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Tag: fracking

  • Your AI tools run on fracked gas and bulldozed Texas land | TechCrunch

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    The AI era is giving fracking a second act, a surprising twist for an industry that, even during its early 2010s boom years, was blamed by climate advocates for poisoned water tables, man-made earthquakes, and the stubborn persistence of fossil fuels.

    AI companies are building massive data centers near major gas-production sites, often generating their own power by tapping directly into fossil fuels. It’s a trend that’s been overshadowed by headlines about the intersection of AI and healthcare (and solving climate change), but it’s one that could reshape — and raise difficult questions for — the communities that host these facilities.

    Take the latest example. This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that AI coding assistant startup Poolside is constructing a data center complex on more than 500 acres in West Texas — about 300 miles west of Dallas — a footprint two-thirds the size of Central Park. The facility will generate its own power by tapping natural gas from the Permian Basin, the nation’s most productive oil and gas field, where hydraulic fracturing isn’t just common but really the only game in town.

    The project, dubbed Horizon, will produce two gigawatts of computing power. That’s equivalent to the Hoover Dam’s entire electric capacity, except instead of harnessing the Colorado River, it’s burning fracked gas. Poolside is developing the facility with CoreWeave, a cloud computing company that rents out access to Nvidia AI chips and that’s supplying access to more than 40,000 of them. The Journal calls it an “energy Wild West,” which seems apt.

    Yet Poolside is far from alone. Nearly all the major AI players are pursuing similar strategies. Last month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman toured his company’s flagship Stargate data center in Abilene, Texas — around 200 miles from the Permian Basin — where he was candid, saying, “We’re burning gas to run this data center.”

    The complex requires about 900 megawatts of electricity across eight buildings and includes a new gas-fired power plant using turbines similar to those that power warships, according to the Associated Press. The companies say the plant provides only backup power, with most electricity coming from the local grid. That grid, for the record, draws from a mix of natural gas and the sprawling wind and solar farms in West Texas.

    But the people living near these projects aren’t exactly comforted. Arlene Mendler lives across the street from Stargate. She told the AP she wishes someone had asked her opinion before bulldozers eliminated a huge tract of mesquite shrubland to make room for what’s being built atop it.

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    “It has completely changed the way we were living,” Mendler told the AP. She moved to the area 33 years ago seeking “peace, quiet, tranquility.” Now construction is the soundtrack in the background, and bright lights on the scene have spoiled her nighttime views.

    Then there’s the water. In drought-prone West Texas, locals are particularly nervous about how new data centers will impact the water supply. The city’s reservoirs were at roughly half-capacity during Altman’s visit, with residents on a twice-weekly outdoor watering schedule. Oracle claims each of the eight buildings will need just 12,000 gallons per year after an initial million-gallon fill for closed-loop cooling systems. But Shaolei Ren, a University of California, Riverside professor who studies AI’s environmental footprint, told the AP that’s misleading. These systems require more electricity, which means more indirect water consumption at the power plants generating that electricity.

    Meta is pursuing a similar strategy. In Richland Parish, the poorest region of Louisiana, the company plans to build a $10 billion data center the size of 1,700 football fields that will require two gigawatts of power for computation alone. Utility company Entergy will spend $3.2 billion to build three large natural-gas power plants with 2.3 gigawatts of capacity to feed the facility by burning gas extracted through fracking in the nearby Haynesville Shale. Louisiana residents, like those in Abilene, aren’t thrilled to be encircled by bulldozers around the clock.

    (Meta is also building in Texas, though elsewhere in the state. This week the company announced a $1.5 billion data center in El Paso, near the New Mexico border, with one gigawatt of capacity expected online in 2028. El Paso isn’t near the Permian Basin, and Meta says the facility will be matched with 100% clean and renewable energy. One point for Meta.)

    Even Elon Musk’s xAI, whose Memphis facility has generated considerable controversy this year, has fracking connections. Memphis Light, Gas and Water – which currently sells power to xAI but will eventually own the substations xAI is building – purchases natural gas on the spot market and pipes it to Memphis via two companies: Texas Gas Transmission Corp. and Trunkline Gas Company.

    Texas Gas Transmission is a bidirectional pipeline carrying natural gas from Gulf Coast supply areas and several major hydraulically fractured shale formations through Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Trunkline Gas Company, the other Memphis supplier, also carries natural gas from fracked sources.

    If you’re wondering why AI companies are pursuing this path, they’ll tell you it’s not just about electricity; it’s also about beating China.

    That was the argument Chris Lehane made last week. Lehane, a veteran political operative who joined OpenAI as vice president of global affairs in 2024, laid out the case during an on-stage interview with TechCrunch.

    “We believe that in the not-too-distant future, at least in the U.S., and really around the world, we are going to need to be generating in the neighborhood of a gigawatt of energy a week,” Lehane said. He pointed to China’s massive energy buildout: 450 gigawatts and 33 nuclear facilities constructed in the last year alone.

    When TechCrunch asked about Stargate’s decision to build in economically challenged areas like Abilene, or Lordstown, Ohio, where more gas-powered plants are planned, Lehane returned to geopolitics. “If we [as a country] do this right, you have an opportunity to re-industrialize countries, bring manufacturing back and also transition our energy systems so that we do the modernization that needs to take place.”

    The Trump administration is certainly on board. The July 2025 executive order fast-tracks gas-powered AI data centers by streamlining environmental permits, offering financial incentives, and opening federal lands for projects using natural gas, coal, or nuclear power — while explicitly excluding renewables from support.

    For now, most AI users remain largely unaware of the carbon footprint behind their dazzling new toys and work tools. They’re more focused on capabilities like Sora 2 – OpenAI’s hyperrealistic video-generation product that requires exponentially more energy than a simple chatbot – than on where the electricity comes from.

