Hydrocarbon-Methane,Shale extraction through fracking/fracturing destroies Land, life and almost everything within short period. No doubt in it.

My God!! How come Government of India is doing a deadliest project that kills India and its People, Life and Lands. Purly a Deadly scam against People and life in India..Hydrocarbon / Methane / Shale projects through fracking is dangerous project and many developed countries like America have stopped/Banned due to dangerous effects, Earthquake etc... But India government wants to spoil its land and water resources. For money by killing it's people, natural resources, life, land animals...

It is important to balance development with protection of local ecology. There is no point if the most fertile lands are sacrificed at the altar of mining or industrialization. Such conflicts should be resolved on a case to case basis, not a general 'India should be energy surplus' logic. For starters, ONGC can start by involving and winning over the trust of the local communities

Very informative article. Loved the references provided as hyperlinks.

I was finding it difficult to get the actual facts and figures of the project else where due to too much of noise from news sites quoting statements from general public rather than referencing actual facts.

Good journalism. keep it up.

Thank you. I've been researching this for a few days and all I can find are government reports with half hearted responses. Nothing about the environmental situation in areas where CBM has already been established, like Raniganj.

The country needs more oil for development, however oil exploration needs to be done scientifically with no or minimum damage to the environment. The past sins of development without environmental protection and protections of people's livelihood are now haunting current development projects every where in the country. The scientists, government officers, project managers, environmental activists and people' genuine representatives, NGO should come together to draw a blue print for sustainable development with accountability, transparency and people's participation. This is a social engineering project, without which other engineering projects will be opposed by people.

Article does not say about the benefit of the project. One sided article. No power can be generated in this world without destroying nature. Even the paddy fields of today are destruction of forests by men to generate paddy, where he could have simply lived by eating fruits. Whole communist argument is never nature centric and it is only people centric as if the human beings are the only species who has the right to destroy the world. Then why is that forests are cut down to make paddy fields. From Tamilnadu to Amazon, this is happening and The Wire being a communist media is spreading canard that too under the guise of larger interests. Even solar power plants could be established only in man made barren lands after deforestation. Such a joke these protests are!

While i accept that this doesn't say about the benefits, who are we kidding? You obviously know about the beneficial outcome of the petrol and gases. Energy usage. Humans have always abused the natural resources to an extent that we sometimes regret we even came to know about its benefits. Such unnatural stuff has always caused harm. You want example? Chernobyl oil spill. Presently the delta area in Tamil Nadu is very fertile and has been the biggest contributor to the food we eat here. You definitely have to know about the lush and greenery in these areas. That is oil emerging out of the closed not so cared oil opening(The Photo). A man died out of cancer because of it. You talk about being economically independent from other countries and all those utopian shits, while these people are fighting for their basic food production. You don't live without food dumbass. Those people are trying to stay close to nature, while you people sit in your A/C rooms, well fed with money, and have absolutely no idea what is going on, and the risks involved in it and the damage it can cause to the nature. Noise pollution, Air pollution, Soil erosion, disease causing and what not? And the country has always been saved from disaster with the help of such protests. That is how democracy works. Think twice before spouting such unintelligent stupid comments joking about the events without knowing about it's seriousness. https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

Hi Rajendran, agreed that this article does not provide the positives of power generation, but I believe it does throw a much clearer picture on the actual situation.

Besides oil and gas driven generators, there are much better ways of power generation in sustainable ways. The human society has to see depletable natural resources as capital rather than consumables.

Methane generation from municipal waste could generate power, reduce greenhouse gases and also address the waste disposal problems. Besides this this is sustainalbe- oil wells will stop producing oil, but cities will keep producing waste :)

India is hugely dependent on imported energy resources and unless we unshackle out of this dependence we will not progress in real terms. India must move forward to adopt latest technologies and explore for scarce energy resources by every mean. Public has to be taken along is paramount, no doubt.

