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As Democrats do you support Fracking? Coal Shale Oil? The Keystone Pipeline? (Original Post) DFab420 Jun 2016 OP
No. NV Whino Jun 2016 #1
fracking-NO, Keystone-NO Jack Bone Jun 2016 #2
Its really bad for the environment, for example, fracking wastewater is often radioactive Baobab Jun 2016 #8
What bothers me Mnpaul Jun 2016 #44
There is no such thing as 'coal shale oil' TransitJohn Jun 2016 #14
As a human being, I oppose these things. I can't speak for Democrats though. immoderate Jun 2016 #3
As a carbon based life form that must inhabit this planet tularetom Jun 2016 #10
With regards to fracking... CrowCityDem Jun 2016 #4
Don't bother us with those silly facts. tonyt53 Jun 2016 #5
No, thats BS, its also almost gone Baobab Jun 2016 #9
why not reduce usage? If you look at how much other countries use its a lot lot less. Baobab Jun 2016 #11
You've answered your own question. auntpurl Jun 2016 #29
People in other countries do those things without difficulty. Baobab Jun 2016 #37
Other countries weren't built on auntpurl Jun 2016 #53
With apologies to fracking Meteor Man Jun 2016 #12
Profit opportunities! Baobab Jun 2016 #38
Jerry Brown actually said that. Brown called fracking “a fabulous economic opportunity”. ebayfool Jun 2016 #46
I was talking about things like health care, Rx drugs, water and air. Baobab Jun 2016 #52
Exactly. It would be great if we didn't need it, but it's better than the alternatives for now. nt anotherproletariat Jun 2016 #15
no. Baobab Jun 2016 #39
So much mis-information... DFab420 Jun 2016 #21
This called "goal post moving" angrychair Jun 2016 #33
NO!! Ned_Devine Jun 2016 #6
What is your alternative proposal then? Give specifics. tonyt53 Jun 2016 #7
Tell that to Porter Ranch Meteor Man Jun 2016 #16
Could you site the information you use to just cast aside solar and wind as unreliable? DFab420 Jun 2016 #19
See post #33. (nt) angrychair Jun 2016 #34
Strawman Dem2 Jun 2016 #13
How so? These are platform issues. DFab420 Jun 2016 #18
This message was self-deleted by its author Dem2 Jun 2016 #23
As a democrat, do I believe that we have to use what resources we have while transitioning to clean qdouble Jun 2016 #17
No, we should save them for if there is a huge volcanic eruption. Which happens randomly. Baobab Jun 2016 #55
Yes, yes and yes, with appropriate environmental safeguards. Nye Bevan Jun 2016 #20
SO when water is set on fire, and children are drinking poison. Are those acceptable safeguards? DFab420 Jun 2016 #22
until the solar infrastructure can power the entire world economy, every other form of energy geek tragedy Jun 2016 #24
Solar + Hydro + Conservation Meteor Man Jun 2016 #25
Ok great. How do I get to work? auntpurl Jun 2016 #30
The same way you get to work now Meteor Man Jun 2016 #35
I'm not sure auntpurl Jun 2016 #54
Let Asia buy their natural gas from Australia. There, some natural gas prices have quadrupled. Baobab Jun 2016 #56
I don't support it, and I used to believe that this is something we agreed upon as progressives. Attorney in Texas Jun 2016 #26
I support fracking, don't know what coal shale oil is and I don't support the Keysone doc03 Jun 2016 #27
If you don't know what coal shale oil is.. I suspect you don't understand fracking enough to form basselope Jun 2016 #32
I have heard of shale oil never coal shale oil. They are fracking all around me and I have seen very doc03 Jun 2016 #41
What's a little poison in the water compared to some jobs. basselope Jun 2016 #42
Two years ago, you'd have been laughed off DU for this question. Now, with Her Majesty running... BillZBubb Jun 2016 #28
You phrased the question wrong. basselope Jun 2016 #31
No. 840high Jun 2016 #36
Fracking reduces coal use, so it's the better option. I'm anti coal shale oil Recursion Jun 2016 #40
Air is more important than water? Meteor Man Jun 2016 #43
Then millions of people die because we'd have to cut our energy use by 2/3rds Recursion Jun 2016 #45
Millions die? Meteor Man Jun 2016 #48
The fact that between them coal and NG make up that much of our generation Recursion Jun 2016 #50
The fact Meteor Man Jun 2016 #57
No way. EndElectoral Jun 2016 #47
DFab420—I’m not a Democrat who thinks like a Republican. CobaltBlue Jun 2016 #49
NO NO and NO lmbradford Jun 2016 #51

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
8. Its really bad for the environment, for example, fracking wastewater is often radioactive
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:44 PM
Jun 2016

it can sometimes contain radium which is really radioactive, not just a little bit.

