A Gas Well Will Blow Up

ROUGH DRAFT

New technologies often run trouble-free for twenty or thirty years. But, from train derailments in the nineteenth century, to the Challenger space shuttle and the Three-Mile Island nuclear reactor in the last century, and the Gulf oil spill last year, disaster finally happens. The cause could be carelessness with successful equipment or stretching the technology too far or lax regulation or some of all three. Before a major accident, advocates talk of how safe and clean their technology is – such as we hear now about fracking to stimulate gas and oil wells. But drilling oil wells in the Gulf and gas wells on shore have similarities. One can freely predict a major gas-well explosion will follow the BP oil spill. There have already been small gas-well explosions (including one in Geauga County). They should serve as a warning.