I'm sure Russia, Venezuela, Iran, Saudi, etc. really care about the environment and their reports about environment sustainability* are totally true.
The average oil producer is a dictatorship, and I suspect the impact of lack of transparency is more important than the drilling method - they have every motivation to cut corners, while American oil is openly regulated. So from the global perspective I doubt American production is more polluting.
* If they even have any.
This globalist-centric way of thinking is why we’re currently paying $5/gallon, the highest amount ever. Such a “hidden” tax on the working class is why we should shun imports and be self sufficient both with oil as well as manufacturing - or at least as much as humanly possible.
This reads like the NIMBY stance of oil production. “Make whatever mess you want, keep it where it is! Can’t have that happening in my state/country!”
So you’d rather export pollution instead of being energy independent and trying to fix fracking laws?
Is fracking really worse overall? One can screw up non-fracking oil methods too, e.g. Nigerian oil delta, BP oil spill, etc.
non-fracking methods are used outside the U.S.
fracking is worse for the environment than non-fracking methods.
i hold my personal opinions on each point but i think this is what OP was trying to convey
But very open to additional evidence.
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A spot check shows item 15 in the list, published 2014, is based on work from 2011-12 and the abstract concludes with:
> This study provides a baseline of water-quality conditions in the Monongahela River Basin in West Virginia during the early phases of development of the Marcellus Shale gas field. Although not all inclusive, the results of this study provide a set of reliable water-quality data against which future data sets can be compared and the effects of shale-gas development may be determined.
That is to say, this is a baseline measurement from the start of exploration, not a demonstration that fracking goes not contaminate groundwater.
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The MIT report listed as item 26 on the list does say the process is mostly safe, which I respect, but also page 39 lists counts of incidents over a four or five year period, including 20 incidents of "groundwater contamination by natural gas or drilling fluid". So it's not like problems do not happen.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...
• Spills during the handling of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;
• Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water; and
• Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination ofgroundwater resource
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-12/documents/hf...
Contrast this to the evidence for coal contaminating water supplies with mercury. Fracking, despite its reputation and scary name, is safe. Like, flying airplanes safe.
Fracking leaks methanol, salts and other compounds into ground water. Operations often contaminate water from leaky pits with diesel and other compounds.
Coal is probably the nastiest fuel by any measure. But that isn’t to say that fracking operations are not problematic, and since industry has fought tooth and nail to prevent meaningful, peer reviewed study of the issue, it’s absurd to compare to a well understood, well measured thing like air safety.
No, the evidence from peer reviewed studies show that this does not occur often. You are presenting this as though fracking leads to ground water contamination. That is simply not the case. Agriculture and urban activities are much bigger sources of contamination.
This recent review says: “ A perceived risk, that fracking chemicals may migrate from the 0.5- to 3-km depth of injection to upper shallow aquifers used for water supply, is not considered to be significant (90, 91). The lack of baseline data on aquifer conditions is cited as a major limitation to the detection and attribution of the impacts (90–92). Wide variations in methane concentrations in groundwater are noted in areas with intensive gas production as well as in areas with limited activity.” https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...
Hammond, P. A., Wen, T., Brantley, S. L., & Engelder, T. (2020). Gas well integrity and methane migration: evaluation of published evidence during shale-gas development in the USA. Hydrogeology Journal, 28(4), 1481-1502.
There are better criticisms of fracking like the higher rates of disease around well sites, and improper dumping of waste.
PFAS stay in the environment and are harmful to humans.
I don't agree with that. I support pollution import duties to remove some of the economic advantage of dumping pollution over there.
The US exhausted fields in Pennsylvania, New York and Ohio 100+ years ago and has depleted the big western fields as well - production in the US requires fracking.
My office during this period was next to an inland port and rail facility. Every day, hundreds of Canadian National Railway cars with explosive tar sands oil lumbered by to be loaded on ships bound for refineries.
High commodity prices drive expensive oil production. That includes fracked gas and oil and other "exotic" sources. An extended war in Ukraine will certainly trigger a domestic oil boom.
Hopefully this would diminish consumption, reduce carbon footprint and wouldn't require purchasing extra crude. May cause a revolt though, if advertised to the main street improperly.
Not sure of a good answer here
Do you have a source for this? Denser European cities seem to have much higher happiness than people living in single family residential suburbs.
older article but still applies (I think) https://www.chicagoreporter.com/chicago-is-the-fastest-shrin...
When the king takes a portion of my labor 'because he can', then I am a slave. The rich generally understand how to escape the income tax slavery. Let's free the poor.
Remove some of the loopholes for trusts that let people avoid inheritance taxes. Add another tax bracket or two for capital gains. Get rid of the carried interest loophole.
Straight consumption tax (excluding uncooked food) and it becomes very simple to implement. And nobody would file a personal income tax again. Employers would not do payroll tax withholding so wage slaves would get an immediate increase of take-home pay.
The rich understand these phrases: "capital gains", "everyone who files". Those with minimal wage income may not even need to file.
Capital gains are taxed using a different rate schedule, but they are still taxed as income (they are literally included in AGI).
And sales tax and use tax.
Capital gains are assessed when recognized, not like a yearly schedule so rich can defer this and choose when to recognize it. Will certainly take many fun 'business' trips that year to offset.
Remove payroll taxes (which support collection of income tax) and employee take-home pay increases. Employers can stop hassles of the withholding accounting. Employees can stop hassles of yearly income tax filing to IRS.
There would be a temporary increase of unemployed payroll tax bookkeepers and storefront tax prep people. Hopefully they will find something more productive to do.
Besides you either have loads of money and do not give a hoot or you just live close to work.
> If we can slash the real cost - the externality cost - by just buying it from elsewhere, we should.
I wonder what you think "externality" means?
also the US has a variety of conditions for prospection, CA being one of the worst places for new prospection projects - so this also needs to be taken into account
PS: at 3$/gallon I suspect the majority of consumers were already not taking gas consumption lightly, so while it's true that energy savings are a crucial part of the picture, they were already very heavily incentivised for a while in the US and certainly here in Europe as well
Or, put simply: how much US oil comes from fracking? Not a small number - the aforementioned 65%. Source for this data: the U.S. government.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=847&t=6
Remember, these aren't small amounts of water either. I live in California, where we have drought conditions. How much water do you think a typical well uses? "Up to 9.6 million gallons of water (!!!!) per well." For just one well!
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/analysis-fracking...
That whole sentence is worth quoting in full:
Oil and natural gas fracking, on average, uses more than 28 times the water it did 15 years ago, gulping up to 9.6 million gallons of water per well and putting farming and drinking sources at risk in arid states, especially during drought.
So, here's the thing. The "cost" of that water in the market is just the cost in dollars. But to Americans, and future generations? It's much higher. You can throw a stone at a US map and hit a state that's experiencing drought conditions right now (and that well water is permanently off limits for drinking).
If we can slash the real cost - the externality cost - by just buying it from elsewhere, we should. And we do. And that's the right choice, despite what NASDAQ thinks.