Mnpaul

(3,655 posts)
44. What bothers me
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 09:22 PM
Jun 2016

They have an exemption from the rules regarding disclosuree of what they are pumping into the ground

 

immoderate

(20,885 posts)
3. As a human being, I oppose these things. I can't speak for Democrats though.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:34 PM
Jun 2016

What do the rulers think?

--imm

tularetom

(23,664 posts)
10. As a carbon based life form that must inhabit this planet
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:51 PM
Jun 2016

I can't support any of that crap.

Like you I'm not sure what being a "Democrat" has to do with it.

 

CrowCityDem

(2,348 posts)
4. With regards to fracking...
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:35 PM
Jun 2016

it's not that Hillary and some of us are fans of it, but we realize that right now it allows us to cheaply fulfill our energy needs while we invest in cleaner technologies for the future. Banning it would mean we would have to burn more coal or oil, which isn't any better for the environment, and sends more of our money offshore. It's a matter of, *gasp*, a lesser evil.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
9. No, thats BS, its also almost gone
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:50 PM
Jun 2016

also, methane is 80 times more of a greenhouse gas tha CO2, so its really bad for the environment. It likely is just as bad or worse than coal.


Also, the 'reserves' of natural gas that exist are not as large as was originally hyped, and the cost of getting it out is very high, considering

We really are being pushed towards renewable energy sources because almost all of the fossil fuels have major issues.

People can live well on a fraction of the energy Americans use though, we really use QUITE a bit more than most others.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
11. why not reduce usage? If you look at how much other countries use its a lot lot less.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:52 PM
Jun 2016

Probably because they never tore up their public transit systems to force people to buy cars, like we did!

auntpurl

(4,311 posts)
29. You've answered your own question.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:50 PM
Jun 2016

The US doesn't reduce usage because there are no viable alternatives for most people. As you say, public transit is limited and expensive, and that doesn't get into how people heat their houses, cook their food, and wash their clothes.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
37. People in other countries do those things without difficulty.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 08:24 PM
Jun 2016

We can reduce usage a lot. Hell, we will have to soon when the price of natural gas triples, wont we guys.

! Hillary

auntpurl

(4,311 posts)
53. Other countries weren't built on
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 02:59 AM
Jun 2016

Cheap gasoline and cheap electricity. With big sprawling space between towns and services. With miles between one house and the next.

I have a friend who lives in rural New Mexico. She commutes 50 miles in each direction to work. There is no work closer. She can't afford to move. She's got kids to feed. What do you suggest?

Meteor Man

(385 posts)
12. With apologies to fracking
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:53 PM
Jun 2016

Fracking does not "allow" us " to cheaply fulfill our energy needs". Fracking poisons our water, undermines geological structures, causes earthquakes and destroys the livability of entire communities.

Banning fracking "would mean we would have to" show a little respect for our environment and the people being subjected to the economic terrorism of fossil fuel companies .

ebayfool

(3,411 posts)
46. Jerry Brown actually said that. Brown called fracking “a fabulous economic opportunity”.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 09:48 PM
Jun 2016
http://www.thenation.com/article/if-jerry-brown-so-green-why-he-allowing-fracking-california/

snip/

In May 2013, Brown called fracking “a fabulous economic opportunity” that he had to balance against his commitment to climate protection.He has resisted calls to sign an executive order imposing a moratorium or ban on fracking, which as governor he has the authority to do at any time. Instead, last September he signed California Senate Bill 4, which allows fracking to continue but requires drillers to notify regulators and nearby residents in advance; SB 4 also requires the state to monitor water quality near fracking sites, and to complete a study of fracking’s environmental and other implications by 2015. (In 2005, George W. Bush signed a law that largely exempts fracking from the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other major federal oversight.) In case anyone still wondered, Mark Nechodom, the director of the Conservation Department, told a public panel last October in no uncertain terms: “Governor Brown supports hydraulic fracturing.”

