How Dangerous is Fracking?
Sorry for the bait and switch, but I don’t know; no one does. In fact, I hope to live long enough to be here when we learn the truth. In particular, what is the result of squirting hundreds of billions of gallons of water and sand that contain a mixture (that the oil/gas companies refuse to disclose) of toxic, carcinogenic chemicals into the Earth each year?
Activists like filmmaker Robert Redford aren’t content to sit around and wait for the answer. Here’s his one-minute-long video, posted on the website of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council).
The NRDC says: “Fracking is a suspect in polluted drinking water in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, where residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations,” and opposes expanded fracking until effective safeguards are in place.
They also point out: Natural gas producers have been running roughshod over communities across the country with their extraction and production activities for too long, resulting in contaminated water supplies, dangerous air pollution, destroyed streams, and devastated landscapes. Weak safeguards and inadequate oversight fail to protect our communities from harm by the rapid expansion of fossil fuel production using fracking.
Craig,
You’re asking the wrong question here. The question is NOT “is Fracking safe”. The question is: “given what we know, how likely is it that fracking would cause more net trouble to society than not fracking”?
The ansower to that is: 0%.
Last year we went into winter with a record natural gas inventory level, and we came out with a low that we haven’t hit in 20 years. Had it not been for fracking, our inventory level would have been more than a trillion cubic feet lower going into the wintertime, and there would have been shortages that would literally have resulted in people freezing to death. That’s not hyperbole, that’s a real effect.
This year, because we drew down our inventory levels so far, there has been less reliance on natural gas for electric power production… And coal power has increased its load by 42 TWh for the first half of the year. That’s ~15 million tons of additional coal consumed in 6 months, because we had a draw-down of an extra Tcf. Imagine if our production level were 10 Tcf lower per year – due to the loss of Fracking. That would mean ~800 million tons of additional coal consumption, and people literally freezing to death.
There has not been one single shred of evidence that fracking results in more pollution than old-style vertical drilling. There’s no reasonable postulates put forward as to why fracking would result in more pollution than normal vertical drilling (aside from the obvious: greater consumption.)
And for that you’re willing to make thousands of people freeze to death and commit this country to burning 800 million more tons of coal per year?
(???)
(For comparison, during the first 6 months of this year, there was ~8 TWh YOY increase of additional renewable generation – counting all sources.)
The anti-fracking people are nuts. You have to prove to me that fracking is worse than coal in order for me to be against it… and to that effect they haven’t even found the singular first argument. Maybe in 30 years, when coal is no longer on the grid… I’ll consider entertaining the notion of trying to stop fracking… But for now, Fracking is doing far more good than harm – whatever the harm… it’s reducing our consumption of coal and keeping us warm in the winter. We need both of those services.
😉