    The companies are counting on this. They’ve positioned natural gas as the pragmatic, inevitable answer to AI’s exploding power demands. But the speed and scale of this fossil fuel buildout deserves more attention than it’s getting.

    If this is a bubble, it won’t be pretty. The AI sector has become a circular firing squad of dependencies: OpenAI needs Microsoft needs Nvidia needs Broadcom needs Oracle needs data center operators who need OpenAI. They’re all buying from and selling to each other in a self-reinforcing loop. The Financial Times noted this week if the foundation cracks, there’ll be a lot of expensive infrastructure left standing around, both the digital and the gas-burning kind.

    OpenAI’s ability alone to meet its obligations is “increasingly a concern for the wider economy,” the outlet wrote.

    One key question that’s been largely absent from the conversation is whether all this new capacity is even necessary. A Duke University study found that utilities typically use only 53% of their available capacity throughout the year. That suggests significant room to accommodate new demand without constructing new power plants, as MIT Technology Review reported earlier this year.

    The Duke researchers estimate that if data centers reduced electricity consumption by roughly half for just a few hours during annual peak demand periods, utilities could handle an additional 76 gigawatts of new load. That would effectively absorb the 65 gigawatts data centers are projected to need by 2029.

    That kind of flexibility would allow companies to launch AI data centers faster. More importantly, it could provide a reprieve from the rush to build natural gas infrastructure, giving utilities time to develop cleaner alternatives.

    But again, that would mean losing ground to an autocratic regime, per Lehane and many others in the industry, so instead, the natural gas building spree appears likely to saddle regions with more fossil-fuel plants and leave residents with soaring electricity bills to finance today’s investments, including long after the tech companies’ contracts expire.

    Meta, for instance, has guaranteed it will cover Entergy’s costs for the new Louisiana generation for 15 years. Poolside’s lease with CoreWeave runs for 15 years. What happens to customers when those contracts end remains an open question.

    Things may eventually change. A lot of private money is being funneled into small modular reactors and solar installations with the expectation that these cleaner energy alternatives will become more central energy sources for these data centers. Fusion startups like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Systems have similarly raised substantial funding from those the front lines of AI, including Nvidia and Altman.

    This optimism isn’t confined to private investment circles. The excitement has spilled over into public markets, where several “non-revenue-generating” energy companies that have managed to go public have truly anticipatory, market caps, based on the expectation that they will one day fuel these data centers.

    In the meantime — which could still be decades — the most pressing concern is that the people who’ll be left holding the bag, financially and environmentally, never asked for any of this in the first place.

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    Connie Loizos

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  • Former ICE field director seizes on immigration in race against Rep. Jason Crow to represent Aurora

    Former ICE field director seizes on immigration in race against Rep. Jason Crow to represent Aurora

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    John Fabbricatore enforced federal immigration laws in his position as an ICE field office director until two years ago, and now he hopes to help secure America’s borders as a congressman.

    The Republican candidate in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District is drawing on his career with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as he runs against U.S. Rep. Jason Crow in the Nov. 5 election. Crow, a Democrat, just finished his third term in Congress as the representative of the district, which includes Aurora, Littleton, Englewood, Greenwood Village and Centennial.

    The odds weigh heavily in Crow’s favor. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report doesn’t consider the fight for the 6th District to be competitive. It’s ranked as solidly Democratic, in part because Crow, 45, won all three of his elections by double-digit percentages and redistricting in 2020 resulted in boundaries more favorable to Democrats.

    That’s a change from 2018 when the district was seen as a battleground and Crow won his first race by unseating then-U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, now Aurora’s mayor.

    But this time, Fabbricatore, 52, says voters are looking for a candidate who will prioritize the economy and lower taxes — and he contends that he’s the person for the job.

    “They want someone that wants to fight,” Fabbricatore said.

    He and Crow share certain traits. They’re both veterans: Fabbricatore served in the U.S. Air Force, and Crow was an Army Ranger. They’re hunters, each having longstanding experience with firearms. Neither hails from Colorado originally, with Fabbricatore raised in New York City and Crow in Madison, Wisconsin.

    And the candidates, both fathers of two children, reside in Aurora.

    Beyond that, their stances on major issues diverge — including on immigration, which Fabbricatore refers to as his “subject matter expertise.”

    He argues jobs are going to immigrants compensated with lower wages, taking positions that could be filled by Americans for higher pay. Fabbricatore says he supports “legal, vetted” immigration and more stringent enforcement of existing laws.

    “If we actually just enforce those laws, we will be doing much better than we are doing today with immigration,” he said.

    In recent weeks, Fabbricatore has raised the alarm alongside former President Donald Trump and other conservatives about the presence of Venezuelan gangs in Aurora — while Crow has called out exaggerations and criticized Trump for distorting the problems in certain apartment complexes.

    Crow notes that he represents “one of the most diverse districts in the nation,” with nearly 20% of his constituents born outside of the U.S. He wants to use federal grants and other programs to help immigrants and defend them against racist rhetoric.

    He said he backed a bipartisan immigration deal that ran aground earlier this year after failing to earn enough Republican support. It would have boosted the number of border patrol agents, immigration judges and officers that oversee asylum cases, as well as established more legal pathways for migrants and others without documentation.

    Fabbricatore said in a Denver Post candidate questionnaire that he would not have supported the bipartisan bill, instead preferring another bill with a greater focus on border security.

    Gun violence is what motivated Crow to run for office. He backs a ban on assault weapons and supports universal background checks. He’s also working to pass a bill that would apply the same restrictions to out-of-state residents when they purchase long guns and shotguns as they face when buying handguns — requiring that the gun be shipped to a federally licensed seller in their home state, with a background check performed there.

    Gun violence is “just an unacceptable, avoidable, ongoing national tragedy,” Crow said. “We don’t have to live with mass shootings.”

