No to ‘fracking’ doesn’t mean no: Landowner refusal can’t stop drilling

[badtoworse]

38. At the end of the day, the EPA (not just the DEP) is on record that Dimock's water is safe to drink

That is a fact and is indisputable. On that basis, there is no reason why Cabot or the EPA (BTW, the EPA's own website said they stopped the deliveries) should have to continue delivering water in Dimock - safe water is safe water.

I'm not going to get into the specifics of what Cabot's drilling practices were because I'm not close enough to the case to know for sure. Let's accept that what you say is true - the fix for that is not to ban fracking everywhere, but rather to improve standards for well casings and to improve enforcement of existing laws that govern drilling. Spilling diesel or drilling mud is already illegal and regulators should take appropriate action. It's noteworthy that Pennsylvania upgraded the requirements for well casings in 2010 - after the events in Dimock took place.

To base energy policy on what happened in Dimock is ludicrous. For one thing, there is not even complete agreement on the facts of the case. Methane seepage from shallow coal seams has been documented for decades and as EPA points out, the contaminants found in Dimocks water are naturally occuring. It is certainly possible that the methane came as a result of a bad cementing job on the well casing, but there are fixes for all of these things. Upgraded well casing design and installation, reuse of fracking water and safer fracking fluids are things the industry has either implemented or is developing. Tens of thousands of wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Texas, North dakota, Colorado and elsewhere have been fracked with no negative impacts. The truth is that fracking is at least as safe and likely much safer than any other means of primary energy production.

Let's consider some of the positive aspects of fracking. By industry estimates between 50,000 and 80,000 MW of coal fired generating capacity will be retired in the next 5 years and will be replaced by much cleaner natural gas fired generation. That means millions of tons of CO2 not being emitted, along with the mercury, acid gases, NOx and other pollutants associated with coal. It also means less of the damaging environmental impacts of coal mining. That is only possible because fracking has reduced the cost of natural gas to the point where it's as cheap or cheaper than coal. In 2008, the cost of natural gas was in the $8 - $9 per million BTU range. So far in 2012, the range has been in the $2 - $3 range and it's forecasted to stay in the $3 - $5 range for at least 10 years.

Ever get stuck behind a heavy truck spewing diesel exhaust into the air? At current natural gas prices, we could liquify the gas and use it to fuel the heavy trucks and buses on our highways reducing the emissions from the diesel engines. Besides being cleaner, it would be cheaper - natural gas is significantly less expensive than diesel at todays prices.

Fracking has the potential to improve our competitive position in world markets and bring manufacturing jobs back here. Along with natural gas, fracked wells also produce substantial amounts of natural gas liquids or NGL's such as propane, butane and pentane. These are the building blocks for the plastics used in manufacturing. We are developing an abundant, cheap supply of these materials that will attract manufacturers here because these things are substantially more expensive in the countries that have taken away many of our jobs.

What about the national security aspects of our energy supply? Why do you think we sent our military into the Middle-East and why did thousands of our troop have to die over the years? No one will say it publically, but everyone knows we'd be in deep trouble if we lost access to the oil from that part of the world. It is possible, even likely that we will be able to export LNG and in the long run, perhaps even oil from fracked wells. Quite a potential turnaround, don't you think?

I could go on, but I think you get the point. Fracking is our future and I'm 100% for it. It's not without risk, but no form of energy production is. Unfortunately, we have the "just say no" crowd who were probably taken in by Gasland and either can't or won't make a rational decision about fracking that is based on all the facts. I've been in the energy business for most of my career (30 years in electric power generation) and I've yet to hear any alternatives to fracking that are workable and affordable. Thankfully, rational heads seem to be calling the shots on fracking, at least right now.