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An Inconvenient Truth About ‘Gasland’

"And the winner is ... Gasland!" But guess who's the loser?

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  February 27th, 2011 at 07:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (COMINTERN) (AMPAS) are a bunch of suckers when it comes to Leftist propaganda films featuring outrageous, junk-science based, anti-capitalist claptrap. Just ask Al Gore, who won an Oscar a few years back for An Inconvenient Truth.

One of this year’s nominees in the Documentary Feature category is a film by Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic called Gasland. Too bad there’s no category for Documentary Fiction.

Here’s Gasland‘s famous image of flammable tap water, from a Mr. Markham’s Colorado water well:

 

Gasland aims to educate the public about the supposed danger of hydraulic fracturing, a process commonly used in preparing low permeability but gas-bearing rocks for production in wells once they are drilled. In reality, the process takes place thousands of feet underground, separated from underground water sources by a mile or more of rock. In the last 60 years or so, a million wells or more have been fracked, with no documented instances of groundwater contamination.

You’d expect industry to step up and object. But even public officials have been moved to denounce Gasland‘s fast and loose treatment of the facts.

Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, Correcting Gasland:

Gasland incorrectly attributes several cases of water well contamination in Colorado to oil and gas development when our investigations determined that the wells in question contained biogenic [naturally-occurring] methane that is not attributable to such development.

From John Hanger, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection:

Gasland is “fundamentally dishonest” and “a deliberately false presentation for dramatic effect.”

Gasland talks about Dunkard Creek [a massive fish kill] – an environmental disaster – but everything we know about Dunkard Creek at this point indicates the primary source of the problem was a coal mine in West Virginia.

America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) has produced a video further debunking Gasland‘s claims:

Surely Gasland will win its Oscar. Its inflammatory (no pun intended) theme and predictable hysteria will attract Academy voters like flies to a cowflop. It’s not so much that the Left-coasters are anti-energy, they’re just hostile to forms of energy that actually, you know, work.

[Disclaimer: My employer is not an ANGA member company. It's likely that we would benefit economically from greater restrictions on hydraulic fracturing, since restrictions will inevitably lead to higher prices of our gas, which for the most part does not require fracking. The success of the process in the shale plays of PA, OK, LA, TX and elsewhere have resulted in a huge supply of natural gas on the market, so that the current price differential between gas and oil ($4 per mcf gas vs nearly $100 per barrel oil) prices a gas BTU at about a quarter of the cost of an oil BTU. For the consumer and for the environment, natural gas is the best deal going. - SM]

Cross-posted at VladEnBlog.

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  • rick554

    In the town of North Royalton ,Ohio, about 4 miles from here. Apparently well water systems were being affected by natural gas naturally occuring in the ground. The situation was fixed when the city put water mains in and vented the old wells. I guess there actually is quite a bit of natural gas in the area, since some big drill rigs have been working lately.
    Not having seen “Gasland” or any other Hollywood propaganda recently, I cant comment further. If I do remember tho, some that wanted 20th century drinking water in Royalton did burn some water for the “News” guys. But flames coming from a water faucet?? lol Ok

  • jen0517

    CSI did an episode on this. I just had to laugh and change the channel. I used to be a big fan of the CSI franchise, but am disgusted with their leftist propaganda story lines. This ranks right up there with spontaneous combustion of humans. HA!

    • earlgrey

      towards leftist propaganda. I guess it is cheaper than having real technical people do some writing for the show.

      Slightly OT, but I am a bit annoyed watching some of the Oscar’s (hubby’s choice) and one of the guys has already thanked his “union crew”.

      • becolt

        it set me off bad enough that I blew a gasket on twitter at whoever the poor guy running cbs’s account was.

  • http://www.examiner.com/x-1597-Charlotte-Law--Politics-Examiner Mike gamecock DeVine

    on TNT

  • donnybrooke

    Really? I thought they had ceased those years ago! I think the last one I watched was when John Wayne accepted an oscar for “True Grit”.

