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Petroleum-238: Big Oil's Dangerous Secret and the Grassroots Fight to Stop It
In an extraordinary seven-year investigation, Justin Nobel traveled the United States reporting on the oil and gas industry and learned a disturbing and little-known a lot more comes to the surface at a well than just the oil and gas. Each year the industry produces billions of tons of waste, much of it toxic and radioactive. The fracking boom has only worsened the problem. So where does it all go?
Petroleum-238 provides the shocking answer. Shielded by a system of lax regulations and legal loopholes, this waste has been spilled, spread, injected, dumped, and freely emitted across America-from booming Texas and Pennsylvania oil and gas fields, to North Dakota's Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, and more unexpected locations, like the piney woods of Mississippi and Park Avenue in New York City. Nobel relies on oilfield workers, community activists, a century of academic research, and a trove of never-before released industry and government documents to lay out a series of game-changing reveals into the world's most powerful industry. Oilfield waste has been spread on farm fields, under the misguided belief it helps crops grow and cows love it. Radioactive oilfield waste has been shipped in from other countries, thanks to an exemption. The waste has even been used to build school playgrounds, sold in hardware stores, and in many states it is being spread on roads. None have been more deceived than the industry's own workers, who are suffering mysterious health maladies, and dying from unexplainable cancers.
Nobel's book is an impressive work of science journalism, with surprising moments of literary beauty. It is also a welcome breakdown of America's red-blue divide and the false wall corporations and politicians often set between industry workers and environmentalists. In the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Petroleum-238 is a landmark work of environmental writing and an urgent call to action.
Petroleum-238 provides the shocking answer. Shielded by a system of lax regulations and legal loopholes, this waste has been spilled, spread, injected, dumped, and freely emitted across America-from booming Texas and Pennsylvania oil and gas fields, to North Dakota's Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, and more unexpected locations, like the piney woods of Mississippi and Park Avenue in New York City. Nobel relies on oilfield workers, community activists, a century of academic research, and a trove of never-before released industry and government documents to lay out a series of game-changing reveals into the world's most powerful industry. Oilfield waste has been spread on farm fields, under the misguided belief it helps crops grow and cows love it. Radioactive oilfield waste has been shipped in from other countries, thanks to an exemption. The waste has even been used to build school playgrounds, sold in hardware stores, and in many states it is being spread on roads. None have been more deceived than the industry's own workers, who are suffering mysterious health maladies, and dying from unexplainable cancers.
Nobel's book is an impressive work of science journalism, with surprising moments of literary beauty. It is also a welcome breakdown of America's red-blue divide and the false wall corporations and politicians often set between industry workers and environmentalists. In the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Petroleum-238 is a landmark work of environmental writing and an urgent call to action.
- GenresNonfictionEnvironment
436 pages, Hardcover
Published April 24, 2024
About the author
Justin Nobel
4 books9 followers Justin Nobel writes on science and environment for US magazines, investigative sites, and literary journals. He has been published in Best American Science and Nature Writing and Best American Travel Writing. A book he co-wrote with a death row exoneree, The Story of Dan Bright, was published in 2016 by University of New Orleans Press. His 2020 Rolling Stone magazine story, "America's Radioactive Secret," won an award from the National Association of Science Writers and inspired this book. Justin's writing has helped lead to lawsuits, public dialogue, academic research and been taught at Harvard's School of Public Health.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 8, 2024
In January 2020, Rolling Stone published “America’s Radioactive Secret,” the result of Justin Nobel’s 20-month long investigation into the dangerous levels of radioactivity detected in oil & gas waste. The science journalist’s article won the National Association of Science Writers Award.
During his Rolling Stone investigation in 2017, Nobel learned that Lowe’s was selling a product called AquaSalina™ made by Duck Creek Energy, an Ohio-based company that recycles and repurposes fracking brine. The product is sold as a liquid de-icer for home and commercial use. Testing at a state lab revealed that AquaSalina™ samples contained radium at levels as high as 2,491 picocuries per liter.
After his exposé was published, Nobel couldn’t stop there. A question haunted him: How does radioactive fracking brine end up on store shelves marketed as “Safe for Environment & Pets”?
