Today I viewed a video produced by an investment newsletter that promoted the process of “fracking” and the development of shale oil or “tight gas” as the next energy revolution that will bring the next powerful wave of prosperity to America. The author declared a convergence of three important factors: “discovery, technology, and demand.” He said these factors are present in the current trend about to take full flight in May 2012.
Last March, President Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University on America’s Energy Security. Within that speech, he spoke about the importance of developing natural gas. He said:
“But the potential for natural gas is enormous. And this is an area where there’s actually been some broad bipartisan agreement. Last year, more than 150 members of Congress from both sides of the aisle produced legislation providing incentives to use clean-burning natural gas in our vehicles instead of oil. And that’s a big deal. Getting 150 members of Congress to agree on anything is a big deal. And they were even joined by T. Boone Pickens, a businessman who made his fortune on oil, but who is out there making the simple point that we can’t simply drill our way out of our energy problems.
So I ask members of Congress and all the interested parties involved to keep at it, pass a bill that helps us achieve the goal of extracting natural gas in a safe, environmentally sound way.”[1]
With this on the agenda for the coming months, it is now clear to me that the President’s focus ties in with the current cycle of Mars. The planet Mars is associated with drilling for oil. Mars is now in the retrograde or backward motion part of its cycle. It is transiting the Neptune of the United States chart, as well as returning to its place in Mr. Obama’s birth chart. Mars is in the Earth sign, Virgo, associated with techniques and systems thinking.
On one hand, the investors are looking at capitalizing on the production of natural gas. Not only the drilling companies will make tons of money, but the companies the build supporting technologies and equipment will boom if all of the shale fields get into action. The pro-fracking people ignore the devastation and pollution that results from the process.
In an article from Ellen Cantarow, a writer for TomDispatch, an alternative news source, we learn:
“Fracking uses prodigious amounts of water laced with sand and a startling menu of poisonous chemicals to blast the methane out of the shale. At hyperbaric bomb-like pressures, this technology propels five to seven million gallons of sand-and-chemical-laced water a mile or so down a well bore into the shale.
Up comes the methane—along with about a million gallons of wastewater containing the original fracking chemicals and other substances that were also in the shale, among them radioactive elements and carcinogens. There are 400,000 such wells in the United States. Surrounded by rumbling machinery, serviced by tens of thousands of diesel trucks, this nightmare technology for energy release has turned rural areas in 34 U.S. states into toxic industrial zones.”[2]
Fracking could be one of the biggest disasters to our environment, with a strong second in the form of leaking pipelines bringing tar-sand oil from Canada. Mars is contacting the USA Neptune, another planet with some association with oil. Neptune is more importantly the planet ruler of water. For the health of the American people, we should be very concerned with President Obama’s support and approval of the pipelines and additional drilling to reclaim these resources from American soil.
The investors might be very anxious to get stocks in these emerging industrial companies, but the result is likely to waste beautiful areas and poison the water for our children. Cantarow’s article concludes with reporting on the impressive number of opponents to fracking and the response of the Department of Environmental Concerns.
“In mid-January, DEC spokesperson Lisa King said that once all the comments are tallied, “We expect the total to be more than 40,000.” Earlier, agency officials had told the New York Times they didn’t know of any other issue that had received even 1,000 comments. (Ten thousand letters were mailed from the Catskills’ Sullivan County alone on January 11th, just before the commentary deadline.) Gannett’s Albany Bureau has reported that anti-drilling submissions outnumber those of drilling supporters by at least ten to one.”
“Part-time Cooperstown resident James “Chip” Northrup, a retired manager for Atlantic Richfield (ARCO, America’s seventh largest oil corporation), in one public agency hearing called the performances of pro-gas speakers “disgraceful” and the SGEIS “junk science.” Citing an industry study that shows 25% of frack wells leak after five years and 40% after eight, he said, “Everybody in the industry knows that gas drilling pollutes groundwater… It’s not… whether they leak. It’s how much.”
Canatrow’s article concludes:
“This past November, Sandra Steingraber told a crowd of hundreds of activists why she was donating her $100,000 Heinz Award to the movement. The money, she said, “enables speech, emboldens activism, and recognizes that true security for our children lies in preserving the… ecology of our planet.”
She raised a jar of water. “This is what my kids are made of. They are made of water. They are made of the food that is grown in the county that I live in. And they are made of air. We inhale a pint of atmosphere with every breath we take… And when you poison these things, you poison us. That is a violation of our human rights, and that is why this is the civil rights issue of our day.”
This is an important topic to watch. This Mars retrograde period lasts until April 13. The drilling season is set to start with the end of winter weather, which is May. Mars completes its process on these issues by June 23, with its final pass over USA Neptune and President Obama’s natal Mars. We must impress on Obama and Congress that this is not the next best wave of America’s economic opportunity.
[1] http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/03/30/remarks-president-americas-energy-security
[2] http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fracking_gets_its_own_occupy_movement_20120125/