“Fracking could help provide a far more secure, affordable, dependable and clean future than ever would be possible with wind or solar power.”
Paul Driessen writes in the Washington Times:
… Although few environmentalists will acknowledge it, natural gas also provides essential backup power generation for intermittent wind and solar projects. Without such backup, electricity generation associated with those projects will plummet to zero 70 percent to 80 percent of the time.
However, cheap natural gas also makes it much harder to justify building redundant wind turbines and solar panels, which require large subsidies to generate far more expensive electricity just five to eight hours a day, on average, while killing large numbers of raptors, migratory birds and bats.
Amid these positive developments, the Sierra Club and other environmental pressure groups are spreading unfounded fears about this proven technology. Using words like “reckless,” “dangerous” and “poisonous,” they say unregulated companies are operating with little concern for ecological values and causing cancer, earthquakes and groundwater contamination.
The claims have fanned borderline hysteria and prompted Maryland, New York and other states to launch drawn-out studies or impose moratoriums that will postpone drilling and the benefits it would bring. Facts are sorely needed…
Earthquake- proof??? The worst earthquakes in US history occurred in Pennsylvania and along the new madras fault aprox 100 years ago and they lasted for over a decade. Reelfoot lake was formed by these quakes. There have been warnings (carefully ignored) about the danger of quakes in this area long before fracking began there.
Does Driessen live in a place that’s gone from earthquake-proof to earthquake-prone ever since Pennsylvania allowed fracking? If he did, I’m sure he’d understand.