‘Energy in Depth’ Sets the Record Straight on Hydraulic Fracturing
Below is an “Issue Alert” published by Energy in Depth (EID) on May 4th—reprinted here with permission. EID is an online educational website sponsored by oil and gas producing associations from across the U.S. It’s mission is to respond to half-truths and outright falsehoods with science and facts. They do an excellent job. The piece below is an important read to help set the record straight about hydraulic fracturing. In recent months, “fracking” has been made out to be dangerous and unsafe and the hue and cry is to outlaw it as a method of harvesting natural gas. EID does a great job in responding to the charges being leveled against this important and safe (and 60-year-old) technology.
Energy in Depth (May 4 Issue Alert) - Evidence is Not the Plural of Anecdote
EID responds to NRDC’s running list of conjectures and distortions targeting safety, performance of hydraulic fracturing
Last month, our friends over at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) started up a running tally on their blog identifying “incidents where drinking water has been contaminated and hydraulic fracturing is a suspected cause.”
Of course, in a country with more than 470,000 active natural gas wells in operation, providing American consumers with more than 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas each year, the unfortunate (and inevitable) reality of the situation is that the occasional incident will occur. And since a good number of these wells depend on fracturing to be viable, it’s also inevitable that those who oppose the use of hydraulic fracturing on ideological grounds (as opposed to scientific ones) will continue to blame the heavily regulated, 60-year-old technology for just about everything that may go wrong under the sun.
In a lot of ways, hydraulic fracturing has become the victim of its own success. Almost universally regarded as the sine-qua-non of energy production in America today, hydraulic fracturing—coupled with horizontal drilling technology—allows operators today to produce more than 10 times the amount of energy by drilling fewer than 1/10th the number of wells.
That this is great news for the environment is so self-evident as to require no further explanation. But smaller footprints aside, it also allows us to tap an abundance of resources that simply could not be accessed without it. And that’s the thing: NRDC would prefer these resources be kept in the ground—and at least has the courage to say so. But it knows the way to do that isn’t to attack the jobs, revenue or people associated with bringing this extraordinary resource to the surface. It knows it can’t attack the carpenter. So it’s decided to attack his tools instead.
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