    Fabbricatore says he believes in gun rights and is instead pushing for investments in mental health.

    The candidates differ on abortion. Crow favors abortion rights, saying he aligns with the majority of Coloradans who back legal access to abortion — and he would support a federal law establishing that as a right. Fabbricatore says Congress should leave abortion’s legal status to the states. He opposes abortion, but he says he recognizes a need for exceptions, including in cases of rape.

    “Having been someone who worked in sex trafficking and saw what many women went through, I could never tell a woman that she couldn’t have a medical procedure to end what happened to her,” he said.

    Fabbricatore points to the economy as his No. 1 issue, saying it’s impacted by energy policy and immigration. He sees Colorado’s potential to participate in the energy sector through solar, wind, fracking and coal.

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    Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton

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  • Clock is ticking to clean the Front Range’s dirty air by 2027. The region’s off to a bad start this summer.

    Clock is ticking to clean the Front Range’s dirty air by 2027. The region’s off to a bad start this summer.

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    Colorado has three years to lower ground-level ozone pollution to meet federal standards, and this summer’s hazy skies — caused by oil and gas drilling, heavy vehicle traffic and wildfire smoke — are putting the state in a hole as it’s already logged more dirty air days than in all of 2023.

    “Our state has taken a lot of steps to improve air quality, but you can see it in the skies, you can see it in the air, that we still have work to do,” said Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate for the Colorado Public Interest Research Group.

    Two months into the 2024 summer ozone season, the Front Range already has recorded more high ozone days than the entire summer of 2023. As of Monday, which is the most recent data available, ozone levels had exceeded federal air quality standards on 28 days. At the same point in 2023, there had been 27 high-ozone days.

    The summer ozone season runs from June 1 to Aug. 31. However, the region encompassing metro Denver and the northern Front Range this year recorded its first high ozone day in May, and in some years ozone pollution exceeds federal standards into mid-September.

    The region is failing to meet two air quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

    The first benchmark is to lower average ozone pollution to a 2008 standard of 75 parts per billion. The northern Front Range is in what’s called “severe non-attainment” for that number, meaning motorists must use a more expensive blend of gasoline during the summer and more businesses must apply for federal permits that regulate how much pollution they spill into the air.

    The second benchmark requires the region to lower its average ozone pollution to a 2015 standard of 70 parts per billion, considered the most acceptable level of air pollution for human health. In July, the EPA downgraded the northern Front Range to be in serious violation of that standard as the region’s ozone level now sits at 81 parts per billion. The state must now submit to the EPA a new plan for lowering emissions.

    Colorado needs to meet both EPA benchmarks by 2027, or it will be downgraded again and face more federal regulation.

    Of the 28 days the state has recorded high ozone pollution levels, 17 exceeded the 2008 standard of 70 parts per billion, according to data compiled by the Regional Air Quality Council, an organization that advises the state on how to reduce air pollution.

    That’s bad news for the region after state air regulators predicted Colorado would be able to meet that standard by the 2027 deadline. The EPA calculates average ozone pollution levels on a three-year average, so this summer’s bad numbers will drag down the final grade.

    “It’s not a good first year to have,” said Mike Silverstein, the air quality council’s executive director.

    Smoke from wildfires near and far

    Ground-level ozone pollution forms on hot summer days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react in the sunlight. Those compounds and gases are released by oil and gas wells and refineries, automobiles on the road, fumes from paint and other industrial chemicals, and gas-powered lawn and garden equipment.

    It forms a smog that can cause the skies to become brown or hazy, and it is harmful to people, especially those with lung and heart disease, the elderly and children. Ground-level ozone is different than the ozone in the atmosphere that protects Earth from the sun’s powerful rays.

    Wildfire smoke blowing from Canada and the Pacific Northwest did not help Colorado’s pollution levels in July, and then multiple fires erupted along the Front Range over the past week, creating homegrown pollution from fine particulate matter such as smoke, soot and ash. Ultimately, though, the heavy smoke days could be wiped from the calculations from 2024, but that decision will be made at a later date.

    Still, June also saw multiple high ozone days, and air quality experts say much of the pollution originates at home in Colorado and cannot be blamed on outside influences.

    The out-of-state wildfire smoke sent ozone levels skyrocketing the week of July 21 to 27, Silverstein said, but it’s not the reason the numbers are high. The week prior saw ozone levels above federal standards, too, and wildfire smoke had not drifted into the region.

    “Pull the wildfires out and we would probably still have had high ozone,” he said.

    Jeremy Nichols, senior advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, also warned that wildfires should not be used as an excuse for the region’s air pollution.

    “While the wildfires are out of our control, there is a whole bunch of air pollution we can control,” he said. “I don’t want to let that cover up the ugliness that existed here in the first place.”

    Nichols blames oil and gas drilling for the region’s smog. The state is not doing enough to regulate the industry, he said.

    “We actually need to recognize we are at a point where oil and gas needs to stop drilling on high ozone days,” Nichols said. “Just like we’re told to stay home on high ozone days, business as usual needs to stop. I don’t think we’ve clamped down on them and in many respects they are getting a free pass to pollute.”

    Legislation that would have prevented drilling on high ozone days failed during the 2024 session.

    However, the air quality council has approved two measures to reduce emissions in the oil fields and is preparing to send those to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for approval.

    One proposal would require drilling companies to eliminate emissions from pneumatic actuating devices, equipment driven by pressurized gas to open and close valves in pipelines, Silverstein said. Oil companies already are required to make 50% of those devices emission-free, and the federal government also is requiring them to be 100% emission-free by 2035. But Colorado’s proposal would accelerate the timeline, he said.