Petroleum-238 is the culmination of his 7-year long exhaustive investigation into the billions of tons of oradioactive toxic waste produced by the oil & gas industry, how it’s handled and where it goes. Nobel crisscrossed the country on a hunting expedition to track the multitude of pathways the industry uses to conceal hazardous waste. From Pennsylvania to Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Colorado, Texas, California, Alaska -- and more -- he uncovered the staggering toll that results from dumping this radioactive toxic waste into our environment.
In every oil & gas field, Nobel asked, “Where does the waste go?” Armed with his meticulous research into the players in each region he uncovered the multitude of methods used by industry to hide radioactive toxic waste. He followed waste haulers to learn all their dirty secrets. They spill it, spread it, inject it, dump it,, and emit into air through flaring and venting. They pay local landowners to spray it on crops as fertilizer and they give it away to local officials to spray it on roads as a de-icer. In some communities playgrounds, ball fields and subdivisions have been built on top of the toxic sludge.
To compile the documentation for this book, Nobel talked to residents and oil & gas workers. He spent time with the locals to gain their trust and found they were eager to talk, especially the workers, many of whom are sick. And if they aren’t sick, they know someone who is. They know they are living and working in a radioactive toxic soup that local and state officials all the way up to the federal government, refuse to acknowledge or regulate. But those out of sight out of mind policies are creating a patchwork of monstrous toxic plumes beneath the earth’s surface that threaten our nation’s drinking water, food supply and public health.
The problem of radioactive toxic waste is not news to the oil & gas industry.
As they see it, the cost to deal with hazardous waste is astronomical and never ending. They would rather spend whatever it takes to lobby local legislators and officials to make sure the gunk is never regulated.
As a result, countless reports and studies over decades have been buried and covered over just like the oilfield waste. In fact, the EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have always known the dangers. They just don’t want you to know.
In the end, Nobel never did get the answer to his question.
In 2018, 2019, and 2023, he asked Lowe’s the following:
How many stores sell AquaSalina™?
Do they carry the product outside Ohio?
Is Lowe’s still selling the product?
How much AquaSalina™ have they sold?
Have they ever tested it for radioactivity?
Lowe’s has never replied to his questions.
Reading Nobel’s book, I was reminded of the 1958 sci-fi horror film The Blob. An alien resembling a giant blob of sludge crashes near a Pennsylvania town. The slow-moving gunk devours everything and everyone in its path. The location and plot are eerily prescient. What the film’s creators got wrong is that the blob isn’t coming from outer space. It’s gradually oozing up from beneath Earth’s surface to devour us all.
Petroleum-238 is a modern American horror story.
During his Rolling Stone investigation in 2017, Nobel learned that Lowe’s was selling a product called AquaSalina™ made by Duck Creek Energy, an Ohio-based company that recycles and repurposes fracking brine. The product is sold as a liquid de-icer for home and commercial use. Testing at a state lab revealed that AquaSalina™ samples contained radium at levels as high as 2,491 picocuries per liter.
After his exposé was published, Nobel couldn’t stop there. A question haunted him: How does radioactive fracking brine end up on store shelves marketed as “Safe for Environment & Pets”?
Petroleum-238 is the culmination of his 7-year long exhaustive investigation into the billions of tons of oradioactive toxic waste produced by the oil & gas industry, how it’s handled and where it goes. Nobel crisscrossed the country on a hunting expedition to track the multitude of pathways the industry uses to conceal hazardous waste. From Pennsylvania to Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Colorado, Texas, California, Alaska -- and more -- he uncovered the staggering toll that results from dumping this radioactive toxic waste into our environment.
In every oil & gas field, Nobel asked, “Where does the waste go?” Armed with his meticulous research into the players in each region he uncovered the multitude of methods used by industry to hide radioactive toxic waste. He followed waste haulers to learn all their dirty secrets. They spill it, spread it, inject it, dump it,, and emit into air through flaring and venting. They pay local landowners to spray it on crops as fertilizer and they give it away to local officials to spray it on roads as a de-icer. In some communities playgrounds, ball fields and subdivisions have been built on top of the toxic sludge.
To compile the documentation for this book, Nobel talked to residents and oil & gas workers. He spent time with the locals to gain their trust and found they were eager to talk, especially the workers, many of whom are sick. And if they aren’t sick, they know someone who is. They know they are living and working in a radioactive toxic soup that local and state officials all the way up to the federal government, refuse to acknowledge or regulate. But those out of sight out of mind policies are creating a patchwork of monstrous toxic plumes beneath the earth’s surface that threaten our nation’s drinking water, food supply and public health.
