New US study: No link between shale gas extraction and water contamination

Greenies, Russian Gazprom and French nuclear power lobbyists have formed an unholy alliance against shale gas harvesting in Europe, painting a picture of dangerous "pollution" and other problems. However, neither the anti-shale gas campaigners in Europe nor their colleagues in the US will succeed, because they are grossly overstating the dangers.
Here is what a new independent study by the University of Texas´Energy Institute has to say about shale gas drilling:

Preliminary findings from the Energy Institute's study released Wednesday suggest there is no link between the extraction operations and groundwater contamination, said the study's leader, Charles "Chip" Groat, a UT geology professor.
He noted that the dangers associated with shale gas drilling — which is accomplished by hydraulic fracturing, a process commonly known as fracking — are largely the same as other oil-drilling operations.
"Hydraulic fracturing doesn't seem to be of concern to groundwater," Groat said. "If there has been water contaminated related to shale gas development let's not look at fracturing, let's look at surface processes."
As in other types of drilling operations, poor casing or shoddy cement jobs have often been to blame for regulatory violations or contamination in shale gas drilling, Groat said.
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Groat downplayed the problems associated with fracking.
"The violations that we've seen are of no, minor or small impact," Groat said. "The impact on groundwater, the impact on the surface is not of anything substantial, certainly not compared to coal mines or metal mines."

Read the entire article here

The principles that should guide us

There once was a president who was ready to stand by the principles that have made the US great - and to act  when it was time to act.

This excerpt from a speech that the then future president Ronald Reagan gave already in 1964 should have been shown to the G8 foreign ministers (to Herr Westerwelle, in particular), who met in Paris without being able to agree on a no-fly zone in Libya:

This is the sad reality:

Europe fiddles as Libya burns

On military intervention, there are almost as many opinions as there are EU members, and no one wants to act without the US

Disagreement between European countries over Libya has moved from the merely embarrassing to the wholly humiliating, after Germany again blocked Anglo-French no-fly zone proposals at a G8 meeting in Paris. The EU's Libya debacle is now the foreign policy equivalent of last year's eurozone meltdown, and similarly damaging to its global credibility and influence. Once again, Europe is being forced to confront an unpalatable truth: unless the US takes the lead, nothing gets done.

PS
And president Obama continues his dithering, sending out mixed signals. Maybe somebody should show the video to him, too.