Fracking and the natural gas boom

Fracking and the natural gas boom – of 1978

By U-T San Diego Editorial Board 6 p.m.Jan. 15, 2013

News that New York state environmental regulators had concluded hydraulic fracturing – known as fracking – was a safe way to pursue underground natural gas and oil supplies probably stunned many California environmentalists.

They’ve been told over and over by green interest groups that fracking – in which high-powered streams of water mixed with chemicals and some solids blast away rock formations – is a dangerous new phenomenon.

But as the state government considers regulations for fracking of California’s immense oil-shale resource – the nation’s largest – it is important to underscore some basic facts, starting with this: Fracking is not new. It has been heavily used for decades. In 1978, Newsweek reported it was playing a key role in a U.S. natural gas boom. In 1979, National Journal reported that federal regulators considered it a “moderate” environmental risk. Were environmentalists then warning of ruin if fracking were allowed to proceed? Not at all.

So why is it now depicted as evil? Because high-tech geologic analysis has made fracking so efficient that it portends a new era of cheap fossil fuels – hampering greens’ goal of switching to cleaner forms of energy. If they don’t like this development, that’s understandable. But if they won’t stop with the demagoguery, they need to explain why they waited to complain about fracking for three decades after it was widely used.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/jan/15/fracking-natural-gas-california/