The same poll has been live for the past two weeks and has garnered more votes than any other poll MDN has run previously:
Did NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo make the right decision in allowing Marcellus Shale drilling to begin?
Yes (62%, 287 Votes)
No (36%, 169 Votes)
Not sure (2%, 8 Votes)
Total Voters: 464
Not every voter in the poll lives in New York State. Perhaps the majority do not. There’s no way for me to know exactly. But still, the results (for those of us who favor safe drilling) are encouraging. A poll taken of only New York residents by Siena College (results released this past week) show that New Yorkers are pretty evenly split in their opinion of whether or not hydraulic fracturing is safe (see MDN’s coverage here).
Current Poll
On Friday of this past week, MDN highlighted a story of a grocery store chain that has built a new compressed natural gas (CNG) filling station for a small fleet of 10 new trucks they own with plans to expand that fleet. The same company also built a CNG filling station for the public, located in the Pittsburgh area. The interesting thing about that story was the price of the natural gas at the pump: $1.85 for the equivalent amount of a gallon of gasoline. The current national average for a gallon of gas is $3.67 (it was $2.72 just one year ago). At $1.85 for CNG, that’s half the cost of gasoline. And that’s the power of shale gas.
But it seems automobile manufacturers are more interested (at this point) in creating electric vehicles. There are a number of 100 percent electric vehicles available now, and even more hybrid vehicles—part electric, part gasoline. Only Honda makes a CNG car that’s commercially available, although there are a number of CNG trucks being manufactured.
MDN started musing, what if fueling or charging stations were not an issue? What would people actually prefer to drive? Electric? CNG? Hybrid? Stick with gas? So this week’s poll asks the question, “If fueling stations were widely available, which type of vehicle would you PREFER to drive?” The poll can be found on the right side of any page on the site.
Below are the most recent “top 5” lists and the calendar of Marcellus related events for the next few weeks.
Thank you for reading MDN!
Jim Willis, Editor
Read More “MDN Weekly Update – Jul 17, 2011”
It’s going to be a long summer for both those for and against drilling in the Marcellus Shale in New York State. The state DEC released new draft drilling regulations just last week and already there’s plenty of jockeying going on to either support or oppose the new regulations. A public comment period of 60 days (August & September) will be followed by more tweaking of the rules before a final version is approved by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.