Castro slams 'fracking' frets about nuclear war

msnbc.com staff and news service reports
updated 1/6/2012


HAVANA — Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday the world was on an "inexorable march toward the abyss," which he blamed in part on the discovery and exploitation of vast reserves of so-called "shale gas" around the world.   

Shale gas is natural gas locked in rock formations that in the past decade has been found in great abundance around the world and is now considered a top source of future energy.

Castro, 85, wrote in one of his occasional columns published in Cuban state media that "numerous dangers threaten us, but two of them — nuclear war and climate change — are decisive and both are ever further from approaching a solution."

He said he had only recently heard about the shale gas phenomenon, which has created a drilling boom in some parts of the United States, and when he asked several acquaintances both inside and outside of Cuba about the topic, "none of them had heard a word about it."

Shale gas production is criticized in some quarters because it requires extensive "fracking," which uses water, sand and chemicals to fracture the rock where the gas is trapped to allow it to flow out of the well. Fracking, opponents say, contaminates groundwater sources and can cause other problems.

'Terribly carcinogenic'
Castro sided with ...


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Cornell study assessed climate change impact of natural gas drilling

Clearfield, PA, where a well blowout
in 2010 emitted wastefluid and natural
gas into the air for about 16 hours.

We at the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities would like to congratulate and recognize the incredible efforts of our colleagues at Cornell University for their recent research study published in Climate Change Letters, entitled "Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations." Led by Dr. Robert Howarth, the study sought to determine the effect that natural gas drilling in shale formations has on the atmosphere over a 20-year period.*

Methane gas, the major component of natural gas, has been promoted by some entities as a greener energy alternative than the use of coal because it burns cleaner. Results of this recent Cornell study, however, indicate that the methane emissions that result from the natural gas industry may result in a greater greenhouse gas footprint than other forms of energy extraction. This is partially due to the fact that methane is a very potent greenhouse gas.

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Source: FracTracker.org