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Eco-Activists Are Reeling After Natural Gas Industry Sees Big Week In Colorado

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Chris White Tech Reporter
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Green activists had a rough go of it in Colorado this week, especially after news broke the Centennial State is poised to become the second largest natural gas producing state in the U.S.

Environmentalists have worked overtime attempting to move the battleground state away from the clutches of natural gas developers and toward the supposedly warm embrace of “keep it in the ground” activists like Bill McKibben and eco-billionaire Tom Steyer.

That mission took a big hit this week when U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) officials said Wednesday that western Colorado has 40 times more natural gas than previously thought.

The Colorado’s Piceance Basin, located in western Colorado, is capable of producing nearly 66.3 trillion cubic feet of gas, marking a massive uptick from the 1.6 trillion cubic feet estimated in 2003, research shows.

U.S. Energy Department data show one trillion cubic feet of natural gas is enough to heat 15 million homes for a year, which means, of course, that 40 times that number will probably warm close to hundreds of millions of homes.

Protesters and activists have not reacted well to the seemingly never-ending hits their movement has taken.

A green group calling itself Colorado Community Rights Network shouted slogans such as, “We the people of Colorado hold you in contempt,” and “No fracking way,” while protesting at a book event at the First Congregational Church in Boulder, Colorado. They were likely reacting to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s book “The Opposite Of Woe: My Life In Beer And Politics,” where he writes, “based on experience and science, I recognized that fracking was one of our very best and safest extraction techniques.”

The event and the subsequent protests happened shortly after news of the report.

Those who were at the Boulder, Colorado event thought the protesters’ behavior was disrespectful, both to the governor and to those who paid $10 to see the governor’s talk. They called the anti-frackers’ antics “counterproductive,” and said they felt “ripped off” by their presence.

The audience members expressed shock after the protesters turned down offers to speak in an orderly fashion with Hickenlooper about his support for natural gas.

Analysts believe these kinds of antics are probably going to turn the public off of the anti-fossil fuel message.

“The news on Colorado’s natural gas reserves and the crashing of the governor’s book event in Boulder are part of the same problem for the anti-fracking activists,” Simon Lomax, an energy analyst at Colorado-based Independent Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “The facts have always been against them, and the longer they drag out this fringe campaign to ban one of the state’s most important industries, the worse they look in the eyes of the general public.”

Boulder is a liberal bastion, Lomax stated, adding, “so when the activists are taking fire in Boulder, you know how bad things have gotten for them.”

The greens in Colorado have gone from mere concern they were losing influence to absolute frantic mode.

McKibben and other members of his anti-fracking army traveled to the state in May to rally the spirits of broken-hearted protesters. The rally was mostly unsuccessful, and actually managed to repel state legislators once allied with the anti-fracking movement.

The Break Free 2016 event advocated the state move away from fossil fuels and move toward fully renewable energy sources. Prior to the event, Break Free 2016 claimed the rally would be the largest mass mobilization for climate action ever in Colorado – they bragged in several different media accounts that they were expecting thousands of people to come out in support. It attracted less than 100 activists.

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