Discussion on:

Hydrofracking drives new water treatment solutions

Shame on Congress for writing laws that allow any unknown substance to be pumped into the earth. Shame on the administration for not regulating that as well. Pols are nothing but smarmy lawyers writing smarmy legislation that you can slide a Transformer sized monster-truck through although they'll give it a real pretty name (title).

Don't misunderstand, I am an "All of the Above" person and think the Obama administration 'winks' at their support for this policy. I think we should drill more, in more places and I believe that all our resources should be used until we get clean energy ready for prime-time; which at last reading is still 50-years or more in the future.

We need to spur R&D to clean-up coal and other fossil fuels so that we can use those abundant resources to supply power we'll need or see our economy substantially falter. We need to promote the use of natural gas where possible. Nuclear energy should not be left out of the mix either. We should add R&D to develop technologies that make each resource as safe as possible.

And, of course, we need to continue to put R&D monies to develop clean energies but we can't have clean energy sources that are prohibitively expensive; it would damage the poor and middle-class entirely and destroy any economy relying on them alone. Ideals are good but practicality is demanded in getting from here to there..

Until I see the Oil and Gas people and their families drink the water, I will not accept any of their hype..........
The whole energy process is ridiculous........1. We pollute the mountains, streams, and workers to extract coal, oil, gas, minerals........ 2, We spend fossil fuel polluting methods to transport the coal, oil, gas, minerals to an "Energy Production Plant", generally far from the source........ 3. The Energy Production Plants" produce more pollution, usually in combustion processes, to create energy - electricity which is far from the usage customers....... 4. The energy produced is sent on The Grid Infrastructure, which needs constant maintenance, is prone to breakdowns from natural disasters and old age before it delivers the energy to the consumer.......5. The Grid is outdated and needs constant management to try to prevent outages because it can not supply the needs.........6. The customer is forced to support an overly expensive system by paying taxes to the government to maintain the grid, AND paying increasingly costly monthly utility bills, and trying to abate the pollution caused by it........7. The whole system is not able to be controlled or operated economically because of the overly complicated system operated by unavailable forces unaccountable to the customers or nearby populations.
Take away the subsidies, and it is obvious that the Grid system is unnecessarily and stupidly expensive........
Replace the Grid system with more local and smaller alternative systems networked, and the costs, pollution, maintenance, taxes, utility bills, all go down. The added plus is that it is controlled locally and you have a better chance of controlling it.........
I have lived off the grid for over a quarter of a century on an old system with no loss of electricity, and no problems. I have all of the electricity I need, and all of the electric toys that a modern home has. I am now switching any gas or combustion needs to electric because it is so cheep, reliable and abundant for me as I produce my own supply. All this from an antiquated system which still works fine. Yes I could upgrade it, but I do not have to. My only wish is for the batteries to get better.

What do you use to generate the electricity you are storing in those batteries? If you have something that works so well I would love to try it myself if it fits my circumstances. Thanks.