The problem of radioactive toxic waste is not news to the oil & gas industry.
As they see it, the cost to deal with hazardous waste is astronomical and never ending. They would rather spend whatever it takes to lobby local legislators and officials to make sure the gunk is never regulated.
As a result, countless reports and studies over decades have been buried and covered over just like the oilfield waste. In fact, the EPA and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have always known the dangers. They just don’t want you to know.
In the end, Nobel never did get the answer to his question.
In 2018, 2019, and 2023, he asked Lowe’s the following:
How many stores sell AquaSalina™?
Do they carry the product outside Ohio?
Is Lowe’s still selling the product?
How much AquaSalina™ have they sold?
Have they ever tested it for radioactivity?
Lowe’s has never replied to his questions.
Reading Nobel’s book, I was reminded of the 1958 sci-fi horror film The Blob. An alien resembling a giant blob of sludge crashes near a Pennsylvania town. The slow-moving gunk devours everything and everyone in its path. The location and plot are eerily prescient. What the film’s creators got wrong is that the blob isn’t coming from outer space. It’s gradually oozing up from beneath Earth’s surface to devour us all.
Petroleum-238 is a modern American horror story.
April 23, 2024
Petroleum 238 is the perfect 2024 Earth Day read! The extraction and use of fossil fuels isn’t just killing the earth but also the workers in the industry.
Petroleum 238 shares the poignant stories of the industry’s workers, many of whom are sick and dying, and the landowners whose properties are adjacent to these oil and gas wells. It turns out that the majority of what gushes out of an oil well is not oil or gas but toxic waste, much of it radioactive. Nobel masterfully weaves a presentation of the science of oil and gas drilling which supports this conclusion into the compelling stories of the persons and regions most directly affected.
The reveals in this book about what the oil and gas industry has known about oil field waste are shocking, including that none of this waste is labelled hazardous as a result of a Congressional exemption from the 1970s, is incredible.
Petroleum 238 provides not just stories of despair but information that suggests hope for our future.
Petroleum 238 shares the poignant stories of the industry’s workers, many of whom are sick and dying, and the landowners whose properties are adjacent to these oil and gas wells. It turns out that the majority of what gushes out of an oil well is not oil or gas but toxic waste, much of it radioactive. Nobel masterfully weaves a presentation of the science of oil and gas drilling which supports this conclusion into the compelling stories of the persons and regions most directly affected.
The reveals in this book about what the oil and gas industry has known about oil field waste are shocking, including that none of this waste is labelled hazardous as a result of a Congressional exemption from the 1970s, is incredible.
Petroleum 238 provides not just stories of despair but information that suggests hope for our future.
June 12, 2024
The level of environmental damage done by the oil industry is unfathomable. This book is another glimpse into the consequences of our petroleum dependent world. It is horrifying.
June 1, 2024
The most important book you will ever read. Personally, I am a fan of fantasy such as Patrick Rothfuss and Ben Abercrombie, but someone sent me this book and I was sucked in. I finished it in two afternoons and I don't think my life will ever be the same. Just read it. Get a physical copy before they take it down.
September 13, 2024
Justin Nobel brings to life and synthesizes the horrific danger of radioactive waste. Justin brings us to the fields of big oil and gas, within the cleaning of pipes, the board rooms, community meetings, and in the homes of those with cancer, illness, and surrounded by environmental destruction. Justin is why we need more journalists in this world: for seven years he found the documents and the people that tell the story of a corrupt political and business system that cover up the radioactive waste discharged by the companies that value money above all else. He writes with nerve, muscle, and velocity — this does not read like a geology report from an academic, it reads like a thriller, a suspense thriller of a small group — a loop of truths taking on gigantic mountains of power.
Follow along as he tells the stories and packs the must-read information. The subject in this book should be on the national stage, a glowing talking point in our upcoming election; another reason more people should read this book.
Our world often overlooks, or gets tired of the issues of gas and oil, but this book makes the argument that perhaps the biggest error is giving gas and oil a pass. The fight isn't over, let this book help fight for the environment and the health of communities who live and work in proximity of these extraction points, pipelines, and those who live downstream. Like so many powerful voices before it, but with the trained skill of an investigative reporter, Justin writes for people hurt most by carless environmental policy and practices. Radioactive molecules exist right now, outside your door, maybe within it. Waste seeps into drinking water, dust that settles on kitchen counters, and floats in the air.