    The second proposal would tell companies to stop performing blowdowns, which is when workers vent fumes from pipelines before beginning maintenance to clear explosive gases, when an ozone alert is issued, Silverstein said.

    “There are thousands of these very small events, but these small events add up to significant activity,” he said.

    Gabby Richmond, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the industry supports the new regulations. She said operators also were electrifying operations where possible and voluntarily delaying operational activities on high ozone days.

    “Our industry values clean air, and we are committed to pioneering innovative solutions that protect our environment and make Colorado a great place to live,” Richmond said in a statement. “As a part of this commitment, we have significantly reduced ozone-causing emissions by over 50% through technology, regulatory initiatives and voluntary measures — all in the spirit of being good neighbors in the communities where we live and work.”

    “Knock down emissions where we can”

    Meanwhile, people who live in metro Denver and the northern Front Range are asked to do their part, too.

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    Noelle Phillips

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  • At COP28 meeting, oil companies pledge to combat methane. Environmentalists call it a “smokescreen”

    At COP28 meeting, oil companies pledge to combat methane. Environmentalists call it a “smokescreen”

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Fifty oil companies representing nearly half of global production have pledged to reach near-zero methane emissions and end routine flaring in their operations by 2030, the president of this year’s United Nations climate talks said Saturday, a move that environmental groups called a “smokescreen.”

    Methane emissions are a significant contributor to global warming, so sharply reducing them could help slow temperature rise. If the companies carry out their pledges, it could trim one-tenth of a degree Celsius (0.18 degrees Fahrenheit) from future warming, a prominent climate scientist calculated and told The Associated Press. That is about how much the Earth is currently warming every five years.

    The announcement by Sultan al-Jaber, president of the climate summit known as COP28 and head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., comes as he and others have insisted his background would allow him to bring oil companies to the negotiating table. Al-Jaber has maintained that having the industry’s buy-in is crucial to drastically slashing the world’s greenhouse emissions by nearly half in seven years to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times.

    Signing on to the pledge were major national oil companies such as Saudi Aramco, Brazil’s Petrobras and Sonangol, from Angola, and multi-nationals like Shell, TotalEnergies and BP.

    “The world does not work without energy,” said al-Jaber, speaking in a session on the oil industry. “Yet the world will break down if we do not fix energies we use today, mitigate their emissions at a gigaton scale, and rapidly transition to zero carbon alternatives.”

    As if anticipating critiques, al-Jaber added: “Is it enough? Hear me out, please. No, it’s not enough. I say with full passion and conviction, I know that much more can be done.”

    For months leading up to COP28, there was speculation of action on methane. Not only do methane leaks, along with flaring, which is burning of excess methane, and venting of the gas, all contribute to climate change, but these problems can largely be solved with current technologies and changes to operations. Indeed, oil and gas companies could have taken such measures years ago but largely have not, instead focusing more on expanding production than focusing on the byproduct of it.

    In that way, the methane deal represented a potentially significant contribution to combatting climate change that also largely maintained the status quo for the oil and gas industry. Many environmental groups were quick to criticize it.

    The pledge is a “smokescreen to hide the reality that we need to phase out oil, gas and coal,” said a letter signed by more than 300 civil society groups.

    Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said “the commitments to cut methane are significant, but they address the symptom, not the source.”

    But Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp said Saturday’s deal “could be the single most impactful day of announcements from any COP in my 30 years at the Environmental Defense Fund.”

    Methane has caused about half of the world’s warming since pre-industrial times, al-Jaber said, promoting the deal as significant. However, methane escaping from oil and gas drilling is only about 23% of the world’s methane emissions, with agriculture and waste being bigger culprits, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, the climate scientist who calculated the proposal would trim a tenth of a degree from future warming.

    “It would be a significant, but not a fundamental contribution” to making sure average temperatures don’t rise beyond 1.5 degrees, Hare said. To keep within that limit, the world needs to cut carbon dioxide about 40% and methane by about 60% by 2030, he said.

    Methane can be released at several points along the operation of an oil and gas company, from fracking to when natural gas is produced, transported or stored. Over a shorter period, it’s 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. However, methane stays in the air only a couple decades — unlike thousands of years for carbon dioxide — so reducing methane faster is “low-hanging fruit” because it’s easier and changes future warming more, al-Jaber said.

    Marcelo Mena, CEO of Global Methane Hub, an alliance of philanthropies and organizations focused on reducing methane emissions, said that having near-zero methane emission commitments should not be seen as delaying a phase out of fossil fuels, as some environmental groups claimed.

    “We wouldn’t let oil companies leak into the ocean until phase out, so why would we let them leak out methane to super charge climate change?” said Mena, a former environment minister in Chile.

    Still, Mena said that self-reporting didn’t go far enough to push oil and gas companies to make changes. Instead, he said putting a price on pollution, or companies finding themselves shut out of markets that require high standards with leaks, would force change.

    Stricter regulations are beginning to take hold. On Saturday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule aimed at reducing methane emissions and other harmful air pollutants generated by the oil and gas industry. It targets emissions from existing oil and gas wells nationwide. Previous EPA regulations only focused on new wells. It also regulates smaller wells that will be required to find and plug methane leaks.

    The United States will now have “the strongest methane regulations in the world,” White House climate adviser John Podesta told the AP.

    Earlier this year, European Union negotiators reached a deal to reduce methane emissions from the energy industry across the 27-member bloc. The agreement bans routine venting and flaring, and mandates strict reporting. By 2027, it will expand those norms to oil and gas exporters outside the bloc.

    Saturday’s announcement did not address the oil and natural gas being burned off by the end users, so-called Scope 3 emissions, which can be motorists in their cars or plants powering cities. In his speech, al-Jaber said oil and gas companies needed to do more to research solutions to Scope 3 emissions.

