A World Without Fresh Water May Not Be That Far Away. . .

                Drilling for natural gases has been under a lot of fire lately about many different issues such as creating earthquakes, but a new debate has arisen concerning the millions of gallons of water being used to extract the gases. The process for drilling for natural gases involves pumping high volumes of water and other chemicals into rock at high pressures to release the gas. That all sounds good to me but what happens to the water that is now contaminated with chemicals and gases once the drilling is done?

Following pressure to fix this problem, drilling companies have started trying to recycle the water being used yet in the past 18 months less than half of the water used has actually been recycled. This may seem like a big problem but is not the biggest problem, which is the water left behind. As the water is being removed it leaves behind a salt or sludge highly concentrated with radioactive material and other contaminants dangerous to people and all other life if it reaches the waterways. Reports have shown that in Williamsport, PA. Between 10-40% of water injected into the ground will resurface in the next 2 weeks. “The wastewater that comes up from the well will likely increase to some degree in many contaminants such as salts and possibly radium and other radionuclide’s with each new fracking, but the data is very limited on this issue so not much is known,” said Radisav Vidic, an environmental engineering professor and drilling expert at the University of Pittsburgh(33).

Over the past year over 50 millions of gallons of contaminated water is unaccounted for because of weak government regulation of fracking and with the information Radisav has researched this can cause the environment massive problems. I believe that without changes in legislation to get regulations on this recycling problem our water supply will not last long and many have the same view and are getting the research to prove it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/us/02gas.html?pagewanted=2&bl

LG

If you look around your house I guarantee you will notice at least one product of the LG Corporation. As LG is in the top 3 largest electronics corporation how they do business can hugely impact the world around them. As LG "strives to enhance its customer’s life and lifestyle with intelligent product features, intuitive functionality, and exceptional performance"(the moto of the company) they are still expected to keep their impact on the environment steady or decreasing and as many of us know that can be a very difficult task. The good thing is LG is fully aware of this and is taking huge measures to keep the ecological footprint as small as possible. Enacted in August of 2010 LG is investing nearly 18 million dollars to research and put in place new methods of reducing their emissions. Through these new plans LG has pledged to reduce its green house gas emissions by 30% in the next ten years and cut their emissions by as little as 50 million metric tons. These policies don’t just involve their manufacturing, they are also increasing their urgency to create more cost effective and energy efficient devices for your home. This is called their Efficient Product Life Cycle, which implies that they are aiming to reduce their emissions in harvesting raw materials, production, logistics, usage, and waste. Even before this new plan LG has been decreasing their emissions just by researching new ways of developing new products and is become more energy efficient by nearly 12 times in the past 5 years.

Anheuser-Busch

Many have noticed the huge influence of corporations going “green” but what kind of company do you usually suspect of making this change? An electric company? An automotive company? That’s usually what comes to my mind when I think about green corporations, but what about a beer company? Yes, even beer companies are making the switch to becoming "Green." Of these companies I chose to talk about Anheuser-Busch. Anheuser-Busch has always been an environmentally friendly company dating back to its start and continues to always have the environment considered in their operations. In this effort to become “green” Anheuser-Busch now recycles 99% of their solid waste and using their Bio-Energy Recovery System they are able to provide 15% of the energy they need to run their 10 breweries. Also as with any beer company high quality water is a huge part of the taste of a quality beverage so it’s no surprise that this is also an area where Anheuser-Busch is striving to be more “green.” In this effort to conserve water their corporation has decreased its water consumption by more than 37% over the past 10 years while they still maintain their excellent quality. These changes have all been a great help to the “green” movement but none near as important as their great aluminum saving idea that was presented recently. Anheuser-Busch implemented a plan to reduce the diameter of their cans lids by 1/8 inch saving 21.5 million pounds of aluminum each year. Another great effort from their company makes it possible for Anheuser-Busch capable of recycling one can out of each can it produces. As long as companies follow the lead of this amazing corporation I see no need to worry about the environment for many years to come.