Holy hell. There hasn't been that much bipartisanship since the great "Lyke-dis-if-u-crie-evry-tyme Act of 1897".

I saw something recently that made me have to do some Wiki'ing.

Stegosaurus lived around 150 to 155 million years ago.
T-Rex lived 67 to 65 years ago.

This means that we live closer to T-Rex than T-Rex lived to Stegosaurus. Crazy eh?

He is serious, and don't call him Shir- whoops. I might have jumped the gun on that one.

Remember that you have to get a permit from the state in order to frack. If the amount of waste generated is too much, or if the state doesn't have the resources to regulate the disposal of the fluids, then it's the state that should hold back from offering fracking permits until they have a better hand on the situation, assuming they are over burdened.

But then again, it's the state that is reaping the tax benefits of the increased O&G production. They will most likely be less concerned about the environment knowing they are getting much needed tax dollars.

And with respect to "land that has been completely sterilized" by frack fluid: Many times a company will drill using salt based water fluids (could be sodium chloride or calcium chloride, typically), or more often, the actual rock formation contains salt brine that incorporates into the fluid. The fluids are tested for salt, and if it is too high, it does have to be disposed of in a proper way. What you describe may most likely from high salt concentration than "some dangerous unknown brew of toxic chemicals".

99% is sand and water, typically, and the other 1% is a combination of the remaining products. Plus, Fido most likely injests more ethylene and propylene glycol from his dog food than what is present in these drilling fluids.

How would you feel if you knew that they use diesel as a non-aqueous based drilling fluid to drill these wells thousands of feet before they frack? Would you still drink tap water if knew they were drilling a hole using diesel as a drilling fluid? I mean, they've only been doing that for 60+ years.

It bothers me when people discuss their uninformed opinions relating to a topic as fact.

1) The amount of fluid used in these deep shale formations is quite large, but even when you drill horizontally for a mile and then fracture 1000+ feet above and below the hole, you're still typically 12,000 feet below the surface (therefore the "frac zone" is from 11,000 to 13,000 feet). So even if you have DEEP water table of 2000 feet below the surface (where nearly none are this deep), the alleged "toxic chemicals" would have to travel a distance of around 9,000 feet (in this case) in order to taint the water supply. I've sat through enough presentations with REAL data obtained in the field to know that the fractures occur nowhere near these water zones.

2) The purpose of fracking is to increase the permeability of low-permeability shales (traditional reservoirs are in the mili-darcy range were unconventional reservoirs are more in the micro to nano-darcy range). They use high pressure fluid to open up the shale. Has nothing to do with adding pressure under the surface.

3) Waste products tend not to be controlled? Are you fucking nuts? The amount of regulation on what to do with the waste water is HUGE (and the assfucks that attempt to dump these fluids are massively fined), not to mention that a good chunk of fracking research goes into figuring out how to best reclaim and reuse of the fluid. Besides being 99% water and sand, the other additives are typically guar, biocides, polyacrylamides for friction reduction, corrosion inhibitors, citric acid, and ethylene glycol.

By the way, I work in a plant that makes a variety of additives for drilling and fracking fluids. Would you believe me if I told you that our facility is not capable or certified to handle any type of hazardous materials? That would mean that our company is going to get shut down by the government if they find out.... or maybe that the majority of additives for drilling and fracking fluids are non-hazardous?

Indium tin oxide is (was?) one of the primary clear conductive coatings used on LCD screens.

If you look at the link that I included in the article, you'll notice that it links to that very article you describe. I even took the extra minute to search for the link in order to include it in the article :)

I always found it funny how NASA used the picture-taking satellites as telescopes, while the NRO and DoD uses them more like microscopes.