By Howard Kleinhendler. There’s been much talk lately about approving natural gas fracking in New Jersey. Fracking involves the removal of natural gas deep within shale deposits through deep digging and high pressure extraction using methane and other poisonous mixtures. These mixtures contaminate well water and other natural resources. We don’t need it for several independent reasons.
First, it’s dangerous and ruins the land. We don’t need great big holes surrounded by mountains of soot and other toxic by-products from the fracking process piled around our neighborhoods creating unsightly toxic dumps and future Superfund sites. Haven’t we learnt our lesson from the reckless conduct of big Pharma who left us the Ciba-Geigy superfund site just outside of Toms River. We have unfortunate cancer clusters in our surrounding areas, and undoubtedly, those clusters will grow if our ground-water gets contaminated with the chemicals used in fracking.
Second, drilling holes in the ground to meet our growing energy demands is short-sighted. We have to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, not increase them. I don’t care how efficiently natural gas burns, it still involves the mining and refining of a fossil fuel whose supply is finite. Instead, we should be fostering the energy of the sun and the wind. Solar farms are popping up around the country. We need to invest in further R&D so these projects can occupy less acreage and generate more electricity. Our goal should be to dramatically reduce our fossil fuel dependency and run our electricity grids entirely on solar, wind and nuclear power. We need to strive for greater use of electric cars so we can altogether eliminate petroleum-based gas products. We should want our kids to reach a time when filling up at the gas pump is as obsolete as a rotary dial phone.
Energy independence is not just a nice thought belonging to tree-hugging, Green, liberals. It is vital to our economic recovery and our national security. The price of oil over the past several years has detached from normal supply and demand fundamentals. Oil went to $147 a barrel in 2008 only to come crashing down several months later to under $50. Recently oil has risen to $115 a barrel for no good reason other than speculation. We cannot sustain an economic recovery with $4-5 dollar gas whose prices are subject to wild swings based on unpredictable Middle East turmoil or hedge fund speculators.
Further, our national security is compromised by having to cow-tow to Middle East monarchies whose governments are unstable and whose values are anathema to ours. American foreign policy should not be made in Saudi Arabia. Yet, every recent administration has been forced to bow before the oil kings in order to insure the steady supply of black gold that our industrial economy thrives on. Sorry Texas, you are going to have to find another industry to fuel your local economy. New Jersey should not jump onto the easy-fix band-wagon of natural gas fracking. While we can’t control what the rest of the country does, we can set an example here and boldly lead in alternative energy technology and production.
Please don’t be an alarmist, Mr. Kleinhendler, with assertions of “Great big holes” and warnings of “Cancer clusters”.
You have a better Eitza?
Mr. Kleinhendler’s essay on energy policy and the evils of natural gas fracking reads like a press release from the DNC (Democrat National Committee). All the tropes are there: the scare tactics (cancer clusters, etc.), the wonders of renewable energy and muddled logic on energy independence from oil sheiks.
The evils of fracking are, at this point, unproven. So much so that even a red diaper baby like Andrew Cuomo is considering it. Either way, the point is that it is foolish to dismiss promising ways of extracting badly needed resources. And dismissing fracking flies right in the face of Kleinhendler’s talking point on energy independence: if energy independence is such a worthwhile goal (and it is), then it is certainly worth trying to find any and all means available to achieve it. This is especially true when you consider that energy independence is truly a matter of national security.
Solar and wind technologies are, at best, unproven as replacements for petroleum fuels, natural gas and coal as the means of powering the U.S. economy. Without question, we don’t have the infrastructure in place to conduct electricity from significant solar or wind installations to our major power grids. Therefore, until that becomes possible, abandoning our current energy resources is simply impractical and threatens to further damage an economy already on the verge of another Great Depression.
The fetish for electric cars really shows you how misguided greenies are. At the present time, an electric car must be charged using electricity generated by gas, oil or coal. The upshot is that the electric car ends up costing more to operate, burns more evil fossil fuels and contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than the prevailing combustion engines.