    The sad thing about this is that in 2020 there is not a single movie made in 2010 that I will remember (if I am still alive then).

    • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Steve Maley

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacheen_Littlefeather

  • dennism

    … just the most recent. Ms. Clinton won a Grammy for recording a reading of a book she had ghostwritten for her… “It Takes A Village Idiot” as I recall.

    Don’t forget the Nobel Prize Mr. Obama won for a new category, best hope and change by a rookie.

    Has anyone else ever seen the bosses girlfriend’s car parked in the space designated for the “employee of the month?” There’s a metaphor in there…

    • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Steve Maley
    • merryj1

      LOL! When “It Takes a Village (Idiot) was being swooned over by some talking-head fans of the author (shaking head), the excerpts recited sounded to me like premises were lifted from Aldous Huxley’s “Island” (although my memory is admittedly not all that reliable – I read “Island” sometime in the 1960′s, and have not read the, uh, other book).

  • 1stRichard

    I am not sure if they still teach this in grade school any more but the color of the flame and the burn looked wrong for the type of gas they claimed. It could be just me but how could so many overlook an obvious detail or be so stupid enough to think they could get away with such a blatant lie.

    If people are really that stupid then there has to be a conspiracy here with teachers or some other problem, I am just not positive what it could be. What do you all think this problem could be?..

    • myron_j_poltroonian

      at first blush, I was inclined to agree with you. However, upon reflection as to what I see every time I let a pan of liquid boil over on my range (archaic term for a gas stove – and one I grew up with) the color of the flames are a yellowish-orangish hue until the liquid is burned (boiled?) off. “Happy Cooking”, indeed.

  • claude5

    Why oh why can’t we see a single show or movie that isn’t leftist, communist, anti-capitalist propaganda? Don’t the entertainment companies believe in profits? Why does the entertainment industry hate capitalism so much?

    • Ausonius

      Did you know that there is a movie called “Red State” with foul-mouthed, low-class actress Melissa Leo?

      It is a “horror” movie, and is probably horrible!

      See:

      http://www.shockya.com/news/2010/11/01/terrifying-new-red-state-movie-poster/

  • themarathonman

    …within my company. This will be one of the next big targets of the trial attorneys – the presenter representing the trial attorneys was better prepared for the presentation than her insurance counterparts, and even more than the oil and gas expert involved. You can bet Soetoro and his EPA trolls will be all over this in due course. Movies like this will only propel the process forward, unfortunately…

    • edintexas

      When the “Fracking” furor erupted and the Lefties turned to the EPA for support in banning the process, they were very disappointed when EPA refused to support the theory that Fracking caused problems with drinking water supplies.

      Of course New York State went ahead and issued a temporary ban on Fracking anyway (as well as other cities), who needs facts or proof when a Leftist idea is at stake.

      • edintexas

        Forgot to also mention, as “Vlad” obliquely did above, that Gasland lost out to “Inside Job”. Of course, since I haven’t watched this show in decades, I had to go look this stuff up.

      • http://vladenblog.tumblr.com Steve Maley

        Now she’s gone from the Administration…

  • doubledok

    I had not followed the results of G-land but remember the flaming faucet. My Colorado farmland past includes smelly, sulfur-odor well-water hundreds of miles from any natural gas deposits.

  • melissatx

    I can tell you it occurs naturally. Put some bleach in the well and move on.
    PS There is more methane out in the cowpen than in the water unless you have to vent them after they eat too much sweet feed. Too bad THAT isn’t recyclable.

    The indoctrination of the left IS hollywood.

  • jackhammer

    Vlad,

    I live in Germany,a nd was watching a TV show called Planetopia. You can imagine that it is coming from the left, for the enviro’s, and it is on one of the publicly funded television channels, whcih are further left than NBC…and it was a look at electric cars.

    What I was very surprised about were the conclusions that were drawn. I assumed they would be all rah rah, yeah yeah!….but they were actualyl very factual and quite wholely unimpressed with the ecological balance of electric cars.

