How About Some Radical Common Sense?

Primary season is officially upon us. I can’t turn on the TV or access the internet without being blasted by some candidate’s latest attempt to garner attention with a new idea or proposal. Given the nature of primary elections and the small segment of the electorate that normally participates in them, that frequently means that if a candidate wants to be noticed, they must offer a dramatic proposal that is more expansive and/or controversial than the one their opponent offered last week. Next week, the opponent will be pressured to one-up this proposal. At some point, common sense is completely forgotten in the effort to grab the spotlight. For example, I’ve seen a variety of state and national candidates engage in this practice recently by suggesting that if elected, they would solve our environmental problems by immediately banning all fracking. 

Let’s set aside the fact that numerous federal, state, and prestigious university studies have found no link between fracking and environmental contamination, or that no legitimate scientific study has found that fracking contaminated anyone’s drinking water, because heaven forbid that facts get in the way of a political discussion. Let’s also set aside the fact that federal, state, and local governmental entities annually collect millions of dollars in tax revenues from fracking, because politicians aren’t required to have a viable business plan before they start running things. Finally, let’s not worry about the thousands of people whose jobs would be eliminated if there is a fracking ban. Surely, they’ll find another job, right? Instead, let’s consider what would happen to the environment if fracking were suddenly banned.

First, banning fracking will not clean up the environment or reduce CO2 emissions. It’ll do the opposite and it’ll do it in short order because banning fracking will result in more coal being burned to generate electricity. Most of our electricity is generated using fossil fuels. According to the EIA, fossil fuels account for 64% of US electricity generation. Natural gas is power-generating companies’ #1 source of fuel. Coal is second. Renewables are at the bottom of the list. Even with all the subsidies spent promoting wind energy, wind accounts for only 6.5% of our electricity supply. Solar is negligible, at 1.5%. Even if you doubled wind and solar production tomorrow, it would still be less than we get from nuclear power plants. At present we simply don’t have the technical ability to increase wind or solar energy production enough to replace our nuclear power plants, let alone fossil fuels. And that’s without considering the “not in my backyard” opposition that you would invariably encounter if you tried to dramatically increase the number of commercial wind turbines or solar collection stations in the US. 

If a utility company found that its natural gas supply was at risk – and if you ban fracking their gas supply will be – it will by necessity be forced to move to coal. Wind and solar, even combined with all other alternative energy forms, aren’t practical replacements for natural gas, and the opposition to nuclear energy makes it almost impossible to build a new nuclear power plant in the US. That leaves coal because it’s the only viable alternative. The irony is that this will double carbon dioxide emissions, and it will reverse the recent migration from coal to gas that has benefitted the US’s environment. In 2000, there were 1,024 coal-powered units at electrical utilities. These generated over half of our country’s electricity. By 2017, there were only 359 units which produced 27% of our electricity.

The transition from coal to gas occurred for several reasons, including the emergence of shale gas. Before 2000, shale gas and tight gas production in the US was insignificant. Today, it accounts for over 60% of the gas that we produce. This dramatic increase is due to fracking. If oil and gas companies were told that effective immediately, they could no longer frack their shale wells, they wouldn’t be able to continue producing shale and tight gas in the quantities that we currently need for electrical generation. Utility companies know that and would immediately begin making preparations to convert their gas-powered facilities back to coal.

Here’s my radical idea: the next time you hear a candidate’s newest proposal, subject it to a commonsense test. Why are we doing this? and if we do, what will happen? For example, when someone suggests banning all fracking, ask them to give you some scientific evidence of environmental damage from fracking and then ask them what utility companies will do to replace the resulting lost natural gas supply. And while you’re at it, if they want to promote wind and solar as replacements, how many new wind turbines and solar collection panels will be needed to make up for the lost natural gas production? (It’ll be an astronomical number). Where they intend to place them? (Who knows, but it’ll be somewhere else).

If you really want to explore the wisdom of an immediate fracking ban, ask the candidate promoting renewables to prove that what they’re promoting is really a renewable, green source of energy. For example, where will the material needed to build a wind turbine or solar collection panel come from? (It’s mined). How are they made? (They’re manufactured in factories).  And what do we do with that material when the turbines and panels are worn out? (We dispose of them in landfills). Does that really sound like a renewable, green source of energy?

Public debate is a great thing. Ideas are powerful and we need leaders with vision. I want a candidate to have a plan and to be unafraid of challenging the status quo. My point is simply that we need good ideas. A good idea isn’t one that plays well with a small group of voters, it’s one that will actually work. If we subject proposals to a commonsense test, hopefully candidates will be encouraged to come forward with solutions and not sound bites.