{"id":6134,"date":"2013-10-18T10:01:38","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T14:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/?p=6134"},"modified":"2013-10-18T10:06:18","modified_gmt":"2013-10-18T14:06:18","slug":"fracking-at-vsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/fracking-at-vsu.html","title":{"rendered":"Fracking at VSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIt’s good to see fracking reviewed in the VSU Spectator,\r\n\r\nincluding that it’s\r\n\r\ncoming to Georgia<\/a>\r\nunless we stop it, and we should stop it.\r\nIt’s unfortunate the story ends with a bad idea when\r\nthere’s a much better idea already rapidly being deployed: solar power.\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\nStephen Cavallaro wrote yesterday for the VSU Spectator,\r\n\r\nFracking hits Georgia<\/a>,\r\n

\r\n

\r\nFracking, the process of harvesting the environmentally unfriendly\r\nnatural gas called shale that is being pushed by the government,\r\nplows its way through Georgia.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nMore like being pushed by fossil fuel companies who have bought too many\r\npoliticians.\r\n

\r\n

\r\n\r\nIn March, I discussed<\/a> a deal backed by the government between\r\nBritish-owned Centrica and American-owned Cheniere. The agreement\r\nwas that Cheniere would spread toxic chemicals across America in\r\norder to fuel millions of British homes.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nKind of like\r\n\r\nthe wood pellet plant in Waycross<\/a> that exploded in June 2011\r\nwhile making pellets to fuel the Tilbury, England biomass plant that\r\nexploded in February 2012.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nAnd of course fracking is the source of the natural gas for the\r\n\r\nSabal Trail pipeline Spectra Energy<\/a>\r\nwants to run through Georgia.\r\n

\r\n

\r\nWhile the fracking industry builds momentum throughout the nation,\r\nso does the opposition. Even British activists are taking action to\r\ndeter the growth of fracking in their nation. Early this month,\r\nfracking was banned in France.\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nGlobal fear toward fracking is justifiable. Over the year fracking\r\nhas been deemed a cause of earthquakes in Arkansas and Texas. Early\r\nthis month, Duke University equated an increase of fracking to the\r\nrise of pollution in a Pennsylvanian water supply, and according to\r\nSoutheastern Naturalist, it has been killing endangered fish in\r\nKentucky since 2007.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nHe concludes with a bad idea:\r\n

\r\n

\r\nAn alternative to fracking that is breaking ground is known as\r\nwaterless fracking. Waterless fracking employs propan instead of\r\nwater to perform fracking processes. The new method, while not\r\ncompletely eco-friendly, does open new doors to safe alternatives to\r\nfracking.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\nExcuse me?\r\n<\/a>\r\nWhy are we injecting massive amounts of anything into the ground?\r\nIt doesn’t have to be water to cause earthquakes,\r\nand propane isn’t very healthy for anything, either.\r\n

\r\nThere’s no excuse for fracking of any kind when we can get all\r\nthe energy we need from the sun and the wind.\r\nAs\r\n\r\n\r\nThomas Alva Edison said 82 years ago<\/a>:\r\n

\r\n

\r\n<\/a>\r\n“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our\r\nhouse for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible\r\nsources of energy — sun, wind and tide. … I’d put my money\r\non the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t\r\nhave to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle\r\nthat.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n\r\nAnd we don’t have to wait.\r\nUtilities are \r\nrunning scared of solar power<\/a>\r\nwhich is\r\n\r\nbeating their stock prices hands down<\/a>\r\nbecause even with fracking natural gas prices are not going to keep going down,\r\nwhile \r\nMoore’s Law<\/a>\r\nkeeps driving solar prices down and\r\n\r\ndeployments up<\/a>\r\nlike\r\n\r\ncompound interest<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n\r\n<\/a>\r\nSolar will\r\n\r\nwin like the Internet did<\/a>:\r\nso fast\r\n\r\nit will make your jaw drop<\/a>.\r\nThere’s no point in paying dirty tribute money to fossil fuel companies that makes us all more dependent on them,\r\nnow that\r\nthe\r\n\r\nsolar sun of jobs, energy independence, and clean air and water<\/a>\r\nis already rising on Georgia.\r\n

\r\nNo fracking,\r\n\r\nno pipeline<\/a>.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s good to see fracking reviewed in the VSU Spectator, including that it’s coming to Georgia unless we stop it, and we should stop it. It’s unfortunate the story ends with a bad idea when there’s a much better idea already rapidly being deployed: solar power. Stephen Cavallaro wrote yesterday for the VSU Spectator, Fracking […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[120,14,8,2,19,20,733,6124,6687,23,24,134],"tags":[8738,7082,8704,308,8701,8699,8709,8702,8710,12,7,8799,562,7083,6076,8713,6597,970,8714,3596,6966,7084,6,8743,2597,4974],"class_list":["post-6134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biomass","category-economy","category-georgia","category-government","category-history","category-law","category-media","category-natural-gas-2","category-pipeline-2","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-vsu","tag-biomass","tag-cheniere","tag-economy","tag-fracking","tag-georgia","tag-government","tag-history","tag-lake","tag-law","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-media","tag-natural-gas","tag-pellet","tag-pipeline","tag-renewable-energy","tag-sabal-trail-transmission","tag-shale-gas","tag-solar","tag-spectator","tag-spectra-energy","tag-tilbury","tag-valdosta","tag-vsu","tag-waycross","tag-wood"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-1AW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6134"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6140,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6134\/revisions\/6140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}