Propaganda. It would be nice if it was safe, but it is not. Fracking pollutes water and uses chemicals that pollute the land.

Sounds like a good argument, but 0.5% isn't nothing. Would you eat food that was 0.5% feces or insect? Would you like to die 0.5% earlier? Don't worry, it's almost all water and between 15-50% of the "acids" and polyacrylamide will be removed. That's up to half of 0.5%!

Agree with @Fairbs...this is total self serving fracking propaganda and nothing more.
It is good they take some steps to not pollute.
It is ridiculous and terrible that they pretend the steps they take are fool proof and all inclusive. They have failed repeatedly (almost consistently) causing irreversible damage FAR more expensive than fracking is profitable. If they had to pay to really completely clean up even one contaminated aquifer, it would cost more than they could ever make off of the entire US gas reserves, and would never be completed because it's impossible to do.

15% of the fluid recovered means up to 85% of the toxic fluid is being pumped up through fractures, some of it into the water system. Even if only 10% makes it there, that's millions of gallons of unknown, poisonous contamination of our water systems.
True, aquifers may sit mostly at higher levels, but they have channels and fractures that reach below the level of the fracking, making a channel for the toxic drill fluid to enter the water table. Pretty simple to understand.
Also, the method used to fracture the rock is pulsing huge pressures through the tubes. Under those conditions, steel 'casings' flex (and sometimes rupture) and concrete fractures, destroying any 'seal' it could have made or, at best, creating channels outside the casing for the toxic fluid to travel up and out of.
I see many reasons this is not a viable industry without exemptions from legal and environmental regulations, which should never be granted to anyone.

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Tags for this video have been changed from 'drilling, gas, oil, hydraulic, fracturing, fracking' to 'drilling, gas, oil, hydraulic fracturing, fracking, well site, whipstock, lease' - edited by BoneRemake

Absolute horse shit. If you think it's propaganda, i think you should downvote it, but that's just my opinion.

If you can look past your own horse shit, you people would notice that it is a really informative video that shows how the Fracking process works. This is not meant to be a political tool nor is it about water issues. God damn hippies get me in a twist sometimes.

*lies

The entire video is designed to convince watchers that it's "safe" because they use casings and cement, and that it doesn't contaminate because of these methods. They say exactly that, how we "safely " extract and deliver oil...History has proven it's not safe to drill or transport and does contaminate groundwater and surface land/water, therefore 'propaganda'. If they had not used the word "safe" I might give them more of a pass.
It is informative to an extent, but is also designed as propaganda with so many glaring ommissions of fact, and downright lies (like their incomplete list of chemicals), not a technical teaching tool.
I note they pretend to tell you what's in the fluid, but in reality it's a trade secret they won't even tell the fed, and have purchased exemptions from the laws governing drilling and contamination so they never have to tell anyone what it is, and are exempt from prosecution when they contaminate.
I also note they never mention earthquakes.

To me, this is like a meth head telling people they should try Krocodile, it's cheaper and you can make it at home! They ignore the fact that it kills you pretty fast.
You can support anything if you ignore the damage it does and only look at the good. When you do that, it's called propaganda.

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FUCK I READ THEIR YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION AND I DO NOT AGREE WITH IT BUT I ALSO DO NOT AGREE WITH TINFOIL HAT WEARING NEWTBOY.

I'm upvoting because the explanation of how fracking works is (as far as I know) accurate.

There is room to dispute a few of the word choices, and how safe the process is portrayed. The companies that do it (probably) don't actually intend environmental harm. I think that fracking is (probably) mostly safe, but not 100%. What comes of this is that the (real) risks are downplayed.

*controversy

Unfortunately fracking has become politicized and so there are no longer any sources of information that can be expected to be honest. It is now just another dichotomy: A completely safe method of resource collection, or a WMD disguised as such.

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I rather feel that that puts the argument in a skewed light. Essentially, we are either in full awareness of the facts and long term results of fracking or we are not. If we are not yet, why on earth would we pursue it now? We have alternative forms of energy production, it's just a whole bunch of very rich people aren't quite done selling us oil yet.

The shale will still be there, and we may have developed more efficient and safer means of extracting it. And we will have to deal without oil eventually, what better time to begin, whilst we still have some that we can get if we utterly must? We are not yet in crisis but they want to take a risk, that's got to make you ask a few questions. I don't have a detailed scientific knowledge of the subject, but i would know if it was proven safe, and it isn't yet.

