The Adverse Tenacle$ of Fracking Encroach Month After Month

Still another forgotten expense of fracking (externalized costs)

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer and Retired Chemistry Professor, Lewis County, WV

Anyone who is honest must admit fracking has a lot of externalized costs – that is, the real costs of the enterprise that are put off on others than the industry which does fracking. The list is long – environmental damage, confiscating the value of rural dwellers property, their health and esthetic values, favorable law and enforcement, bought and paid for over the last century and a half, and so on.

Then there is the great white elephant in the room, the great cost that is essentially ignored, because the exhaust gasses cause global warming, with sea level rise, droughts, shorter winters, melting polar ice, and much more. Everybody talks about it, but few can do anything because of the fossil fuel industry’s power. So it is generally forgotten.

Another forgotten cost is the United States huge military expenditures.

The supply of energy is necessary for our modern way of life, and previously we have depended on burning the carbon accumulated in the earth over literally hundreds of millions of years. Release of carbon dioxide, particulate matter, methane and a few other gases is heating the earth. Use of the sun’s energy is an alternative coming along rapidly, but it threatens to destroy the great corporations which have produced the carbon compounds burned for energy. These are the most powerful non-governmental organizations on earth, many of them based in the United States.

A significant historical fact to note is the industry arose here in the U. S. Rich deposits made the U. S. powerful, and exports to the rest of the world was a principal reason. This continued until well after WWII.

The importance of oil was becoming recognized by WWI. After WWI, the winning Allies swooped down to capture and control lands which had oil. Part of the cause of WWII was the drive to control oil by Germany and Japan, in southern Russia and the Dutch lands of the East Indies, respectively. After WWII the oil lands were controlled by the United States and it’s allies. That is, by corporations based in the U. S. and its allies.

Much of current events can be traced to efforts to keep control of the oil and gas flow in the world. The development of fracking was due to the decline of relatively easy to get oil and gas in the continental U. S. It is an attempt to mine the deep and tightly held reserves left after decades of improvident use and export of the easy to get stuff. It is a more expensive way to get the product.

Looking at the 2017 ranking of global oil and gas companies based on revenue, Sinopec, a Chinese company is first; Royal Dutch Shell, of U. K. is second; PetroChina is third; and EXXON is fourth; BP of the UK is fifth; and the following companies are Total, France; Chevron of the U. S.; Gazprom of Russia; and Rosenff of Russia. It is not clear what happend to Saudi Aramco which has been first in the past.

Either list explains the shenanigans in the South China Sea, with the USS Carl Vincent aircraft carrier visiting Vietnam in response to the Chinese recent claims there. The ship’s commanding officer, Captain Doug Verissimo, said, “When they put a carrier strike group somewhere it helps to show that the United States is interested.” The article continues, “The Carl Vinson is the flagship of a strike group from the US Third Fleet. The other vessels are here — but you can’t see them.” This is response to the fact China has buit airstrips and ports on reefs and shoals, bringing large areas within the 200 mile area recognized by international treaty as the exclusive territory of a nation.

China recently placed its first carrier in service, the Liaoning, It was an unfinished Soviet ship completed by China. The second, a very similar ship. was completed late in 2017. The third aircraft carrier is under construction now in Shanghai. It has the designation 002, and is a considerable improvement. None are up to U. S. standards, but the Chinese learn fast.

The unholy relation between the U. S. and Saudi Arabia, a barbaric unfree nation, makes it a protectorate because of the oil.

And then there is Russia with the greatest reserves of conventional natural gas, reported as 47.8 trillion cubic meters, Iran with 34 , Qatar with 24.5 T and the U. S. with 9.7 T according to Wikipedia. U. S. production is measured in cubic feet and the 28.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas production sold in the same year translates to 0 .804 trillion cubic meters, a ten year supply (discounting additional discovery).

Russia has one main pipeline running to Europe for its vast supply of gas. Nord Stream is an offshore natural gas pipeline from Vyborg in the Russian Federation to Greifswald in Germany that is owned and operated by Nordstrom AG. It is the world’s longest undersea pipeline, through waters of the Baltic sea. The project includes two parallel lines. Each is 56 inches in diameter (note the APC and MVP projectd pipelines are 42 inches) and The first line was laid by May 2011 and production was inaugurated on 8 November 2011. The second line was laid in 2011–2012. It has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres, but its capacity is planned to be doubled to 110 billion cubic metres by 2019, by laying two additional lines. Our ally Germany gets a cut from the gas that passes through it. 16 banks have been involved from Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands.

The latest word is in the title “Europe Split on Nordstream 2 Pipeline as US warns Against Dependence on Russian gas.” That article is located here. Germany, Austria, and western Europe are for it. Those against it include Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Poland and eastern Europe.

Historically, Russian natural gas reached Europe overland through Ukraine and Belarus. Entirely different stories explain what happened in Ukraine. See here and here. As frequently is the case, both stories are true. Russia controlled by Putin is likely to use the gas as a political tool, and Victoria Neuland, a notorious Neocon, and her five million dollars left Ukraine in the hands of an openly fascist government. Still, about half the Russian gas goes through Ukraine.

Both sides of what happened in Belarus are covered here.

Syria also enters the picture. It is clear that the war is about a possible pipeline from Iran and or Russia to southern Europe, versus pipeline from Qatar or Saudi Arabia, our allies, to Europe. Our U. S. involvement at present in Syria is light, but none the less real.

The United States has 800 foreign military bases while the rest of the world combined has 30. Would the U. S. need fine control over all that territory if it wasn’t for the petroleum corporations? It is usually argued to the public that it is our freedom that is at stake, but lets look at that claim, too. Do you think that our reputation for human rights and a stable government composed of three branches that can check on each other would be enhanced if we didn’t ally with the likes of Saudi Arabia and present day Ukraine? If we didn’t habitually overthrow goverenments which have something our big businessmen want?

Our military takes over half the federal government’s disposable income. In 2015 it took $598 billion of the 1,110 billion federal budget. That’s 37 percent of the world total spent on “defence.” Much of it is returned to American corporations. The oil companies get their share, several times as much fuel is required for each soldier, sailor or marine than each civilian uses. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, and trucks for carrying all that fuel and field electrical generators for soldiers and marines, and for sailors to fuel all the big ships except aircraft carriers. And the Air Force must have fuel for it’s airplanes.

Few of us think of the military budget as a subsidy for the oil industry, but it is as we have explained above, and has been for over a century.

S. Tom Bond is a member of the Mountain Lakes Preservation Alliance, active in central West Virginia. See also: www.Appalmad.org

Tagged as: carbon dioxide, climate change, drilling, fossil fuels, fracking, global warming, marcellus shale, military impacts