Shale gas: Montreal could be next

Think the whole shale gas thing is out there somewhere? There are businesses with permits to prospect the island of Montreal for it, although we can hope they’re correct that the area isn’t very promising. Equiterre continues to press for a Quebec-wide moratorium on prospecting for the stuff.

Here’s the ‘pedia summary: “Shale gas has become an increasingly important source of natural gas in the [...] past decade. One analyst expects shale gas to supply as much as half the natural gas production in North America by 2020. [but] the life-cycle greenhouse gas footprint of shale gas would be worse than those of coal and fuel oil. Methane is by far the major component of natural gas, and it is a powerful greenhouse gas, 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide [...] Chemicals are added to the water to facilitate the underground fracturing process that releases natural gas. The resulting volume of contaminated water is generally kept in above-ground ponds to await removal by tanker or injected back into the earth.”

Yeah we need that. Next?