Well this is pretty much depressing me, yet another chance for our leaders [world leaders] to bury their heads in the sand:
Multinational companies including Shell, GDF Suez and Statoil are promoting gas as an alternative "green" fuel. These companies are among dozens around the world investing in new technologies to exploit shale gas, a controversial form of the fuel that has rejuvenated the gas industry because it is plentiful in supply and newly accessible due to technical advances in gas extraction known as "fracking".
Green in what sense may one ask?
Clean fresh water supplies are fragile:
To judge from recent media attention, the finite supply of freshwater on Earth has been nearly tapped dry, leading to a natural resource calamity on par with, or even worse than, running out of accessible, affordable oil. In this chapter, we evaluate the similarities and differences between water and oil to understand whether and how the concept of “peak water” is analogous to the idea of peak oil; how relevant this idea is to actual hydrologic and water management conditions; and the implications of limits on freshwater availability for human and ecosystem well-being.
Fracking involves pumping water and various unspecified chemicals at high temperature and pressures into shale thus fracturing the strata. If these fractures open into the water table then these chemicals [many carcinogenic] enter the water supply.
Central to the lobbying effort is a report claiming that the EU could meet its 2050 carbon targets €900bn more cheaply by using gas than by investing in renewables.
Yet the CO2 emissions will continue [if initially a trifle reduced].
Prof David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change. He told the Guardian: "You can't reach the [climate] targets like this - there is no way that switching to gas would solve the problem. I don't think it's really credible that gas is the only future."
Jenny Banks, climate and energy policy officer at WWF-UK, called on the British government to halt shale gas exploration. "It would be ridiculous to encourage shale gas when in reality its greenhouse gas footprint could be as bad as or worse than coal. We need to reject this source of gas, and have a clear plan to move away from our dependency on fossil fuels and harness the full potential of renewable technologies."
Prof Robert Howarth, lead author of the Cornell study, said: "My strong belief is that shale gas has been promoted far beyond the objective evidence of what it can and cannot do.
We will do anything to keep the myth alive that fossil fuels are the future, the current fossil fuel multinationals are dinosaurs and it is to be hoped that we all do not go the same way as these terrible lizards.
In our drive to have cheap readily available energy we are prepared to tolerate:
1] Oil polluted seas
2] Ravaged mountains and ruined rivers.
3] Lunar landscapes across the heartland.
4] Polluted water tables.
5] And waste so toxic that we need to bury it for milennia and just hope it doesn't leak.
6] Climate change that is approaching a tipping point.
7] Wars for oil.
We avoid at all cost changing the way we do things, not because it is easier but because those colossal wrecks we call multinationals deem it it is their best interests to preserve the status quo.
Eventually we ourselves may not be able to tolerate the environment we have created.