On its website, Shell states, “…the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other independent environmental experts – including the Ground Water Protection Council – have deemed [fracking] a safe and proven technique.” Even casual investigation reveals that this is just one of many statements that are, if not outright lies, not entirely true.

One of the things to which Shell refers in the aforementioned statement is a 2004 study and subsequent statement by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that fracking “poses little or no threat” to underground water.

What Shell omits to mention is that Dr Benjamin Grumbles, the man who oversaw that study, now admits that the study was never meant to be a clean bill of health, that it was merely a “snapshot in time”, and that a new study is necessary.

Shell also omits the fact that in the Energy Policy Act passed the following year, there was an exemption: fluids used in hydraulic fracturing were exempt from protections under the Clean Air, Clean Water and Safe Drinking Water Acts, to name just three. This exemption is known as the Halliburton Loophole; reportedly because former CEO Dick Cheney was instrumental in its passage.

In 2010 Halliburton was asked, along with eight other companies, to submit a list of the chemicals used for drilling gas; Halliburton ignored the request and is now fighting to keep most of this information confidential.

What does this have to do with Shell? In the section related to hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo one reads: “The fluids injected into the rock consist of more than 99% water and sand, with a small amount of additives similar to those found in household products.” This broad statement is anything but reassuring, especially given the evidence to the contrary. Read Julienne du Toit’s excellent ‘Beginner’s guide to fracking’ at Karoo Space for a completely different picture, or follow ProPublica’s ongoing series about fracking in general and in the US in particular.

The website all but promises upliftment and job creation, often the first line of defence against opposition to controversial activities in South Africa, because jobs are indeed scarce. But according to another report by Julienne du Toit, Shell admitted at a public meeting that fracking will not create jobs. They further admitted that not only would only Shell and the government benefit, but that people’s only recourse for compensation would be government!

A report in The Daily Maverick on another public meeting confirms a “frack now, deal with any fallout as it happens” stance by Shell.

South Africans, like citizens the world over, are susceptible to fear mongering, so the empty promises meant to reassure are wrapped in a sense of urgency, warning that if we don’t act now, we face an apocalyptic future of rolling blackouts, an ever-increasing petrol price and whatever other so-called horrors are linked to lack of fossil fuel-based energy and the monetary cost of oil.

It is proven time and again, and as recently as this month with the crisis in Japan, that government promises and corporations’ assurances mean little. Granted, South Africa is not situated on a massive fault line, so the chances of a powerful earthquake and devastating tsunami are remote, but the Gulf Oil Spill and the regular yet unreported spills around the world, the ever-increasing number of man-made disasters, the disclosures via organisations like Wikileaks, and the injuries, illness and deaths of countless ordinary citizens, prove that we are very much susceptible to human error, and the relentless drive for profit over safety and human rights.

If these corporations, who have the billions to spend on settlements arising from bad and often illegal practises, who allegedly bribe and insert their own personnel into governments in other countries, truly had our interests at heart as they proclaim to do, why not renewable energy?

According to The Energy Report, some two years in the making, the world could be powered by renewable energy by 2050. Even if 2050 is proven to be idealistic and impossible, everything starts somewhere.

Colour me sceptical, but I am not sure the reason for Shell and others wanting to frack the Karoo is because they’re concerned I may not be able to access my computer or boil water for coffee sometime in 2013.