    The Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter is backed by both the United Arab Emirates and neighboring Saudi Arabia, two OPEC heavyweights. Saudi Arabia’s vast oil resources, located close to the surface of its desert expanse, makes it one of the world’s least expensive places to produce crude. Both Abu Dhabi’s ADNOC and Aramco, the world’s third-most-valuable company, have signed onto the pledge.

    Separately, organizers said more than 100 countries have signed onto a pledge to triple the world’s installed renewable energy capacity by 2030, something pledged in September by leaders of the so-called Group of 20. Their countries emit 80% of all planet-warming gases.

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    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • A study of links between fracking and health issues will be released by Pennsylvania researchers

    A study of links between fracking and health issues will be released by Pennsylvania researchers

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    HARRISBURG, Pa. — Researchers in heavily drilled Pennsylvania were preparing Tuesday to release findings from taxpayer-financed studies on possible links between the natural gas industry and pediatric cancer, asthma and poor birth outcomes.

    The four-year, $2.5 million project is wrapping up after the state’s former governor, Democrat Tom Wolf, in 2019 agreed to commission it under pressure from the families of pediatric cancer patients who live amid the nation’s most prolific natural gas reservoir in western Pennsylvania.

    A number of states have strengthened their laws around fracking and waste disposal over the past decade. However, researchers have repeatedly said that regulatory shortcomings leave an incomplete picture of the amount of toxic substances the industry emits into the air, injects into the ground or produces as waste.

    The Pennsylvania-funded study involves University of Pittsburgh researchers and comes on the heels of other major studies that are finding higher rates of cancer, asthma, low birth weights and other afflictions among people who live near drilling fields around the country.

    Tuesday evening’s public meeting to discuss the findings will be hosted by University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and the state Department of Health, on the campus of state-owned Pennsylvania Western University.

    Edward Ketyer, a retired pediatrician who is president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility Pennsylvania and who sat on an advisory board for the study, said he expects that the studies will be consistent with previous research showing that the “closer you live to fracking activity, the increased risk you have a being sick with a variety of illnesses.”

    “We’ve got enough evidence that associates, that links, that correlates fracking activity to poor health — and the biggest question is why is anybody surprised about that?” Ketyer said.

    The gas industry has maintained that fracking is safe and industry groups in Pennsylvania supported Wolf’s initiative to get to the bottom of the pediatric cancer cases.

    The study’s findings are emerging under new Gov. Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat, whose administration has yet to publish or otherwise release the researchers’ reports since taking office earlier this year.

    The advent of high-volume hydraulic fracturing combined with horizontal drilling miles deep in the ground over the past two decades transformed the United States into a worldwide oil and gas superpower.

    But it also brought a torrent of complaints about water and air pollution, and diseases and ailments, as it encroached on exurbs and suburbs in states like Texas, Colorado and Pennsylvania.

    One of the most enduring images of gas drilling pollution was residents in a northern Pennsylvania community lighting their tap water on fire. A state grand jury investigation later found that a company had failed to fix its faulty gas wells, which leaked flammable methane into residential water supplies in surrounding communities.

    The Pennsylvania-funded study comes on the heels of other major studies, such as one published last year by Harvard University researchers who said they found evidence of higher death rates in more than 15 million Medicare beneficiaries who lived downwind of oil and gas wells in major exploration regions around the U.S.

    Yale University researchers last year said they found that children in Pennsylvania living near an oil or gas wellsite had up to two to three times the odds of developing acute lymphocytic leukemia, a common type of cancer in children.

    Establishing the cause of health problems is challenging, however. It can be difficult or impossible for researchers to determine exactly how much exposure people had to pollutants in air or water, and scientists often cannot rule out other contributing factors.

    Because of that, environmental health researchers try to gather enough data to gauge risk and draw conclusions.

    “The idea is we’re collecting evidence in some kind of a systematic way and we’re looking at that evidence and judging whether causation is a reasonable interpretation to make,” said David Ozonoff, a retired environmental health professor who chaired the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University.

    Another key piece of evidence is to identify an activity that exposes people to a chemical as part of assembling evidence that fits together in narrative, Ozonoff said.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

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  • What Is ‘Frackgate?’ Inside Ohio’s Fracking Controversy.

    What Is ‘Frackgate?’ Inside Ohio’s Fracking Controversy.

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    Barkcamp State Park is among the few places where visitors can experience Ohio’s forests as they existed before European settlement. Once the site of a historic logging camp, today it’s a destination for camping, fishing, and other outdoor recreation.

    It’s also a place that could see new pressure for oil and gas development if Ohio lawmakers approve lame-duck legislation this month that would remove barriers to drilling under public lands.

    Neither supporters nor critics have singled out specific parks that could be of interest to the industry, but a planning document from a previous governor’s administration reveals at least three areas where oil and gas extraction might occur. They include Barkcamp, as well as Wolf Run State Park and Suncreek Fish State Forest.

    That document — a strategic communications plan developed by members of the Kasich administration and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 2012 — ignited a political controversy known as Frackgate after it became public two years later. It also predicted the backlash that would be likely to follow any proposal to drill under state parks.

    “Vocal opponents of this initiative will react emotionally, communicate aggressively to the news media and online, and attempt to cast it as unprecedented and risky state policy,” the communication plan said.

    For over a decade, Ohio law has said an agency “may” lease land for oil and gas drilling. House Bill 507, which passed the Ohio Senate last week without any public testimony on its last-minute amendments, would change that to say the agency “shall” lease the land “in good faith.”

    If the bill becomes law, “the state agency essentially has to — must — lease the land when the oil and gas company shows up at the door and demands the lease,” said attorney Nathan Johnson, director of public lands for the Ohio Environmental Council. In his view, the amendment would give free rein to oil and gas companies, with few safeguards for competing public interests or the environment.

    The same legislation would also declare natural gas to be “green energy.”

