$haleionaires--We're "Fracking" Rich!

Excerpts of commentary on the recently aired CBS 60 Minutes Marcellus/Barnett Shale Natural Gas Drilling (hydraulic fracturing) segment from the James Howard Kunstler site. Go visit, he has more.

*(video follows below)

"So, last night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, CBS 60 Minutes, to blow a mighty wind up America’s ass (as they say in professional PR circles). America is lately addicted to lying to itself, and 60 Minutes has become the “go-to” patsy for funneling disinformation into an already hopelessly confused, wishful, delusional, US public". 

    

"McClendon told the credulous Leslie Stahl and the huge viewing audience that America “has two Saudi Arabia’s of gas.” Now, you know immediately that at least half the viewers misconstrued this statement to mean that we have two Saudi Arabia’s of gasoline."

Translation: don’t worry none about driving anywhere you like, or having to get some tiny little pansy-ass hybrid whatchamacallit car to do it in, and especially don’t pay no attention to them “green” sumbitches on the sidelines trying to sell you some kind of peak oil story…. 

"It also prepared the public to support whatever Mr. McClendon’s company wants to do, because he says his company will free America from its slavery to OPEC."

"By the way, CBS never clarified these parts of the story by the end of the show."

Good job Mr. Kunstler!
If you're offended by salty language, he may not be for you, but the tricks of Big Gas should offend you a whole helluva lot more.

The real story of what happened to the family in Texas that Ms. Stahl did not go into nearly enough. Fracking also reduced their land value from $257,330 on the 2010 tax rolls to its current value of $75,340.

Another valuable tidbit "left out" of the 60 minutes piece is that mineral rights and landownership are separate from each other in some of these shale areas, so theoretically the gas companies can just come in and take your land:
September 16, 2009, Christine Ruggiero received a call from her neighbor informing her that her fence had been cut, her horses were loose and there were bulldozers on her property. That's how she learned that Aruba Petroleum was taking almost half of their 10 acres.

They did not need to inform the Ruggiero's of their intentions and dealt only with the mineral lease owners. All they need from the landowner's is surface right's and that's where the campaign of lies begins.  

When the industry spins and says they don't exercise Eminent Domain, they're right, they don't in its legally defined use. But they don't tell you why.

 

Some observations and questions for T. Boone Pickens and his fracked up Pickens Plan:

T. Boone Pickens was on MSNBC'S Morning Joe last week hawking the Pickens Plan with his usual folksy, disarming charm and had them all on his team during the entire 9:00 segment. Not one word was said about the *environmental impacts, but plenty was said about how great and wonderful the Picken's Plan is.

"How can anybody be against this..." the MSNBC cheerleaders rah rah-ed.

...Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens says the United States ought to be producing vehicles to take advantage of domestic shale gas and break its foreign oil dependence. "This is our chance," Pickens told The Philadelphia Inquirer in an interview on the Marcellus shale. "I think it's almost divine intervention that we had all this gas show up at this time in the deal."

Here we go with that God loves pollution talk again...

What happened to the wind farm idea Mr. Pickens? Couldn't seem to get that federal support money huh? Bet you'll get a huge tax write-off from it though. Isn't your wife, Madeline Pickens, a big wild Mustang advocate? That is the Ruby Pipeline she's railing against that's cutting straight through the Mustang herds isn't it?

Don't you two even talk?

One other thing you forgot to mention, you rich old oil dinosaur, is that you are the Clean Fuels Energy Corporation (formerly the Pickens Fuel Corp.) which owns and operates natural gas fueling stations from British Columbia to the Mexican border.

But you're not in it for the money? It's a national security issue right? You're in it mostly for the good of America?

Sure you are...

NOT.

Tim Ruggiero speaks for himself and explains the lies of Big Gas:
(related video with visuals of the drilling on his property)

See our previous posting on Big Gas in Texas: "The Canary of Wise County, Texas"
November 16, 2010--Pittsburg City Council votes to ban gas drilling.

Energy experts have long touted natural gas as a cleaner fuel than oil. But while natural gas, as an end product, may be cleaner in many ways, its extraction still creates a great deal of environmental damage.

Though the industry had fought the measure by touting the jobs and wealth it can create for the area, the Pittsburgh council was unswayed. "They're bringing jobs all right," City Council President Darlene Harris told CBS. "There's going to be a lot of jobs for funeral homes and hospitals. That's where the jobs are. Is it worth it?"

*ProPublica's investigative series on gas drilling "Buried Secrets"