Incidentally or otherwise, the first earthquake that i've ever felt in my life happened very shortly after they began a new testing site for fracking nearby - one of two earthquakes that happened in short succession after the first wave of tests. I live in the north of england.. they never happen. It's worth looking into before we start doing it.. the last person i'm going to trust with the future of this planet is an oil baron.

@BoneRemake - let me know which bit of my horseshit you want me to look past and i'll attempt to look past it and see what you describe. Or was it an empty sound-bite? My criticism was valid - newt said everything that needed to be said on that subject, and yes i can in retrospect see the value of the video as a demonstration of the fracking process. But you don't have to be a hippy to try and see positive and informed decisions made in the world, but if it makes me one then i'm glad to be one. What does that make you? No need for name calling, it generally means you've not got an argument.

I'd just like to mention that it really, really suits the pro-fracking lobbyists to try and ridicule people and try to conjure mental images of the long-haired flower-child hugging trees and not showering and wearing tinfoil hats. It turns real, intelligent, professional people who care about what happens around them into caricatures, and it belittles their reasoned and sensible argument without even addressing it. It is a tactic as old as the hills.. i'm sure you're not a lobbyist, but i can't help think they're smiling knowing that the old seeds they scattered around took root somewhere..!

The problem is with the removal of the fracking fluid; when it's brought to the surface, with its chemical load, if it's not treated correctly, it will end up dribbling from the surface back down into the groundwater.
Which sucks.

I have first hand knowledge of oil well drilling and completion, This video depicts the processes used in fracking and you "hippies" are just ganging on a video to shout on your mounds sound bite tripe. The poster seems to have posted it for informative purposes and then you rats come and jump on board. Your informed and honest opinions are misplaced on a good video, downvotes for it are in the range of retarded.

I'm not endorsing the practice but I will point out that doing it is the only way we'll discover the long term results.

All I'm trying to say is that once something gets tied up in politics, it's near impossible to learn about it. Once it's political, lines are drawn and people take sides and you're either a shill or a hippie.

I'm from a small town in upstate NY in an area where fracking was to really take root. Fortunately (?) it's just been banned. I would have liked to know what the risks are and their likelihood, at least to the best of our knowledge. I'm sure there are people out there who have this information, but I have no way to identify them.

The shills say it's very safe, but I don't trust them at all. The hippies say it's going to kill us all, but they say the same thing about GMOs. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but few people are offering nuanced opinions and I can't assume they're correct just because they are.

I have no way of knowing what's true and what's not and it pisses me off a bit.

http://www.dangersoffracking.com/

Moving this video to oohahh's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

I think there is already evidence of its negative consequences. Check out the movie Gasland. It shows people near a fracking site being able to light the water coming out of their tap on fire. I do agree with your point on the politicizing of this issue (and a million others) and that the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. We are too polarized and there's not enough fact seeking and sometimes refusing to believe the facts. I see the companies portraying this as safe trying to set a belief level and that then allows them to be more profitable through the externalities they create, but at the expense of the public. This has been going on forever in almost every industry and is just a normal trait of capitalism. Not to say that is right. Since you're between the two sides, does that make you a shilpie?

Unfortunately, there have at least been numerous accusations that they hooked propane up to the water lines and other trickery to film Gasland, so it does not have a shining clean record of being fair and impartial.
That said, I think there is plenty of independent evidence that water contamination has occurred, and it at least appears that it increases the likelihood of earthquakes exponentially, even in areas that have no recorded activity. At best, we don't know the long term effects, and I think we should be cautious until we do since the possible consequences are so terrible and irreversable.

I did some research and it looks like there was a rebuttal by the gas industry which was then rebutted by the film makers. This article... http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2011/02/24/24greenwire-groundtruthing-academy-award-nominee-gasland-33228.html?pagewanted=all explores the main points of contention which to me doesn't prove the gas companies case. They like to say that it's not the fracking process that creates problems, but the well drilling as if they are separate which they are not. The methane in the water they light on fire is said to come from a 50 year old well where the casing failed. The desire to frack is creating the need for more well drilling and increases the number of points where a problem can occur. All of these wells will eventually become 50 years old so there's not much difference in my mind. I agree, we don't have enough data to know how safe it is, but already it doesn't look safe enough to me.

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