is a factor whether the frackers like it or not. With no fracking there would be no fracking waste.

The state knew radioactivity was a problem but did not warn the residents.

Along with a massive sinkhole, anger is growing in Assumption Parish, La. as details emerge that state and corporate officials knew for over a year about the potential for structural failure at a salt mine used to store oil and gas drilling waste but failed to alert local residents.
What They are Not Telling Us

A horrible scenario is shaping up in the Gulf of Mexico, which could easily allow a chain of events to unfold, which may quickly become an extinction level disaster. This article will attempt to explain and link together all the aspects and events that have led up to this point. The subjects involved are numerous, including the usage of Hydraulic Fracturing, and where it’s gases are stored once recovered, and it’s connection to the Louisiana sinkhole; how the ‘fracking” is de-stabilizing the North American craton plate, and how all of it is connected to the recent BP Gulf Oil Spill.
LA sinkhole wordpress

I read somewhere today that the ers behind this fracking shite are threatening to pull out of Britain altogether if the ban isn't lifted very soon. Flexing the corporate muscle. There's a surprise. I've no doubt whatsoever that in the absence of massive public pressure, they will get their way. So.....

All this pillage, rape, and plunder of not just countries, but the planet is wierd.

For years they have exploited the poor and the ignorant, to make profit.

Are things so bad now that they have to start destroying their own back yard, for more profit ?

So when the planet gives up where they gonna live ?

WSU researchers use 3-D printer to make parts from moon rock
by Staff Writers
Pullman WA (SPX) Dec 03, 2012


File image.

Imagine landing on the moon or Mars, putting rocks through a 3-D printer and making something useful - like a needed wrench or replacement part. "It sounds like science fiction, but now it's really possible," says Amit Bandyopadhyay, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering at Washington State University.

Bandyopadhyay and a group of colleagues recently published a paper in Rapid Prototyping Journal demonstrating how to print parts using materials from the moon.

Bandyopadhyay and Susmita Bose, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, are well known researchers in the area of three-dimensional printing, creating bone-like materials for orthopedic implants.

In 2010, researchers from NASA initiated discussion with Bandyopadhyay, asking if their research team might be able to print 3-D objects from moon rock. Because of the tremendous expense of space travel, researchers strive to limit what space ships have to carry. Establishment of a lunar or Martian outpost would require using the materials that are on hand for construction or repairs. That's where the 3-D fabrication technology might come in.

Three-dimensional fabrication technology, also known as additive manufacturing, allows researchers to produce complex three dimensional objects directly from computer-aided design (CAD) models, printing the material layer by layer. In this case, the material is heated using a laser to high temperatures and prints out like melting candle wax to a desired shape.

To test the idea, NASA researchers provided Bandyopadhyay and Bose with 10 pounds of raw lunar regolith simulant, an imitation moon rock that is used for research purposes.

The WSU researchers were concerned about how the moon rock material, which is made of silicon, aluminum, calcium, iron and magnesium oxides, would melt, but they found it behaved similarly to silica. And, they built a few simple shapes.

The researchers are the first to demonstrate the ability to fabricate parts using the moon-like material. They sent their pieces to NASA.

"It doesn't look fantastic, but you can make something out of it," says Bandyopadhyay.

Using additive manufacturing, the material could also be tailored, the researchers say. If you want a stronger building material, for instance, you could perhaps use some moon rock with earth-based additives.

"The advantage of additive manufacturing is that you can control the composition as well as the geometry," says Bose. In the future, the researchers hope to show that the lunar material could be used to do remote repairs.

"It is an exciting science fiction story, but maybe we'll hear about it in the next few years," says Bandyopadhyay. "As long as you can have additive manufacturing set up, you may be able to scoop up and print whatever you want. It's not that far-fetched."

As part of today’s Autumn Statement, George Osborne is expected to approve the building of 30 gas-fired power stations, simplify the regulatory process for fracking and provide tax breaks for shale gas production in Lancashire as early as next year. This is good news for Lancashire, for the British economy, for manufacturing firms and for the global environment. To do anything else would risk economic self-harm.

As recently as 10 years ago, there was a consensus that gas was going to run out in a few decades and grow ever more expensive in the meantime. Such pessimism is now a distant memory everywhere, except perhaps in the forecasting models of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Gas, the most abundant fossil fuel, is going to last at least a century, probably much longer.

Cheap energy is the surest way to encourage economic growth. It was cheap coal that fuelled the Industrial Revolution, enabling British workers with steam-driven machinery to be far more productive than their competitors in Asia and Europe in the 19th century. The discovery, 12 years ago, of how to use pressurised water (with less than 1 per cent kitchen-sink chemicals added), instead of exotic guar gel made from Indian beans, to crack shale and release gas has now unleashed an energy revolution almost as far-reaching as the harnessing of Newcastle’s coal.

Thanks to the shale gas revolution, the price of natural gas in the US is now one third of the price in Britain. This explains why America’s chemical companies and manufacturing firms are busy “reshoring” their operations from Europe and Asia to states like Pennsylvania, where energy is dirt cheap. America’s energy cost advantage now beats China’s labour cost advantage. In other words, if we do not treat the shale gas revolution as a huge opportunity for Britain, then it will become a dire threat to our economy: if we do not dash for cheap gas, we will lose much of what’s left of our manufacturing to countries that do.

Fortunately, the Bowland shale under Blackpool looks to be every bit as gas-rich as the best shales in North America, but even thicker. Nobody knows how much gas will be recoverable, but if it is anything like the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania, the impact on the North West’s economy will be huge. In America, shale gas now supports a million jobs, produces nearly $50 billion in tax revenue and halves the cost of energy for businesses and people. It has revived manufacturing industry, taken market share from coal, cut energy imports and promises to revolutionise transport, as buses and trucks shift to using cheaper, cleaner methane instead of petrol.

See this thread too Martg

sanctumzone.co.uk/forum/Todays-News/81298-Fracking-Hell.html

Can't the facilitators merge threads here?

jhado wrote:
sorry delete the thread

Gilly wrote:
A very good question......