    Related: These Are The Ten Biggest Oil And Gas Equipment And Services Companies

    The history

    A 2011 law created an oil and gas leasing commission and outlined a framework for it to decide whether to grant permits for drilling and to enter into leases through a competitive bidding process. Lawmakers passed the bill, and Gov. John Kasich signed it roughly a year before another law opened the state to widespread fracking and horizontal drilling.

    By the summer of 2012, members of the Kasich administration, Ohio Department of Natural Resources and others put together the strategic communications plan before potentially moving ahead with drilling at Barkcamp, Wolf Run, and Sunfish Creek. All three are located in counties that are among Ohio’s top seven oil and gas producers.

    The communications plan became public in early 2014 and resulted in outcry from the Sierra Club, the Ohio Environmental Council, ProgressOhio, and other groups. Days later, Kasich said he had changed his position about drilling on state public lands. A pro-industry newsletter predicted “Frackgate” would remain an issue in Ohio for a while.

    A 2015 bill initially would have required drilling in some cases under state public lands but was amended in committee to exclude drilling under state parks. The House passed the bill, but it didn’t come to a vote in the Senate.

    Meanwhile, Kasich did not appoint anyone to the leasing commission that would decide on permissive permits. Terms in a 2017 budget bill then sought to strip the governor of his power to name commission members, and the House voted to override Kasich’s veto. Faced with possible defeat, he began making appointments.

    Gov. Mike DeWine continued to appoint individuals to the commission, which has been taking some action. Comments on a proposed standard lease form are due Jan. 13. However, final rules for the leasing procedures still have not yet been adopted.

    In the meantime, the 2011 law leaves leasing issues up to individual state agencies. Some limited drilling on state public lands has taken place under current law. Some political subdivisions have also entered into leases, including the Muskingum Watershed Conservancy District.

    Where we are now

    Oil and gas companies “currently have the right to drill under state land. But there is no deadline, there’s not a real expedited process by which they can drill,” said committee chair Sen. Tim Schaffer, R-Lancaster, when the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee discussed HB 507 on Dec. 6. Some proceedings drag on for years, he added.

    “It’s in current law that we can do this, and these drillers could do this,” Schaffer said. “And it’s very strictly designed to make sure that we are protecting the environment. We are protecting public lands.”

    Current statutes call for consideration of whether drilling would conflict with other uses of the public land, as well as its environmental impacts and possible geological consequences. It’s unclear how those provisions would apply before the leasing commission adopts rules for reviewing proposed parcels to be drilled and accepting bids on them.

    Language in the amendment appears to call for little more than a showing of parcel identification and registration, proof of insurance, and satisfaction of financial assurance requirements. The legislative synopsis for the new bill language said it “requires, rather than authorizes, each state agency to lease agency-owned or -controlled oil and gas resources for development prior to the date that rules governing leasing procedures are adopted by the Oil and Gas Land Management Commission.”

    “This amendment is really a power grab by the oil and gas industry,” said Johnson. Agencies would lose their discretionary authority, and the industry would get to say where and when drilling would happen on state public lands, he said. “It’s putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.”

    “We strongly disagree,” said Rob Brundrett, president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, noting that terms of a lease would still have to be just and reasonable. In his view, HB 507 would just move the process along, especially where smaller parcels are part of larger areas that horizontal drilling would pass under. Such plots of land are often owned or overseen by agencies like the Ohio Department of Transportation and Department of Administrative Services, he noted.

    “The amendment does not interfere or conflict with any other interest in state lands,” Brundett said. Any leases would still have to be “on just and reasonable terms,” and using the surface of state lands for development purposes would be prohibited, “unless the state agrees.”

    Critics worry the new bill wording might not let agencies say no.

    “The language change from ‘may’ to ‘shall’ changes the very basis of the review process from leasing being permissive to being required. It takes it from ‘You can do this’ to ‘You have to do this,’” said Neil Waggoner, who heads the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign in Ohio. He and others also worry about oil and gas operations in state parks and forests.

    “This is all about going underground, from outside a park facility or whatsoever. … As citizens use the park, they would never know the difference because it’s not above land,” Schaffer said.

    But HB 507’s wording contemplates possible agreement to surface operations, if an agency agrees. In contrast, the 2015 bill passed by the Ohio House expressly excluded any operations in or under state parks and forbid surface drilling in state forests.

    “No one wants a fracking rig in a state park,” Waggoner said.

    The House could agree to the amended version as early as Tuesday, Dec. 13.

    Asked if DeWine would veto either the whole bill or portions dealing with natural gas, spokesperson Dan Tierney said they are reviewing the bill and have not yet taken a formal position.

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  • Six takeaways from the Pennsylvania Senate debate between Fetterman and Oz | CNN Politics

    Six takeaways from the Pennsylvania Senate debate between Fetterman and Oz | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The first and only debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz quickly devolved into a series of personal and biting attacks in what has become the highest stakes Senate race in the country.

    Throughout the night, Fetterman’s delivery was at times halting and repetitive, with the Democrat – who suffered a stroke in May – dropping words during answers and occasionally losing his train of thought. Much of the attention heading into the debate was on Fetterman’s ongoing recovery and how his struggle with auditory processing and speech could impact a debate against someone who rose to national prominence hosting a syndicated television show.

    But the debate also emphasized the deep policy differences between the candidates, with the two candidates sparring over energy policy, abortion and the economy.

    Oz clearly entered the debate hoping to cast Fetterman as someone too extreme to represent Pennsylvania, using the term “extreme” countless times to describe several the Democrat’s positions. And Fetterman, in an effort to quickly negate many of criticisms, used the phrase the “Oz rule” to describe his opponent’s relationship with the truth.

