Long arm of University of Texas fracking report reaches Eastern Europe

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Sheep people waking up.LOL

A University of Texas report on hydraulic fracturing now dogged by revelations that the lead author is paid by the gas industry has cropped up in a larger geopolitical battle over natural gas drilling in Eastern Europe.

The report on hydraulic fracturing, a type of natural gas drilling that has remade the energy field, has been featured in presentations in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland by Aviezer Tucker, deputy director of the Texas Energy Institute, which published the original report.

Each of those countries is considering whether to ratchet up its hydraulic fracturing exploration, a type of natural gas drilling also known as fracking. In the balance is power, as each of those countries — at once both Eastern and Western — decides whether to remain dependent on Russia for its energy.

"It's the new Cold War," Ray Orbach, the head of the Energy Institute, said in an interview before the oil industry ties came to light. "Suddenly, a report on the Barnett play is turning up in Ukraine in a political play."
http://www.statesman.com/news/education/long-arm-of-university-of-texas-fracking-report-2427649.html

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1. who would have thought

In a version of the op-ed, Tucker highlights arguments on both sides of fracking. "Whom can we believe?" it asks. "Experts who are not paid by either side" he continued, citing the UT study.

But the UT report itself, which dismissed concerns by environmentalists that the gas drilling process polluted groundwater, has been tarnished after revelations that the principal investigator, Charles Groat, had not disclosed his hundreds of thousands of dollars in income as the board member of a natural gas company.

Groat has been on Houston-based Plains Exploration & Production Co.'s board for years. He was paid $413,900 in cash and stock by the company in 2011, according to SEC filings reviewed by the Amercian-Statesman, more than twice his salary from the university, and holds more than $1.6 million in the company's stock. The university is convening a panel to review the episode.

Tucker, like other Energy Institute faculty, told the Statesman that he did not know of Groat's outside involvements.

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2. "paid by the gas industry"

Why does this not surprise me? Of course they got a study to support their view.

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3. I heard

They are now doing a study on how good the fractking is for our water table, landowners are getting rich off of water, and the water table has not dropped....LOL
Next they will tell us the fracking fluid is food grade quality. LOL

No need for traceing elements

And the EPA needs to worry about cow farts and road dust study the Rushlican and Becklanites are all talking about.......