Gasland – the film that shocked America
On Sunday March 3rd, at 8.00pm, there will be a free showing of Gasland, the film that has mobilised opinion in the US about the dangers of the fracking industry. Hydraulic fracturing of underground strata in order to release gas (‘fracking’) uses relatively new and inadequately regulated technology, and the emerging details of what this entails are horrifying. The trillions of gallons of water already used contain about 400 billion gallons of toxic additives, and there is no known way to clean up this water and make it drinkable or even usable for agriculture.
In many places, water is already in short supply. The 2011 drought in Texas forced at least one power plant to cut its output, and several others had to pipe in water from new sources. The state power authority warned that several thousand megawatts of electrical capacity might go offline if the drought persisted into 2012. Yet Texas has about 93,000 natural gas fracking wells, and these waste around 70% of the millions of gallons of water they use.
The trouble is, the privately-owned water companies are happy to sell water to the fracking industry rather than to people who want to drink the stuff or raise crops and animals – because the frackers pay more. preserving our water resources in the public trust for future generations. And the potential clashing of those interests is why these questions have been raised about whether for-profit companies ought to be running public water supplies.
Does this matter to Britain? Well, yes, it does, because the Westminster government has grabbed at fracking as a short-term answer to the looming fuel problem caused by the looming end of the oil era. As people in Lancashire already know, fracking causes earthquakes, which is frightening. But far more alarming is the huge impact that this piratical industry will have on the world’s most essential substance – water.
Wind turbines, it is worth mentioning, use no water at all.
Come and see this screening of Gasland at Corrie Hall, on this Sunday coming, if you are reading the Voice on its first day of issue. No charge – though contributions to the hall’s heating cost will be welcomed.
