California's Fracking Boom Just Got Busted

[Omaha Steve]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/23855-californias-fracking-boom-just-got-busted

Wednesday, 21 May 2014 16:58
By Mike Ludwig, Truthout | Report



Oil wells in the Midway-Sunset oil field in Fellows, Calif., Jan. 22, 2013. Monterey Shale, largely untouched territory near Midway-Sunset, had been a hope for the future of California's oil industry - however, recent news has severely undercut that hope. (Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)


Energy Information Administration officials told reporters on Wednesday that they are cutting their estimate of how much oil can be drawn out of California's massive Monterey Shale formation by a whopping 96 percent.

The news deals a serious blow to the fracking industry and has environmentalists cheering as momentum builds behind a legislative effort to put a moratorium on fracking in California. The estimate will be released publically next month, according to reports.

In 2012, the federal officials estimated that 13.7 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from the Monterey Shale. The EIA now says that only 600 million barrels of oil can be recovered using existing technologies such as acid treatment and fracking, the controversial oil and gas technique that involves forcing millions of gallons of water laced with silica and chemicals deep underground to break up rock formations.

The earlier estimate was based on a 2011 study by an EIA contractor that assumed the industry's latest extraction techniques would make the Monterey's reserves as easy to recover as those in shale formations under Texas and North Dakota, where fracking technology has fueled ongoing oil and gas booms. But the geological formations in the Monterey Shale, it turns out, are not as easily punctured because they have been impacted by seismic activity.

FULL story at link.

[Le Taz Hot]

1. K & R

[Phlem]

2. K&R!

[Starry Messenger]

3. k&r

[Snarkoleptic]

4. That pic is an.awful hellscape.

We need to.get off oil ASAFP!

[Blue Owl]

5. It's Disneyworld for Dick Cheney

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. It should be noted that the wells in the southern end of the San Joaquin valley have been in place..

for decades.

The pumps in the picture are not new installations, not by a long shot.

[mountain grammy]

6. K & R

[passiveporcupine]

7. Yeah, California is a great place to poison the water supply

I really cannot believe that this country is allowing fracking. We must be out of our frikkin minds.

[proReality]

9. What a disgusting eyesore! n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. Good! as California goes, so goes the nation

is a indeed a truism.

[Omaha Steve]

11. Kick