The long shadow of Enron on powerless Andhra Pradesh

Rebecca Mark, once one of the most powerful business person in USA probably never visited Andhra Pradesh. She had cast a magic spell on greedy politicians, bureaucrats  and Financial institutes in India and also in many other countries. In the highly inflated Enron plant cost estimates, she made liberal provision to educate Indian people. But we never tried to learn.
Enron exposed in USA went bankrupt in 2001but plant at Ratnagiri was salvaged with public money in India.NTPC and GAIl were made to pump money and everyone knows that plant will never break even even after writing off all bank loans by buying the feed LNG from market. Writing off investment would invite caustic comments by CAG and the only alternative left to the promoter GAIL is to keep the sick plant on notionally alive category is to pump low cost gas from KG fields whether A.P likes it or not. 
All the suppliers to Enron made money by supplying plant and parts that could not be used, Indian FIs wrote off investment, NTPC & GAIL the public sector undertakings had been made to pump public money to keep the lid on. And who would  have imagined dining and wining of sexy Rebecca by Indian politicians would switch off power to million homes in distant place called Andha Pradesh. 

Vermont Will Be First U.S. State to Ban Fracking

"We don't want to be shooting chemicals into our groundwater in pursuit of gas that does not exist," Governor Shumlin said Friday after the House vote.
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Berlin is opposed to plans to use the controversial fracking process to extract natural gas in Germany

Germany has put the brakes on plans to use hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, to extract natural gas in places where it is difficult to access, such as shale or coal beds. Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler have agreed to oppose the controversial process for the time being, SPIEGEL has learned.

Sources in the German government said that the ministers were "very skeptical" about fracking, which injects chemicals as well as sand and water into the ground to release natural gas. "There are many open questions which we will first have to carefully examine," Rösler told close associates.

With their stance, the two ministers are opposing plans by energy companies to use the fracking process to tap into deposits of natural gas in shale, especially in northern and eastern Germany. In order to access the gas, the shale needs to be fractured using a mixture of hot water, sand and chemical additives, some of which are poisonous. Environmental groups reject the use of the technology, saying that the chemicals used can contaminate drinking water.

Local Protests

Last week, the energy giant ExxonMobil presented a study by the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, in which researchers expressed their support for test drilling in the states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Local environmental groups in the affected regions have already got into gear, setting up citizens' initiatives to collect signatures for petitions and organize protests in a bid to block the fracking plans. Activists fear that the chemicals could pollute the local groundwater.

Fracking has been widely used in the US, where production of natural gas has sharply increased in recent years as the use of hydraulic fracturing becomes more widespread. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama's administration unveiled new regulations to improve transparency on the chemicals used during fracking on public land.

Source: speigel