Let this book help you understand what's going on and be an accounting of the outrageous behavior of powerful companies.
Follow along as he tells the stories and packs the must-read information. The subject in this book should be on the national stage, a glowing talking point in our upcoming election; another reason more people should read this book.
Our world often overlooks, or gets tired of the issues of gas and oil, but this book makes the argument that perhaps the biggest error is giving gas and oil a pass. The fight isn't over, let this book help fight for the environment and the health of communities who live and work in proximity of these extraction points, pipelines, and those who live downstream. Like so many powerful voices before it, but with the trained skill of an investigative reporter, Justin writes for people hurt most by carless environmental policy and practices. Radioactive molecules exist right now, outside your door, maybe within it. Waste seeps into drinking water, dust that settles on kitchen counters, and floats in the air.
Let this book help you understand what's going on and be an accounting of the outrageous behavior of powerful companies.
May 25, 2024
Unlike one of the previous reviews, this more a perfect nightmare to read for Earth Day. Unless your mantra is profits before people, this book will be an eye opener. No matter if you live right in the heart of fracking country, or near petrochemical plants, or drink water downstream or breathe air upwind, you do not have to be an environmentalist to understand the harm that continues to be done by an industry with no morals beyond the almighty dollar. The title is a nod to the radiation laced waste that comes up with every well drilled. And there is no way to deactivate the radioactivity, but the industry spreads their wastes across fields, gives away waste brine to de-ice winter roads, and buries their wastes in landfills designed for household waste. The levels of radioactivity would make a nuclear plant handle these wastes as hazardous materials, but a former Vice President (Dick Cheney) and former VP candidate (Lloyd Bentsen) gave the industry exemptions and loopholes that you can drive a tractor trailer of waste water through. Even though the damage is done and money speaks to politicians more than science and common sense, this should be a call to arms over an industry that is still trying to expand their poisonous reach.
February 18, 2025
Mind-blowing, eye-opening, and intensely emotional describe Justin Nobel's investigation into the greed and corruption behind Big Oil's plot that poisoned farm lands and eventually the farmers themselves. Some suffered long and painful illnesses, others died, and gone is the land that sustained them and the only way of life they've ever known.
Nobel describes how the plot against the farmers was able to
take root without anyone knowing. How, when requests for information were brought by Nobel, government agencies ignored him. Nobel travels around the country, and no surprise finds areas of fracking. Investigating further, he uncovers the powerful conglomerates obstructing the laws that enforce safe disposal of waste from fracking. Justin Nobel's book is more than an impassioned warning. Now that any remaining environmental regulations around fracking will most certainly be terminated, Petroleum-238 is sounding an alarm that we need to heed.
Nobel describes how the plot against the farmers was able to
take root without anyone knowing. How, when requests for information were brought by Nobel, government agencies ignored him. Nobel travels around the country, and no surprise finds areas of fracking. Investigating further, he uncovers the powerful conglomerates obstructing the laws that enforce safe disposal of waste from fracking. Justin Nobel's book is more than an impassioned warning. Now that any remaining environmental regulations around fracking will most certainly be terminated, Petroleum-238 is sounding an alarm that we need to heed.
July 15, 2024
This book changed my life, my perspective on our world, my perception of the very place I grew up. It was a hard read, as it is sad and discusses heavy topics on fracking. BUT I would recommend everyone read this book!!! More people need to talk about this book, maybe it should even be a required reading in school. The fight for environmental justice is still ongoing and the ending will not leave you happy, it will leave you sad, it will leave you angry, but it will leave you with a profound need to make a change! I anticipate this will be my best read of the year.
July 30, 2024
I thought I was well versed in the environmental, heath, and social consequences of fracking. This book is an eye opener. Very accessible, well written narrative with an uncommonly complete reference section.
August 27, 2024
I enjoyed reading this book and thought it was very informational with a little witty humor thrown in. I think at parts it felt like the pacing dragged a little or could have focused on an idea for longer but overall I found value in reading this book and I will encourage others to read it as well.
September 18, 2024
Horrifying.
Thx,
Jay!
Thx,
Jay!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews