German beermakers may be winning their battle to stop fracking

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/17/german-beermakers-may-be-winning-their-battle-to-stop-fracking/



ExxonMobil test drilling makes brewers fear for their livelihoods, but others see fracking as alternative to coal and nuclear energy

German beermakers may be winning their battle to stop fracking
By Philip Oltermann, The Guardian
Tuesday, June 17, 2014 19:11 EDT

“Germany is a beer nation: if their beer has no flavour, people will mount the barricades”, says Friederike Borchert. At her family’s brewery in Lünne in Lower Saxony about 800,000 litres of beer are produced a year: one light pilsner, one dark beer and a buckwheat brew. Borchert, 27, dreams of one day making her own India pale ale, though now fears she may have to put her aspirations on hold.

In spring 2011, US energy group ExxonMobil made a horizontal test drill into shale rock under a field down the road, so far the only one of its kind in Germany.

Many locals are now convinced that Lünne has been earmarked as the country’s first site for fracking, the controversial method of extracting gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals into the rock at high pressure. Earlier this month, a leaked letter by the economy minister Sigmar Gabriel hinted at permitting fracking from 2015, apparently confirming their suspicions.

“For brewers”, says Borchert, “fracking could spell the end of our existence”. Brewing water had to be “even cleaner drinking water”. The fear alone that chemicals used during fracking might enter the local ground water could ruin the brewery’s reputation. But then Germany is a beer nation, she says, and when brewers speak up politicians tend to listen.