Environmentalists have also voiced suspicions about the $500,000 that Occidental Petroleum, long one of California’s top oil companies, contributed to Brown’s campaign in 2012 to pass Proposition 30, which raised taxes on wealthy Californians to fund increased spending on public education—generally not the kind of initiative that big corporations favor. Occidental’s contributions came a few months after Brown fired the previous director and deputy director of the Conservation Department, following complaints from the oil industry that DOGGR was too slow in granting drilling permits. When a Los Angeles Times article linked the two firings to industry complaints, the governor’s office pointedly did not issue a denial.

“That was a clear signal to the industry—both the firings and the nondenial,” said a former administration official familiar with the decision.

But by far the biggest development in the fracking debate is one Brown had nothing to do with: on May 20, the bottom dropped out of the economic case for fracking in California when federal officials slashed—by a whopping 96 percent—their estimate of how much recoverable oil is contained in the Monterey Shale. So much for the initially projected 13.7 billion barrels of oil that had oil companies salivating. The Energy Information Agency’s new estimate is that the Monterey Shale contains a mere 600 million barrels of oil. “This report hammers the final nail in the coffin for oil companies’ ludicrous claims that fracking is the key to California’s prosperity,” said Zack Malitz, a campaigner with CREDO, an activist group coordinating opposition to fracking in the state.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
52. I was talking about things like health care, Rx drugs, water and air.
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 12:35 AM
Jun 2016

Things where the seller can say "buy or die"

that is an ideal - an inelastic market with no competition.

http://www.pharmamyths.net/_market_spiral_pricing_of_cancer_drugs__120860.htm

Fracking, we should leave it in the ground. We're likely to need it someday. I think fracking should be illegal.

angrychair

(8,594 posts)
33. This called "goal post moving"
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:10 PM
Jun 2016

It's the "we are almost there...maybe 10 more years" then it becomes "20", then "30" and then back to "10" rinse and repeat.
Despite always being "almost there" funding is almost never there. We always have billions in tax subsidies for oil, gas and coal but always empty pockets when it comes to alternative energy R&D. Reshaping our economy is expensive, with little to no profit but there is still lots of money to squeeze out of the Earth before we destroy ourselves.

It's easy to compromise when you are not the one being compromised.

 

tonyt53

(5,737 posts)
7. What is your alternative proposal then? Give specifics.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:43 PM
Jun 2016

No, solar won't provide enough power for many locations. No, wind is unreliable in many locations. Until this country can fix our grid situation and we can come up with reliable cost-effective energy storage, we will need to utilize all the available resources to provide pour thirst for energy that we have. The Keystone won't benefit anybody except TransCanada, some US refinery workers and the people working to load the ships at the Gulf of Mexico. It will be loaded onto ships and sold to the highest bidder. Oh, Hillary is opposed to Keystone. It really isn't as simple as shutting off the oil wells. Natural gas production has been the biggest beneficiary of fracking - and no, I'm not a supporter of fracking, just a realist.

Meteor Man

(385 posts)
16. Tell that to Porter Ranch
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:57 PM
Jun 2016

Fracking is not essential meeting our energy requirements. An immediate ban is essential to preserve our global ecology and our environment.

Ban fracking now!

DFab420

(2,466 posts)
19. Could you site the information you use to just cast aside solar and wind as unreliable?
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:00 PM
Jun 2016

I'm pretty sure the sun rising is pretty reliable...

Response to DFab420 (Reply #18)

qdouble

(891 posts)
17. As a democrat, do I believe that we have to use what resources we have while transitioning to clean
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 05:58 PM
Jun 2016

energy? Yes.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
55. No, we should save them for if there is a huge volcanic eruption. Which happens randomly.
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 11:12 AM
Jun 2016

because then wind dies down and sun is blotted out/dimmed for as long as several years and it can get very cold. We could have another "year without a summer".

Benjamin Franklin warned us about that.

Without our natural gas, we will all freeze. Similarly with solar storms which could wipe out the grid and cause multiple nuclear meltdowns at the same time UNLESS we can keep the water pumps circulating water. You wouldnt want the whole world to be rendered uninhabitable because we had sold off ALL our natural gas to Asia, would you?

Nye Bevan

(25,406 posts)
20. Yes, yes and yes, with appropriate environmental safeguards.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:00 PM
Jun 2016

I also think that there is an important role for nuclear power in helping combat climate change.

 

geek tragedy

(68,868 posts)
24. until the solar infrastructure can power the entire world economy, every other form of energy
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:24 PM
Jun 2016

will be destructive to the environment.

it's very easy to be against oil drilling, and coal mining, and big hydro dam projects, and fracking, and nuclear power.

but there isn't enough solar infrastructure to pick up the slack

auntpurl

(4,311 posts)
30. Ok great. How do I get to work?
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:53 PM
Jun 2016

I mean, tomorrow, and for the next ten years until we can get solar and hydro to the 300 million people who live in the US? How do I heat my home in the meantime? How do I cook my food? Clean my clothes?

