Fwd: even before the 'Halliburton Loophole'

[JBL]

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Bob Donnan <donnanl...@yahoo.com>
Date: Mon, May 20, 2024, 7:28 AM
Subject: even before the 'Halliburton Loophole'
To:

Those perplexed by all the environmental exemptions firmly in place for the oil and gas industry often point to the 'Halliburton Loophole,' compliments in large part to former United States V.P. (2001-09) and Halliburton CEO and Board Chairman (1995-2000) Dick Cheney. 

But one thing that became crystal clear while reading Justin Nobel's new book PETROLEUM-238 is that our past, present and future crisis with radioactive drilling waste (that's usually labelled, and mostly treated as RESIDUAL WASTE) is due to the Bentsen amendment. 

Spoiler alert: He was a US senator and came from a rags-to-riches Texas oil family. Also a highly decorated B-24 pilot, who survived the disastrous Ploesti air raid on the Romanian oil refineries during World War 2, where approximately 1/3 of the bombers and air crews were lost. 

My takeaway on this 'special waste' exemption?  

The O&G industry cried 'poor mouth' saying that properly treating this radioactive waste would cripple their industry. And get this... there would be SO MUCH of this waste, that it would be difficult to properly regulate anyway. Really. 

Keep in mind that when these regulations were first formed, the modern version of High Volume Slick Water Hydraulic Fracturing was still decades away. And there's never been a serious adjustment to these 'loosy goosy' regulations, that actually fits today's grim result. 

So what do we have? 

Things like road spreading and land spreading of this toxic waste. Companies that 'treat it' while they only condense the radioactivity, then sometimes go belly-up financially, leaving their mess next to flooding rivers like the Ohio. 

Shocking fact: The recently failed Austin Master facility, on the Ohio side of the Ohio River, had already shipped over 76 MILLION TONS of highly radioactive oil and gas waste to the special radioactive waste facility in Clive, Utah, the same place accepting Fukushima nuclear meltdown material. 

A facility in Texas has been accepting radioactive 'brines' from overseas... YES, this waste can be legally imported too. Pinch me, must be dreaming! 

What about those pipelines that so many people protest against, for mostly other reasons?  

They become loaded with radioactive scale, similar to the human version of plaque in arteries. It's also present at compressor stations and processing plants, and gets spilled at 'pigging' stations. The industry has even 'graciously' donated those pipes. You can't make this stuff up! 

Wonder what a geiger counter would reveal on that pipe fence that was installed along Wotring Road, in front of the BEST PRODUCTION PAD in Buffalo, PA?  Always seemed odd that pipe was used for that low fence! 

While the prospect of positive O&G change feels more distant than ever in the United States, lessening our demand for oil and gas is probably the only doable solution, which further enhances renewables, as a key part of the solution. 

Drilling-down on the Bentsen and Bevill amendments in today's blog: 

https://the-energy-age.com/2024/05/20/radioactive-oil-and-gas-waste-exemption-history/

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