More heat than light in fracking debate
Fracking is an ugly term for a useful activity. Advances in hydraulic fracturing, to give the technique its proper name, sparked the US oil and gas boom of the past decade, bringing cheaper fuel, tens of thousands of well-paid jobs, and even a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions thanks to the switch from coal to gas for power generation.
So it is troubling that the two contenders for the Democratic party’s nomination for president have been competing over which of them is more eager to bring fracking to an end.
Speaking in the candidates’ debate on Sunday evening, Hillary Clinton sketched out new requirements to be imposed on companies seeking to use hydraulic fracturing. Once those conditions were in place, she suggested, “I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue.” Mr Sanders was quick to depict that as craven equivocation. “My answer is a lot shorter,” he said. “No, I do not support fracking.”
Stopping fracking would be a great plan for rescuing Saudi Arabia. For the US, though, it would be disastrous.
If elected, Mrs Clinton or Mr Sanders would not be able to ban hydraulic fracturing overnight. Oil and gas regulation in the US is mostly handled by the states, and attempts to extend federal authority would face challenges in the courts. The candidates’ comments are nevertheless concerning, because they reflect a denial of the realities of US energy production.
More than half of all the oil and gas extracted in the US comes from wells in shale and similar rocks, which need to be fracked to be brought into production. Banning fracking would devastate the industry, send energy prices soaring, and make the US a much larger importer of both oil and gas.
Neither candidate offered any worthwhile ideas about how to make good the harm that a fracking ban would do.
Mr Sanders tried some hand-waving platitudes about wind and solar power, ignoring the fact that until electric vehicles take over there is no viable substitute for oil as a transport fuel and, until electricity storage becomes much cheaper, gas is needed to back up variable sources of power generation.
That the two leading candidates in one of the two main parties in America see being tough on fracking as a vote winner is a testament to the lamentable failure of the oil and gas industry to communicate its message properly.
A poll for Gallup last year found the US public evenly divided on the issue, with 40 per cent supporting fracking and the same number opposing it.
Fracking has caused environmental problems, including water and air pollution, and the industry needs to do more to put them right. On balance, though, the benefits have clearly outweighed the costs. Any future US president should be thinking about how to mitigate the harm done by fracking while preserving its benefits, not looking for ways to stop it.
Cynics will suspect that Mrs Clinton’s stance is an expedient born of her aim to attract environmentally concerned Democrats away from Mr Sanders, and that in office her bite would be not as bad as her bark. She recently published her “plan for ensuring safe and responsible natural gas production”, which praised the benefits of gas; a stance that is clearly incompatible with a ban or near-ban on fracking.
Still, the rhetoric matters. Energy is a complex subject, and the public should be able to make informed choices. By her attack on fracking, Mrs Clinton has given encouragement to the more absolutist stance of Mr Sanders. Fracking is not a bad word, and politicians should not try to make it one.
