LNG exports will bleed the US of longterm resources and increase global warming

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Resident Farmer & Retired Chemist, Lewis County, WV

“U. S. Liquefied Natural Gas Hits Record Highs Again” (January 8), seems to hit all the bells and whistles for what is essentially a political movement devoid of practicality. See the recent article post and comments here in FrackCheckWV.net.

It trashes the countryside where it is conducted, due to the Halliburton amendment of Dick Chaney, and will surely destroy the life sustaining capacity of the earth, due to its effluvia (methane, other hydrocarbons, & carbon dioxide). All this to squeeze out the last dregs of natural gas under the earth in the United States, as though none would be needed here in the future.

The author ignores the fact that it is increasingly difficult to get capital for fracking because the companies aren’t making money, many are going broke and there is an active, effective divestment movement which values life more than quick wealth.

LNG export and import facilities are a fat target in an uncertain and increasingly warlike world. Each LNG tanker holds energy equivalent to an atomic bomb! These ships are easily attacked with cheap missiles, too.

Fracking has become the practice due to the exhaustion of “conventional” reserves, still abundant elsewhere, but in nations the U. S. chooses to compete with. The huge quantities of manufactured chemicals and truly vast quantities of water required for the method have two main effects: (1) they make it expensive compared to drilling a well where the petroleum will simply flow to the hole and can be pumped out, and (2) it has gross effects on the countryside where it is conducted.

One effect is contamination of well water and water that flows on the surface, making residence and farming difficult or impossible. Large areas are removed from forests and pastures and converted into roads and drill pads covered deeply with gravel and made incapable of vegetation. Local roads are crowded and destroyed, at public expense and great cost to local residents and local communities.

As long as the banks are willing to loan, and investors can be suckered in, fracking moves great sums of money. More than most can imagine, money is moved to lobbies at state legislatures and congress to obtain legislation permitting this irrational initiative.

I know these things because I live in the Marcellus Field, and I am a chemist. Fracking is a political movement first and foremost. It is not economic or rational.

S. Thomas Bond of Jane Lew, WV

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See also: The U.S. is helping the natural gas industry make a profit | The Texas Tribune