New Penn State Study: Marcellus Shale Drilling Created $11.2 Billion in Economic Activity & Supported 140K Jobs in PA in 2010
A new report titled “The Pennsylvania Marcellus Natural Gas Industry: Status, Economic Impact, and Future Potential” was released yesterday by three Penn State University researchers. The report is the third in a series of economic forecasts from the same researchers and outlines the astonishing impact Marcellus Shale drilling has had and continues to have in Pennsylvania—generating $11.2 billion in economic activity in the state in 2010 and supporting nearly 140,000 jobs. The 68-page report was funded by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group based in PA (a full copy of the report is embedded below).
The report’s authors predict the Marcellus Shale play will become the nation’s leading supplier of natural gas by 2020, providing one quarter of all natural gas used in the U.S. A summary of the key findings in the report includes:
One of the favorite arguments used as a smokescreen by those opposed to Marcellus drilling is the classic class warfare argument. But it takes a lot of mental gymnastics to make it work in this case as the people who are supposedly the “fat cats” and the “lucky few winners of life’s lottery” are typically family farmers who have been scraping by for generations, just trying to hold on to the land they love. The fact that some of them “get rich” from gas drilling just doesn’t sit right with the elite city-dwellers. Kind of invokes images of the Beverly Hillbillies.
Predictably, now that the New York Times has delivered a journalistic drive-by hit piece claiming that energy companies are using false data and accounting trickery to overstate shale gas reserves, NYT sycophant leftist politicians in New York State are making political hay from it. For opportunistic politicians, it’s all about the seriousness of the allegation, never mind that the allegation is totally false.
For many, the New York Times is the paragon of virtue, the ultimate source, arbiter of truth, beacon of light in a world of darkness. And of course, everything you read in the Gray Lady is the honest truth—for real!