Logic completely goes out the window on the energy security issue. If we are beholden to the Saudis because they supply so much of our oil, the rational approach is to produce our own, at least until alternative energy becomes adequate and accessible for our needs. And this is the real crime of Democrat energy policy: right now, the United States has proven oil reserves that could make us independent of the Saudis for the foreseeable future. But Democrats are so enslaved to the far left environmental whackos, that they have been blocking American energy independence for decades., Ditto for nuclear. Don’t let the recent Japanese disaster fool you: there are hundreds of nuclear plants operating all over the world without the slightest accident in decades. The Japanese example was an extraordinary case of the confluence of factors: an earthquake prone area, near a coastline known for tsunamis; plants built too close to the shore line without adequate emergency power supplies safely protected from surging waters. There are literally countless locations in the United States that have none of these risk factors. But, due to Democrat fear mongering, Americans have to pay higher and higher prices for energy.
I am disappointed that Mr. Kleinhendler so transparently parrots the Democrat party line. There’s not an original thought in his essay, nor an idea that hasn’t been refuted in obvious ways. That’s not what New Jersey needs and not what America needs in terms of real leadership.
It’s so easy to criticise every effective and feasable method of provide for our increasing need for energy while promoting expensive ‘not-ready-for-prime-time’ methods of alternative energy.
If the government was trulty intereseted in promoting usage of alternate forms of energy, such as solar energy, it would completely subsidize the manufacture and installation of panels -by private companies- on all houses -everywhere feasable. (This would even create real jobs in manufacture and installation!)
Fracking is not an example of easy-fix, it’s an example of a bridge – to get us from decades of no energy policy, to a realistic one – that does not cripple the economy any more.
I wish there was a “like” button for your comment. You hit the nail on the head.
I will never support him. I will never forget the interview he gave the Yated were he praised Obama and said he’s a friend of Israel. I can’t and will not support someone who supports Obama. Period!!
To #3. You misstate the facts.
1. Between 2000 and 2008, we had a very oil friendly Republican administration in office. Oil exploration increased dramatically. Yet, oil prices rose precipitiously. Why? Because it takes $70 a barrel for oil exploration to be profitable in the US. So, the notion that we could drill ourselves to economic independence is simply false. Otherwise, the Bush-Cheney team (who had the luxury of control over both Houses between 2000-2006), would have implemented it.
2. Poisonous by-products and increased carcinogens in our water supply are documented fall-out from fracking. You can pretend that it will never happen to you, and I hope it doesn’t, but I’m sure you wouldn’t be a happy camper if one of these fracking sites went up in your neighborhood and you started seeing green sludge pouring out of your kitchen sink.
3. We will never obtain the advances in solar and wind technology if we put our resources into cheap fixes like fracking. As you must know, necessity is the mother of invention. It is precisely your attitude of “let’s go the easy, cheap way.” that has resulted in unprecedented oil dependence on the Middle East. Why innovate if we can buy the oil from the Middle East for much less than the cost of R&D. Complacency and lazy solutions are not the way to go.
Mr. Kleinhendler seems to parrot the Obama energy policy which keeps us dependent on foreign energy. I am glad he has voiced his opinion so we should know not to vote for him in any position he runs for
Lets hear Mr. Kleinhandler’s opinion on Obamacare. That will close the case on his true beliefs
I am amazed that this article was written by someone that does not own a solar energy company or doesn’t have an alterior motive.
Essentially you are saying that we should keep energy expenses high so that way we will invest in alternative resources. At the same time, you say that the economy will not recover with $4 to $5 price of gas.
So we can not recover with $4 gas, so your solution is that the taxpayers should subsidize an even more expensive energy source.
Furthurmore investment, or throwing money at something, will not always solve the problem. There is no reason to believe that solar energy will ever be a viable affordable solution.
Solar energy is popping up all over NJ. This is not because solar is efficient. It is because the government is subsidizing the solar panels by essentially taxing energy users.
So essentially everyone who does not have solar is paying extra on their electric bill to cover the expense of the solar panels. The government ha no right to force this “investment” on the citizens.
#7 Truthman
its about time someone here in the TLS community knows exactly what they’re talking about. So many Obama haters here, and not because of his policies but because they feel he’s not good for Israel.
Disgusted…. why do you care why someone chooses not to like a President? Are only your reasons high and mighty? If something is important to someone else then it is a factor. The israeli issue is only a symptom of a larger systemic policy of coddeling terroristic regimes and fighting with allies!