http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/industry-boos-oscar-nod-for-gasland/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_en_ot/us_oscars_gasland
If you recall this email a while back, the "Gasland" film I reviewed was nominated for Best Documentary Oscar of 2010. Of course prior to the awards ceremony, a gas drilling industry trade group petitioned the MPAA to decertify the film as propaganda instead of documentary. Similar industry protests were made over "Sicko" and "An Inconvenient Truth". But probably the criticism only served to increase attention for the film, and the MPAA responded to the gas industry saying that they should "trust the intelligence" of the judges to know a documentary when they see it, and tell fact from fiction. While the film of course has an agenda, and some scenes are poorly executed and open to criticism, it was director Josh Fox's first film (made on quite a low budget as well), so to be nominated for the highest award in all of film-making must mean his argument has some merit.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_drilling_chemicals
Here is some validation for Fox's claims: 3 Congressmen released a report investigating 14 gas companies and the secret chemical mixtures they use during fracking. They said that millions of gallons of fracking fluid, containing up to 29 known or suspected carcinogens, were pumped into wells during domestic drilling from 2005-2009, with very little of that material recaptured by the drillers. So we can only conclude that the rest of it still remains in the ground, possibly leeching into aquifers that humans, wildlife, and livestock depend on. So how could these poisons, many of which are prohibited or on a "watch list" under the Clean Air/Water Acts, be covertly used in unregulated drilling? Congress granted drillers a waiver.
Methanol was the most common questionable substance used in fracking, and this is what it can do to you:
http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/f_methan.txt. In my lab, I can lose my bonus or be fired for dumping even an ounce of methanol down the sink that drains to the Bay (not to mention my company getting fined), yet gas companies can get away with pumping untold gallons of it straight into the ground? And if the process is so safe as they claim, why be so secretive about their use of methanol and other poisons?
This may also be of interest to you, kind of an update on the status of drinking water:
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/11/135241362/the-worldwide-thirst-for-clean-drinking-water
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/we-use-how-much-water.php
Americans per capita consume 100 gallons of potable water each day from our daily activities (over 2X the global average, and 3X more than the average Chinese). That is pretty obscene, but when you factor in the water used in electricity generation for our energy needs, our consumption rises to 350 gallons/day. So cutting back on energy use is a win-win-win proposition, saving multiple precious resources and reducing pollution/environmental degradation/dependence on foreign oil dictators. Also adopting a vegetarian diet (avoiding beef consumption especially, since 2,400 L goes into making 1 burger patty) can dramatically reduce one's water footprint. Indian society would collapse if their people had American diets (30% of India is vegetarian). While India and China's per capita consumption is low, their massive populations are putting huge strains on their precarious water supplies (and climate change, standard of living improvements, and population growth will only make the situation worse in the future).
We wouldn't expect it, but leisure cities in Republican states are leading the way for water conservation. Las Vegas and Orlando have some of the most modern and strict water conservation policies, really because they have no choice (Las Vegas is the driest metro area in America with 4" of annual rainfall, and there have been recent severe droughts in the US Southeast). Those cities are known for water waste from golf courses and entertainment, and it's true that their economies still depend on those industries. But Orlando set up a parallel reclaimed water system, where household waste water is treated to near-potable safety levels, and then pumped out to water golf courses and sports fields, since it really makes no sense to waste drinking water on grass. Vegas pays residents to change out their lawns for desert landscaping, and issues huge fines for water overages, especially at golf courses. Therefore, golf courses now adopt drip irrigation for each individual shrub and putting green, instead of the usual wasteful area sprinklers. So even though Vegas has grown in population by 50% since 2000, their overall water consumption is flat, and actually down from 1990 levels. Imagine if progressive California could do that, but then we have the farm lobby, and suburbanites don't want their streets ripped up to lay new and better pipe. Plumbing is of great concern, since a scary amount of clean water (1/6 of total consumption) is lost from leaky pipes and toilets each day.
The author's #1 water concern for the future: corporate control of potable water.
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The problem with leaky pipes, etc is there is no good/easy way to detect a leak. The only way for me as a homeowner to determine if i have a leaky anything that isn't a faucet is to either eventually notice some damage (which means the leak is either quite severe and/or in the drywall) or turn off my entire water supply and come back some undetermined amount of time later t see if the water meter moved. If my water company put an ethernet output from the water meter and i could log in, take the output from excel or something, man it would be easy to check for leaky water or to see exactly how much water i use on sprinklers (since i generally am not using water at 4am), etc. Those tools just aren't available for whatever reason.
Imagine how easy it would be to conserve (or not to) if you knew in real dollars what every toilet flush cost your or how much water you wasted leaving the faucet on while you brushed your teeth.
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Yeah seriously, I guess we should get in with Bechtel or Schlumberger exploiting some water-starved third world hole:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6670
I agree about leak detection. Like that author said, our water system is really 50-100 years old. We take water for granted, and barely commit any resources for maintenance and monitoring. I think he said in his city of Chicago, they schedule pipe replacement at a 160-year rate (meaning they do it so slowly, it would take that long to replace the whole system).
I agree that costs for water, gas, beef, etc. need to better align with the true social costs, but of course companies don't want to acknowledge the externalities associated with their products. Since clean water is a vital resource, I think everyone should have the "right" to access a minimal amount of it, so I wouldn't just advocate an across-the-board rate hike. If we invested in a better monitoring system, each citizen/farm/company could get an adjusted quota of X gallons/month, charged a reasonable rate. For those who exceed the quota, they would pay through the nose. So we would still be free to consume more water if it was that important to us (for watering the lawn, swimming pool, etc.), but the price would reflect the social harm we are doing.
Industry and farming use much more water than households. So this would force farmers to switch leaner irrigation and companies to adopt less water-intensive operations. It might reduce the diversity of available produce at Safeway, or increase the costs of some goods, but we're talking about survival here. And the $ the gov't collects from water overages could then be invested into water research or subsidies to reward people/farms/firms for buying water sparing tech or improving their pipes. Like Orlando, we have to implement a parallel reclaimed water system. Factories, golf courses, etc. shouldn't be allowed to use fresh/clean/reservoir water. All this would require a huge investment to set up, but down the road it could pay for itself.
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Of course any extra fees gotten by the gov would invariably be used for something besides improving water efficiency. When social security runs surplus, does social security get reinvested? When the budget surplus happened under clinton, did the debt get paid down? A problem but i suppose a good one to have.
I feel like water is a lot like oil in the sense that no one is going to sweat it until they can't get it. Unlike oil i've only got ~ 3 days to figure out how to get it or I die. But no one is going to pay meaningful attention to the problem until it is too late. Perhaps a fundamental human flaw and perhaps just an institutional problem, either way if we aren't in trouble our children or our children's children will be.
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Yes, you are right about inflows of cash to the gov't. But at least higher prices will encourage people to use less. It is true that water and oil management are quite similar. I guess since the Cold War, this is the first time that humanity has had to pay for water. Of course we get a clean, virtually limitless supply of water in our homes and businesses, and that costs something. But humans are not used to seeing water as a commodity. Imagine if it was trading on some exchange like gold and pork!
I think due to globalization, wealth is increasing in a lot of previously poor places, and those people will want better standards of living. We already see this effect with energy (and food to some degree), but soon it will be clean water. But as you said, no one wants to confront the problem until it's too late. Actually I would expect China to be the most proactive due to their centralized gov't. They are transitioning to a less carbon-intensive economy faster than any other nation. It's not like China is a poster child for Greenpeace, but hopefully they can enact smart water management that we in the West could also copy (if Congress ever does anything).
