Re: More chemophobia

1

Who doesn't like ethanol?


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 12:55 PM
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Heck, it would be irresponsible not to fill your aquifer with the stuff!


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 12:58 PM
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3

Ethanol! That couldn't come from a food company. Please.


Posted by: heebie-geebie | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:02 PM
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4

Some things sourced from the food industry:

Pig shit
Salmonella
E. Coli
Scrapie infected sheep brain


Posted by: Ginger Yellow | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:03 PM
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"We've secretly replaced the governor's regular ethanol-based fracking fluid with a methanol-based fluid... lets see if he notices the difference..."


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:04 PM
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6

Or maybe its just buttermilk.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:04 PM
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The first-term Democrat and former Denver mayor told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he actually drank a glass of fracking fluid produced by oilfield services giant Halliburton.

My first impulse is to call bullshit.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:08 PM
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8

What, you suddenly don't trust Halliburton?


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:16 PM
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I'd been thinking that Hickenlooper was flat-out lying, but sure, it's just as likely that Halliburton fed him something palatable. More likely.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:22 PM
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10

It's really sad that someone would be that gullible.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:24 PM
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11
He also cautioned against state and federal lawmakers going too far with laws to force companies such as Halliburton to disclose the formulas for such products.
"If we were overzealous in forcing them to disclose what they had created, they wouldn't bring it into our state," he said.

Yes, if we force Halliburton to disclose the nature of the perfectly safe fracking liquid they want to use, next thing you know everyone will be using perfectly safe fracking liquids!


Posted by: potchkeh | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:27 PM
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"If we were overzealous in forcing them to disclose what they had created, they wouldn't bring it into our state," he said.

Gosh, if only this type of thing could be regulated on a national level by some hypothetical legislation call, I don't know the "Water Clean Act", then maybe states wouldn't be forced to race to the bottom in deciding what poisons to allow to be dumped into their groundwater.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:38 PM
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13

12: Why do you hate the constitution?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:41 PM
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I'd like to see the government get into the business of doing some R&D on safe fracking fluids in collaboration with industry. It's obvious that fracking is here to stay, and arguable that fracking for natural gas is a big help with climate change. Making fracking as environmentally harmless as possible seems like a big win for everybody, including the frackers and their frackmasters.


Posted by: togolosh | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 1:48 PM
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I'm leery of anything that would subsidize the fracking industry. Yes, burning natural gas is a lot better than burning coal, but the low price of natural gas is also precluding the development of wind and solar energy. At one point, about 5 years ago, we seemed to be on the verge of a wind renascence, with sizable investments being made, but cheap natural gas combined with an ill-timed recession managed to kill that baby in its crib.

So, while people can look at the carbon numbers and say, "look how much cheap natural gas has brought down our CO2 production" - that's true - but it doesn't account for the opportunity cost of how much 0-carbon emission energy infrastructure build-out didn't happen as a result of the low natural gas prices.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 2:00 PM
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What we have here is life imitating art. And by "art" I mean a relatively obscure '70s novel written by a former NFL player. In Peter Gent's* Texas Celebrity Trot, one of the minor characters is emceeing a telethon which is going very poorly because of some bad publicity about one of the sponsor's (Everett Chemco) products/chemicals. In desperation he drinks a glass of it on air to show that it is harmless. As I recall, it is intimated that his health later deteriorates (he is an incidental character).

*Much better known for North Dallas Forty, but I liked this book better.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 2:45 PM
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the frackers and their frackmasters.

The frackers currently operate in cooperation with cheaply-purchased bushels of local officials. APparently fracking fluid is a trade secret, and local officials don't want to hamper free enterprise by asking what's in it. Frackers are winning now, change is worse for them than the excellent status quo.


Posted by: lw | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 2:51 PM
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Aren't there many instances of executives making a stunt of drinking the supposedly toxic chemical? I have 2 vague memories of this -- one that a person that was applying weedkiller on campus said that the CEO of the company drank the product in front of his employees(my friend was asking him questions about the safety of the product), and the other is of a CEO drinking a chemical on 60 Minutes. One of these 2 memories is bound to be more or less accurate.


Posted by: peep | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 2:59 PM
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16, 18. Life imitating life, as when B.T. Collins drank malathion to further California's crusade against the medfly.


Posted by: bill | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 3:01 PM
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19 did remind me of the following from Midgley and the development of leaded gasoline.

On October 30, 1924, Midgley participated in a press conference to demonstrate the apparent safety of TEL. In this demonstration, he poured TEL over his hands, then placed a bottle of the chemical under his nose and inhaled its vapor for sixty seconds, declaring that he could do this every day without succumbing to any problems whatsoever

This was after he had taken an extended vacation in 1923 to recover from the effects of working with lead.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 02-14-13 3:43 PM
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