    Here are six takeaways from Tuesday night’s debate:

    Fetterman struggled to detail his position on fracking, given he once said he never supported the industry and “never” will.

    Oz came prepared on the issue, hitting Fetterman when asked about it.

    “He supports Biden’s desire to ban fracking on public lands, which are our lands, all of our lands together,” Oz said. “This is an extreme position on energy. If we unleashed our energy here in Pennsylvania, it would help everybody.”

    When Oz raised Fetterman’s comments about fracking, Fetterman pushed back.

    “I absolutely support fracking,” Fetterman said. “I believe that we need independence with energy and I believe I have walked that line my entire career.”

    He added, “I have always supported fracking and I always believe independence with our energy is critical.”

    But that isn’t true – Fetterman has a long history of antipathy toward the practice of injecting water into shale formations to free up deposits of oil and natural gas that were not economically accessible before.

    “I don’t support fracking at all and I never have,” Fetterman told a left-wing YouTube channel in 2018 when running for lieutenant governor. “And I’ve, I’ve signed the no fossil fuels money pledge. I have never received a dime from any natural gas or oil company whatsoever.”

    When the moderators noted that position, Fetterman appeared at a loss for words.

    “I do support fracking and I don’t, I don’t, I support fracking and I stand and I do support fracking,” Fetterman said.

    Oz has declined for weeks to give a firm answer about how he would vote on a bill proposed South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    And this debate was no different.

    “There should not be involvement from the federal government in how states decide their abortion decisions,” Oz said when asked about abortion, before turning the issue on Fetterman and calling him “radical” and “extreme.”

    But when directly asked how he would vote on the Graham bill, Oz declined to answer, claiming he was giving a bigger answer by saying he was “not going to support federal rules that block the ability of states to do what they wish to do.”

    The lack of an answer gave Fetterman an opening.

    “I want to look into the face of every woman in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “You know, if you believe that the choice of your reproductive freedom belongs with Dr. Oz then you have a choice. But if you believe that the choice for abortion belongs with you and your doctor, that’s what I fight for. Roe v Wade for me is, should be the law.”

    Fetterman, however, went beyond that position during the primary.

    When asked by CNN whether he supported “any restrictions on abortion,” Fetterman said he did not. He took a similar position during a primary debate.

    Oz used the moment, again, to call Fetterman out, saying it was “important” for Fetterman to “at least acknowledge” that he had taken another position on abortion.

    But it was an Oz comment that Democrats, including the Fetterman campaign, have seized on after the debate.

    Oz said he thought the debate about abortion should be left to “women, doctors, local political leaders,” a continuation of his argument that states, not the federal government should decide the issue.

    Top Democrats see the comment as an opening to link Oz with Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a state senator who introduced a 2019 bill that would require physicians to determine if a fetal heartbeat is present prior to an abortion and prohibit the procedure if a heartbeat is detected.

    Their argument: Oz thinks politicians like Mastriano – either as state senator or possibly as governor – should decide the issue.

    The Fetterman campaign announced after the debate it would put money behind an ad highlighting the Oz comment.

    The Fetterman campaign went to great lengths to avoid debating – until the criticism from editorial boards, the Oz campaign and others became too untenable to keep resisting.

    After watching the debate in Harrisburg, even though Fetterman’s speech has shown signs of considerable improvement with every passing week since his May stroke, it’s an open question whether it was a wise decision to put him on the stage with Oz. It was, at many points, difficult to watch.

    Most, if not all, Democrats will almost certainly give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s an open question whether voters will.

    Fetterman struggled to prosecute a consistent case against Oz and to keep up with the speed of the hourlong debate. Oz, for his part, rarely talked about his rival’s recovery from a May stroke. Of course, he didn’t have to.

    If any Pennsylvania voters missed the debate, not to worry.

    There’s sure to be millions of dollars’ worth of new ads – replaying many of the uncomfortable moments – from the top Republican super PAC that doubled down on the race earlier Tuesday.

    Do debates matter? In less than two weeks, Pennsylvania voters will help answer that question. But this one will certainly reverberate for the rest of the campaign.

    In an age when politicians are being careful about how they embrace President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, that caution was not on display Tuesday night.

    When asked if he would back Trump in 2024, Oz – who received Trump’s endorsement during the contentious Republican primary in the commonwealth – said, “I will support whoever the Republican party puts up.”

    “I would support Donald Trump if he decided to run for president, but this is bigger than one candidate,” Oz said.

    And for his part, Fetterman did not run away from Biden, who has made Pennsylvania – which he flipped back to Democrats in 2020 – one of the few states he has repeatedly visited during the 2022 midterms.

    “If he does choose to run, I would absolutely support him, but ultimately, that’s ultimately only his choice,” Fetterman said. “At the end of the day, I believe Joe Biden is a good family man, and I believe he stands for the union way of life.”

    It was clear Oz was more comfortable than Fetterman on the debate stage – something Fetterman aides expected and attempted to highlight ahead of time with a pre-debate memo noting, “Dr. Oz has been a professional TV personality for the last two decades.”

    But the differences were apparent from the outset.

    Democratic Pennsylvania candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman participates in the Nexstar Pennsylvania Senate at WHTM abc27 in Harrisburg, Pa., on Tuesday, October 25, 2022.

    Fetterman appeared nervous on stage, drawing a sharp contrast with Oz, who was at ease, often smiling and seemingly comfortable.

    Fetterman attempted to hit back at Oz’s near constant barbs, at times interrupting while the candidate was answering – most noticeably during the closing arguments.

    “You want to cut Social Security,” Fetterman interjected as Oz was speaking about meeting seniors worried about their Social Security checks.

    Oz kept speaking, as moderator WPXI anchor Lisa Sylvester chimed in, “Mr. Fetterman, it’s his turn for his closing.”

