[_edo]

> Fracking involves drilling an oil or gas well vertically and then horizontally into a shale formation.

No, that's a horizontal well. Vertical wells get fracked all the time. Non-shale wells get fracked all the time. Fracking is any time you intentionally fracture rock formations with pressurized fluids.

> ...studies that show fracking operations leak, vent, or flare between 2 and 6 percent of the gas produced, Howarth said.

That's not fracking. That's leaking, venting and flaring. Those things may happen on wells that have been fracked but that doesn't mean they're caused by fracking.

If you're opposed to methane entering the atmosphere trying to stop the breaking of rocks a mile beneath the earth's surface is a bizarre way to solve that problem. At that point you're not trying to stop leaking, you're trying to stop production and for some reason are trying to do it under the guise of stopping fracking.

[ip26]

Stopping fracking would definitely stop leaks in the process.

If the frackers are totally unwilling to tolerate & abide by regulation, then people will feel like "it can't be fixed, just shut it all down".

[_edo]

Stop leaks in what process? Fracking or oil and natural gas production?

Do you have some evidence that more methane is being released into the atmosphere during the weeks of fracking than during the years of production?

[x220]

Perhaps they made a mistake and just used "fracking" to refer to this whole category of extraction techniques? If they did, does it make much of a difference? These techniques have got to end because they're not sustainable practices.

[_edo]

It absolutely makes a difference. There's no way to properly regulate an industry without understanding it.

But like I said above, people don't care about fracking because they don't even understand what it is. It's just a buzzword people use when what they really want is to stop the entire industry. Or maybe they hate how our society runs. Or they hate rich people. They're angry about something but it's almost never the practice of using water pressure to break rocks thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface.

[x220]

So we shouldn't regulate these extraction practices because journalists don't use the right words to refer to these harmful practices?

[_edo]

Clueless movements elect clueless representatives who mirror their clueless beliefs.