More fear and loathing for the masses from the AP:
Why does firewood cost so much? Blame fracking
Industries that use mat logs, including drillers, are hogging supplies in the Northeast
By Rik Stevens
The Associated Press
CONCORD, N.H. — Northeasterners who are digging deeper into their pockets to pay for firewood this season can add a new scapegoat to the roster of usual market forces: fracking.
Yep, a timber industry representative in New Hampshire said those hydraulic fracturing well sites in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale formation are using construction "mats" made of hardwood logs — think of the corduroy roads seen in sepia-toned photographs from the 1800s..... <another journalist lacking in knowledge of history since such roads have been used for 1000s of years>
....... Jasen Stock, executive director of the New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association, said it's not just fracking sites that are hogging logs.... <how very objective to point this out halfway thru the story>
Pipelines and transmission wires — really any large-scale construction project — have in the past three years ramped up the appetite for the perfect mat log: a hardwood trunk, 16 to 20 feet long and 8 to 10 inches in diameter.
"If you're putting in a power line or gas line over wetlands or soft soil, they use thousands and thousands of these mats, and they're made of hardwood logs," Stock said. "If you're in the firewood business, that's your sweet spot. That's the log you want."
About 2.5 million households in the U.S. burned wood to keep warm in 2013.
<I'd bet most of them also think climate change is one of the greatest threats to civilization>
