Fracking moratorium opposed in northern territory
JARURU/BOSTON (Reuters) – Scientists and environmentalists have signed on to call on state and federal regulators to take a hard line in reviewing a controversial industry practice that has become increasingly popular across North America, while also urging state governments to stop the widespread exploration of oil and gas reserves.
In a letter published on the American Association for the Advancement of Science website late on Wednesday, the group says that in the past two decades, there has been a rapid rise in the production of natural gas from conventional wells and shale rock formation.
By the end of 2015, the group said, the United States was expected to experience a peak in natural gas production, and by 2016, the shale-gas industry was expected to generate enough energy to power 15 million homes.
While the science is not settled, the letter, written by scientists with the Center for Science in the Public Interest and The Nature Conservancy, says that the shale gas boom has put the U.S. in “a unique position to benefit from an abundance of clean, safe energy.”
They write that fracking, in which fluids containing natural gas and chemicals from natural gas processing are injected underground to release trapped rock and release chemicals, has been used for thousands of years in North America, but this has come to the United States from largely unexplored regions in places like the Mariana Islands, in the Caribbean, or from the Bakken formation 예스카지노of the Bakken shale oil and gas-rich region of North Dakota.
The letter also calls on authorities to require companies drilling in these regions to obtain the proper permit and provide adequate safety information.
“It’s going to be a huge disaster if we don’t stop fracking now,” said Mark Wigler, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
There is already a ban on the practice in the Mariana Islands but “it’s just a question of getting the federal government to do more 온라인 카지노 사이트to make sure people have these permits and not have the industry exploit these places,” he said.
Last month, environm영천출장안마24 시 출장ental groups opposed an attempt by a company seeking federal approval of a $10 billion gas-drilling project in the Gulf of Mexico to drill several hundred metres deep.
The drilling ban applies not only to fracking but also to other related practices such as hydraulic fracturing – using compressed air, high-pressure water to release gas, and chemicals and rock to control the formation of gas-bearing strata, the letter said.
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