    First they went at the practicality – it could only serve as a second car for city driving for the wealthy. They are small, expensive, not particularly luxurious, and definitely not a great alternative to a Internal Combustion Motor.

    Then they went at the environmental impact – IT wasn’t great either. Not even considering the 2nd car aspect, just the electricity used per mile and the carbon footprint of it. They based it on a super compact smart car. As a current diesel with start stop technology it generates 88g of co2per KM. The esmart is at 71 if you use a mix of solar, wind and nuclear power fill er up, but the vast majority of electricity in Gemrany is coal powered, so there it would be 108g.

    Then they did something surprising and went at the politics – and here is where I was most positively surprised. They talked about the subsidies the industry is begging for. They didn’t see how subsidizing a car with a marginally better carbon footprint to the tune of billions of ?’s could make any sense environmentally or financially.

    They also said why the car companies were so interested, because the co2 footprint for e-cars wasn’t based on actual numbers, but rather was always a ZERO in the Brussels/EU car efficiency norms…and not just a ZERO, but a triple rated ZERO. So if you sell 3 cars with an average co2 footprint of 200g and one ecar, whatever the actual value, then your total average per car would be calculated at 100g.

    I jsut wanted to relay this to you, also as another example of the tide turning.

  • horizon3

    You have make the incorrect assumption that carbon is a pollutant, It’s NOT. So a carbon footprint is a moot point, and is just another boogy man created by the enviroloons to further their agenda.

    You are correct in the energy balance of an electric car, just like wind turbines and solar cells, they will NEVER balance out the energy it takes to manufacture, maintain and operate them. Not to mention the fact that each electric car is carrying around enough metallic lithium in its batteries to kill everyone in New York, London or Paris.

    I have spent a goodly portion of my life in the oil field and the only danger presented in fracing are during the job from high pressures, and flow back water disposal, the frac fluid itself is basically harmless cross linked organic polymers (corn starch and guar gum), with a VERY small amount of ammonium perchlorate as a gel breaker, and I mean small, usually less than 1PPM. Although I would not recommend it you could drink the stuff, (it will give you the poops).
    The flow back water will contain VERY small amounts of minerals dissolved from the formation, again this is usually less than you would find in your average potable water well, because it is only exposed to the formation for a few hours or days at the most. Every frac job I have been on in the last 30yrs has used flowback tanks or lined ponds to contain this flowback fluid, it is then shipped to a treatment plant where it’s cleaned up then put back into the environment, or recycled back to the service company to use for the next frac job. In many instances it’s shipped to a water injection site for use in tertiary recover injection.
    Or filtered and used as a completion fluid.

    Unlike government, the oil patch hates inefficiency, it’s a very expensive business, and it tries to eliminate it wherever it can.

  • myron_j_poltroonian
  • myron_j_poltroonian
  • kjkj

    Is “fracking” or “fracing” the abbreviation for fracturing?

    In all of the time that I have been associated with the oil industry, it has always been “fracing”. The other spelling seems to have come out of the media, mostly English majors that can’t handle a hard “c” followed by an “i” (or “e” in “fraced”).

    I vote to reject the media’s spelling and return to the original oil field spelling.

    It might prevent confusion with another similar word that starts with F and ends with K. I saw a case where “Frack” was used where “F**K” would have been expected. Most of the environmentalists hate oilfield operations and companies. Will “frack” become the next “teabag” dirty word?

    As to Gasland, Scientific American actually listed it as a source of more information on shale gas development. I wrote them a letter protesting the referencing of non-factual information (it was not published, of course).

    The comment period for the EPA plan to examine the safety of fracing ended 2/28/11. Since wells have been safely fraced for 60 years without water reservoir contamination, the plan is mostly concerned with surface spills and frac fluid components. All frac chemicals will have a material data safety sheet that can be requested, sooooo what is the big deal?