There could be some inconvenience to the public but ultimately we have to weigh what’s important, to balance and to move forward. Making oil companies accountable is one thing (like railways and airlines are accountable towards our travel safety), stopping would have negative impact on this developing nation. Issues relating to environment and public health should be debated in order to work out solutions, not to stop the works altogether which is easier. Govt clearances are always necessary to commence any such operation and public hearings are required as per procedures. Environmental risks too are assessed by govt sources. Advocacy from public activists will be more constructive tool in this regard. You can play enabler.

What is most important emerging out of these incidents (and ensuing discourses like the one you wrote) is reluctance of the oil companies to be adequately transparent and their inability to win over the public opinion by involvement. People very rarely know what exactly oil companies do at their drilling operations. Even educated opinion builders like activists and media have never seen the complex real operations to enable them to vouch for oil company’s words. That lack of first-hand knowledge gets reflected in opinion of the activists, and sometimes media also, having guided by the information sourced from internet which is searched with ‘keywords’ biased with what they desired to look for and not what might be the reality of the oil and gas exploration and production activities. Those search finding too could be of value but may offer only one side of the story.

Latest innovations in oil exploration the world over have only made it possible recently for us to enjoy lower crude oil prices enabling countries like India to save billions of dollars in imports and divert huge investments towards public welfare. There had been initial public doubts in US and other countries too, but the companies, the governments and the opinion makers together worked to create enabling atmosphere for technology to bring in acceptable, better and safer solutions for moving ahead for prosperity of their respective nations.

Hydrocarbon exploration is one of the most complex science. That’s the reasons most advanced of the supercomputers are made for oil exploration activities. The geology under surface is extremely difficult to visualize and estimate otherwise.

Oi and gas is produced normally from depths far the below surface level (thousands meters) where anything connected to human habitat or vegetation would be of any concern of. It is also not all that by choice that oil company would decide where to drill and could move away from decided location. Once the hydrocarbon potential is found to be ‘expected’ at a location, one needs to focus on areas as close as ‘few meters’ radius with in that to look for oil and gas by drilling of the wells.

Oil and gas Exploration & Production (E&P) activities the world over have been some of the safest usage of technology. There have been accidents but when one looks at larger time scale, even collateral environmental impacts have been very few. Oil industry has always been in deep public focus and scrutiny and that’s the reason large part of the E&P investments is towards safety. Companies like ONGC pay millions of dollars as insurance premium to secure their activities but have very rarely required to take relief because of the excellent safety track records. The accidents (though a rare) like what happened in Gulf of Mexico at BP platform caused involved companies to bear over about 30 billion dollar compensations. But that also reflects that E&P companies have responsibilities which they can’t ignore and have to carry at the top of all their agenda.

It would potentially be retrograde to discourage discovering sources of energy which are most essential for India's growth and prosperity of the people. The country like India is hardly in position to not scout for its own energy resources.

We should perhaps flood your backyard with shale oil toxins, might help ya understand better then?

Sir there is nothing like shale oil toxin. Shale also contain same , very same oil and gas what you finally end up using in your car or bike. If at all some day all oil exploration is stopped when we have enough alternate energy sources , all will be happy. But till that, India badly needs affordable energy to fulfil its development commitments to its citizens which includes you. Please minimize use of petrol and diesel to help all. That you should concentrate on first. There are enough more polluting industries which make huge land use also, and are not so needed as well, work for that.

We already have experience in the way oil companies like ONGC handling wastes or land, Indian companies are to be regulated by strict environmental rules. But practically no companies follow any files in wastes management, if you need proof go to any nearest companies and see their waste management system, I assure you there will be none.

Ennore, Neduvasal, other places in our country...when will our nation wake up? OR has it resigned to destroying itself through it's own deeds.

Very intensive data about hydrocarbon. Should watch and share

Analytical article reflecting perils of oil extraction. The people living around the areas not only face health hazards but also displacement problems. The oil spill of Karishma - godavari basin which caused havoc in coastal districts of AP is a grim reminder of the environmental problems. While reliance Cooley escaped, the people suffered. Similarly Assam oil refineries are causing health problems to the villages in nearby areas.