    Oz avoided attacking Fetterman’s stroke recovery, a move that was out of step with his campaign, which at times used a mocking tone to attack the Democrat. But Oz did point out that his opponent only agreed to take the debate stage once.

    “This is the only debate I could get you to come to talk to me on, and I had to beg on my knees to get you to come in,” Oz said.

    Fetterman again declined to release more medical information beyond the two letters his primary doctors have put out. Most recently, Fetterman’s doctor wrote that the Democrat “has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.”

    Fetterman said he deferred to his “real doctors” on whether to release more medical information, a subtle dig at Oz, and stressed his presence on the stage and activity on the campaign trail was proof enough that he was fit for the job.

    “Transparency is about showing up. I’m here today to have a debate. I have speeches in front of 3,000 people in Montgomery County, all across Pennsylvania, big, big crowds,” Fetterman said. “You know, I believe If my doctor believes that I’m fit to serve, and that’s what I believe is appropriate.”

    When pressed by moderator WHTM abc27 News anchor Dennis Owens, Fetterman replied, “My doctor believes I’m fit to be serving.”

    This story has been updated with more from the debate.

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  • Genesis Research & Technology Group Cleans the World With the WaterToken

    Genesis Research & Technology Group Cleans the World With the WaterToken

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    WaterToken.io Splashes on the Blockchain Oct. 25, 2017

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Oct 21, 2017


    DALLAS, October 21, 2017 (Newswire.com)
    –
    ​​​​​​​​​​The much-publicized WaterToken is scheduled to release on Oct. 25 and will operate in conjunction with IoT (Internet of Things) technology on the blockchain. The Genesis Research & Technology Group WaterToken will unveil, after years of research and testing, a revolutionary breakthrough in cleaning of water by a patented, chemical-free, green technology. The WaterToken ICO represents the Genesis Research & Technology Group process that relies on three patented and licensed purification methods: ultrafiltration, coagulation, and ozone (O3) generation. The oil and gas industry is all abuzz because this proprietary highly advanced system is portable and can even clean fracking water that is polluted during the oil extraction process. Jeff Soward, Chief Technology Officer of Genesis Research & Technology Group, states, “To produce one barrel of oil can take up to 10 barrels of water; which under the antiquated system used industrywide, toxic water is trucked and dumped into a disposal site. The Genesis System cleans the water at the actual drilling location and with green chemical-free technology the water is reused over and over again at one-tenth of the cost. This is a game changer.”

    Erin Brockovich, the famous environmental advocate says, “I am an advocate for awareness, the truth, and a person’s right to know.” The Genesis WaterToken solves the serious issue of trust and verification of environmental monitoring with the use of the blockchain. Furthermore, Genesis Research & Technology Group will store the records of the system to the blockchain so that frack water results are identified in various parts of the world. The WaterToken.io white paper gives a roadmap as to the system and how it plans to use the cryptocurrency in expansion throughout the world. “Genesis Research & Technology Group has produced a scalable system that will work in conjunction with a secure IoT solution that is a win for the blockchain,” says Michael Lagow CAO of Genesis Research & Technology Group. Tracking the environmental impact of fracking and using the blockchain to protect this data from tampering enables companies and regulators to create financially rewarding incentives to encourage buyers to buy products that are more environmentally friendly, and therefore encourage companies to restructure their supply chains to meet the demand for such products. “I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise, what is there to defend?” states Academy Award-winning actor Robert Redford.

    The WaterToken is an investment-grade ICO and because of that and its ‘green footprint’ we felt that everyone should be rewarded.

    Ron Price, CEO of Genesis Research & Technology Group

    The WaterToken merges clean water technology with the cryptocurrency and blockchain models. Darren McVean, CEO of MVP Asia Pacific states, “MVP has developed the IoT and blockchain platform for Genesis Research & Technology Group with an in-house electrical team that has worked closely with the Genesis R&TG technology department to test and simulate the extensive water readings from the Genesis System.” Once the data is entered into the public blockchain, it stays there forever. “Legal document storage on the blockchain could cut down on fraud and manipulation of the global carbon credits scheme. It is estimated that currently $979,000,000 USD is spent annually to administrate the global carbon credit scheme,” states McVean. Texas A&M University has also tested the water samples so that a third-party could conclusively back up the IoT for Genesis Research & Technology Group. As it pertains to the oil and gas industry, raw frack flowback water was injected into the Genesis System with amazing results. Total petroleum hydrocarbons were reduced by 99 percent, while metals, aluminum, antimony, arsenic, and selenium were reduced below detection limits.

    Bounty programs are used in most ICOs but, because of the IoT and vast Genesis Research & Technology Group resources, the WaterToken is offering a staggering $12,500,000 USD equivalent in bounty rewards for marketing. “The WaterToken is an investment-grade ICO and because of that and its ‘green footprint’ we felt that everyone should be rewarded,” says Ron Price, CEO of Genesis Research & Technology Group. Digital marketers, journalists, bloggers, and even the general public can participate and share in the rewards from one of the largest ICOs ever to land on the blockchain.

    About Genesis Research and Technology Group: Genesis Research and Technology Group is a U.S.-based company that has developed a patented, state-of-the-art technology that provides clean reusable water for the world’s population. The Company exploits its CHEMICAL-FREE technology as its efforts are being recognized by several leading government agencies developing and implementing Green technologies to protect and preserve our Earth’s resources.

    Genesis Research and Technology Group provides custom built state-of-the-art water treatment technologies for all types of water. Years of research and development go into perfecting this technology that allows Genesis to offer its clients a sole source, reusable water filtering and cleansing technology that is totally chemical-free.

    For more information: watertoken.io/genesis

    Media Contact:
    Patricia Almand
    Phone: 855-8100UMG
    Email: patricia@umgad.com

    Source: Genesis Research & Technology Group

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