(These are rhetorical questions as I live in the UK and haven't owned a car in 8 years. But most people in the US have the above questions.)

Meteor Man

(385 posts)
35. The same way you get to work now
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:33 PM
Jun 2016

Thanks for answering your own question. We all adapt to a smaller carbon footprint. E.F.Schumacher explained how we do it in 1973:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Is_Beautiful

auntpurl

(4,311 posts)
54. I'm not sure
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 03:02 AM
Jun 2016

Taking the London Underground would work for my friend who lives in rural New Mexico and commutes 50 miles in each direction to work. You'll be unsurprised to hear there's no public transit option for her. She can't afford to move closer to work - the housing is too expensive. There is no work closer to where she lives. What do you suggest?

 

basselope

(2,565 posts)
32. If you don't know what coal shale oil is.. I suspect you don't understand fracking enough to form
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:09 PM
Jun 2016

an informed opinion.

Further, to say you don't support Keystone, but don't know what coal shale oil is, REALLY means you haven't studied these issues.

doc03

(35,148 posts)
41. I have heard of shale oil never coal shale oil. They are fracking all around me and I have seen very
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 08:43 PM
Jun 2016

little problems. I see lots of very high paying well needed jobs. Even with the oil and gas industry the unemployment rate in some counties is higher than at the bottom of the recession because of the loss of coal jobs. Why don't you come here and tell a pipeline welder we don't need fracking.

 

basselope

(2,565 posts)
42. What's a little poison in the water compared to some jobs.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 08:45 PM
Jun 2016

Destabilizing the tectonic plates probably isn't that big a deal either.

Totally worth!

BillZBubb

(10,650 posts)
28. Two years ago, you'd have been laughed off DU for this question. Now, with Her Majesty running...
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 06:49 PM
Jun 2016

it becomes a point of contention. Evidently a lot of former self-proclaimed DU "progressives" have seen the light radiating from Her Highness telling them "It's OK! Trust me, it's OK!". A peace comes over them as they now know these things are not destructive and counter to everything we know about Climate Change, instead they are legitimate technologies that we can support. Saying anything against this is a right wing smear. It's all OK!

 

basselope

(2,565 posts)
31. You phrased the question wrong.
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:07 PM
Jun 2016

As PROGRESSIVES do you support fracking... which, of course, the answer is no.

Democrats haven't been progressives for many many years. (Started in 1992)

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
40. Fracking reduces coal use, so it's the better option. I'm anti coal shale oil
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 08:28 PM
Jun 2016

In terms of "the Keystone Pipeline" I think the proposed XL shortcut was better than the existing pipeline because it cut the distance the oil actually travels by 1/3rd.

I'm curious when Democrats became supporters of environmentally unsound practices.

I'm curious when Democrats let facile bandwagoning replace actually looking at the policies in question. Fracking means we burn less coal, and ultimately the air is more important than the groundwater. The XL shortcut means the oil spends less time in transit and so has a lower total risk of leaking. But for that matter very few people I met at XL protests even knew that the XL pipeline already existed and we were talking about cutting two legs off of it; they thought this was a completely new pipeline that was being built. That disappointed me.

Meteor Man

(385 posts)
43. Air is more important than water?
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 09:19 PM
Jun 2016

"Fracking means we burn less coal, and ultimately the air is more important than the groundwater."


False dichotomy. We don't have to poison our water to keep our air breathable. Keeping it in the ground is a win/win for clean air and clean water.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
45. Then millions of people die because we'd have to cut our energy use by 2/3rds
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 09:39 PM
Jun 2016

So, yeah, of those 3 options, fracking is the least bad.

Recursion

(56,582 posts)
50. The fact that between them coal and NG make up that much of our generation
Thu Jun 2, 2016, 11:56 PM
Jun 2016

and renewables are maxed out until we spend five to ten years building out their capacity.

lmbradford

(517 posts)
51. NO NO and NO
Fri Jun 3, 2016, 12:17 AM
Jun 2016

We have other sources of energy now. Solar and wind can easily take up the slack of doing away with the others. A lot of other countries have done it entirely. Plus, there are a lot of really good jobs in the wind and solar sectors. We don't have to compromise our air or our water. Do the right thing for heavens sake.

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