There s not much good news coming from the world s major energy producing regions, according to an editorial in USA Today. Yet, in the U.S., gas prices are stable, the economy is on the upswing and the stock market is at an all time high. These positive developments are largely due to hydraulic fracturing of shale deposits of natural gas: "fracking."
Despite the controversy surrounding the use of this technology, the fact is that fracking has made us less reliant on the Mideast for oil. In fact, according to the Energy Department, domestic crude oil production has increased by 43 percent since 2012. And the increased oil production has resulted in about $100 billion in annual revenue, which has then been used to create jobs for those in the US instead of being diverted abroad. Accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that these developments will result in the creation of a million manufacturing jobs by the year 2025 - about a quarter of which has already come to fruition.
According to the editorial, It s nearly impossible to overstate what a positive development this has been ¦Not only does it hold down prices and add jobs, it also eases security threats emanating from both the Middle East and Vladimir Putin.
Furthermore, as evidenced by the conclusions of our own peer-reviewed work on the subject and backed by sound science, there is zero evidence that this method of extracting oil and gas is dangerous or harmful to human health in any way. As ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan has said in the past, Fracking doesn t pollute water or the air. There have been zero confirmed occurrences of ground water contamination from more than one million wells accessed in the last 50 years. And unlike coal or oil, natural gas obtained from fracking produces almost no smog or asthma-causing particulates. That is helping lower the disturbingly high asthma rates among children in the U.S.
If you would like to read our peer-reviewed work on fracking, which includes a scientific paper, a consumerized version of the paper and a What's the Story brochure, please e-mail us at morning@acsh.org and we will send you our publications.