Hydraulic fracturing

Although the May 23 New York Times article on hydraulic fracturing, “The Sand Mines That Ruin Farmland,” is an interesting read, it is by no means an accurate one. Author Nancy Loeb relies on unsubstantiated claims in order to push forth her own liberal agenda. Hydraulic fracturing is not the monster that Loeb makes it out to be.

In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Leo Huang, a student of petroleum engineering and a founding member of the Hydraulic Fracturing Public Awareness Committee (Frac PAC) and Heartland Institute Research Fellow Isaac Orr discuss what Frac PAC is, and how they are working to educate people about the oil and gas industry and make a positive impact on the surrounding community.

In today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Jonathan Lockwood, executive director of Advancing Colorado, joins host H. Sterling Burnett to discuss the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar localities from banning hydraulic fracturing.

Why would a public research university boasting a top-100 geology program deliberately hide its work? Because, as lead researcher Amy Townsend-Small explained, “our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results. They feel that fracking is scary and so they were hoping our data could point to a reason to ban it.”

The great white environmentalist sharks smell blood in the water. It’s gushing from mortally wounded US coal companies that the Obama EPA has gutted as sacrifices on the altar of “dangerous manmade climate change” prevention and other spurious health, ecological and planetary scares.

On today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Isaac Orr joins H. Sterling Burnett to talk about Earth Day and the environmental benefits hydraulic fracturing is producing.

A new study published in Environment International indicates hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” and the heavy truck traffic that is associated with it would have a negligible impact on air quality if fracking were to be used extensively in the United Kingdom. Interestingly, the authors of the study appear to be a little disappointed with their findings, which may be why they decided to emphasize maximum exposure in a shorter timeframe in their study, rather than exposures over more realistic scenarios.

In Today’s edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, Florida State Rep. Dane Eagle, Chairman of the Energy & Utilities Subcommittee, joins Managing Editor of Environment & Climate News H. Sterling Burnett. Rep. Eagle joins Burnett to talk about why Florida was right to join the 27 states challenging the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan in court.

Plummeting oil prices, which are largely the result of the U.S. hydraulic fracturing revolution that has nearly doubled oil production in the United States since 2008, have left many oil-exporting nations around the world reeling. The price drops have been particularly hard on nations in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Myriad OPEC governments are now stuck relying on dwindling oil revenues to fund large portions of their important social welfare programs, many of which are essential to maintaining national stability.

The mining of sand used for hydraulic fracking has become a controversial issue in communities throughout Western Wisconsin. While many discussions examine the environmental and economic impacts of industrial sand mining, a new paper by an anthropology professor from the University of Wisconsin-Stout attempts to take stock of the social impacts of mining. This paper investigates a phenomenon called “loss of place,” which refers to an emotion people have when they lose a sense of their own identity due to changing physical or societal landscapes.

Does their abysmal grasp of energy and economics make Hillary and Bernie unfit to govern?

In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, research fellow Isaac Orr and Jackie Stewart, from Energy in Depth discuss a recent study conducted by the University of Cincinnati which found fracking has not contaminated water supplies. But here’s a twist, the study was actually funded by environmental groups who are not pleased with the results.

In today’s edition of the Heartland Daily Podcast, Isaac Orr, Heartland Research Fellow for energy policy, joins H. Sterling Burnett to talk about his newly released study on the impact of frac sand mining – Social Impacts of Industrial Silica Sand (Frac Sand) Mining: Land Use and Value.