As American energy consumption continues to rise, our nation’s scientists and policy makers face the difficult challenge of supplying fuel to over three hundred million people. Nearly everything we do requires the use of energy: our food, infrastructure, homes, cars, places of work-our very society relies on a steady supply of power. It may seem no wonder, then, that we have seen a rise in horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a controversial, potentially dangerous method for obtaining natural gas from subterranean rock formations. I will argue that, while the natural gas provided by fracking might appear to satisfy our growing energy appetites, the costs of this practice will prove, in the long run, to be unsustainable and ruinous. I am going to consider the flaws of horizontal hydraulic fracturing and to investigate the possible alterations and alternatives that could provide people with fuel without sacrificing our own well-being or our planet’s environmental integrity. We will begin, appropriately enough, with the place where this energy comes from-the drill site.
At the hydraulic fracturing drill site, a well bore is drilled beneath the earth’s surface into a solid formation of deep shale over a mile underground. Then, a cocktail of water, sand, and chemicals is pumped down the well bore with sufficient force to crack the shale and release the natural gas pockets within it. Then sand, a “proppant,” is applied to keep open the passages to the gas pockets and admit the flow of the gas back up to the well. (Medlin, 1976) The gas is then refined, stored, and put to use by the residential, industrial, commercial, and public sectors.
Total natural gas use, from all these sectors combined, was 24,133,062 million cubic feet in the United States last year alone. (US Department of Energy, 2011) The varied uses of natural gas are but one of the many reasons its proponents have pushed for its adoption as an energy resource. Another is that natural gas, unlike petroleum, is a truly American product; the Potential Gas Committee has estimated that gas reserves on America’s own soil sum to nearly two thousand trillion cubic feet. (Curtis, 2009) America’s Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) argues that our domestic supply of natural gas, if tapped by fracking, could replace much of our reliance on petroleum, which in turn would reduce our national dependence on foreign oil. (Whitten, 2011) Because of the political and ideological conflicts between the United States and our biggest petroleum exporters, particularly Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, many argue that it is imperative to our nation’s political integrity and economic stability that we wean ourselves off foreign oil. Fracking, advocates say, would keep America running without forcing us under the heel of our enemies.
Economics present another cogent argument for horizontal hydraulic fracturing. My tea party brother-in-law saws that horizontal hydraulic fracturing will create good American jobs, with fair pay and decent benefits for people of all skill levels. American workers, laid off during the 2010 recession, could find work once again. By spending more money on American goods, they would recycle their earnings and contribute to the economic well-being of our nation. Local communities, pro-frackers argue, would benefit from the influx of jobs, revenue, and infrastructure that accompany drilling enterprises as they move to take advantage of newfound deposits of natural gas. (Gale, 2010) So with all of these clear social and economic advantages, what could be wrong with hydraulic fracturing? Do we have any reason not do it? I will argue that fracking should not be done because it is a major source of environmental contamination.
To start, we will discuss global warming. Far from being our nation’s solution to global warming, natural gas use actually contributes to carbon dioxide emissions. 117,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per billion Btu of energy input are released in natural gas production. (“Natural gas and the Environment,” 2010) This carbon dioxide is released in both the production and combustion of the natural gas. Once emitted, carbon dioxide is trapped by greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere, where it depletes the ozone layer, inviting higher concentrations of ultraviolet radiation and warming the globe. But carbon dioxide, while bad for the planet, is but one of many hazards of horizontal hydraulic fracturing.
Running a drill rig necessitates the use of copious amounts of diesel fuel. Diesel fuel engines emit nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and even ozone, which, when low to the ground, creates smog, scars lung tissue, and seriously aggravates the respiratory system. (U.S. Environmental Protection, 2010) According to the Earth Works Action network, natural gas is a health hazard in storage as well as in production: liquid condensates, products of the natural gas refining process, are stored in tanks, which, while ostensibly solid and impermeable, actually constantly emit the vapors of chemicals and volatile organic compounds that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has found hazardous to human health. (“Sources of Oil and Gas Air Pollution,” 2010)
Remember when you took grade school biology and tried to mix water and canola oil? Just wait until you see what happens when you mix water with fracking fluid! In the most memorable scene in Josh Fox’s “Gasland,” a man living near a drill site lights his water on fire (Fox, 2010). The elements of fracking fluid that seep into rivers and aquifers-”methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper” (Lustgarten, 2009) constitute an enormous threat to human and wildlife safety. While the Environmental Protection Agency claims to have found no tangible evidence of water degradation, and ANGA argues that the methane found in the wells depicted in “Gasland” was biogenic, or naturally occurring (“The Truth About Gasland,” 2011), it is a hell of a coincidence that animals start losing fur, people start getting cancer, and tap water starts erupting into flame from “biogenic” methane only after the natural gas industry (in this case, Penneco) comes to town. (Eisenberg, 2010)
Hydraulic fracturing is not the miracle solution that it may seem. The practice not only has deleterious effects on the environment, it also does not yield the local development that its proprietors promised. Not only do the families who bought into Penneco, Aroway, and Chesapeake Energy’s proposals suffer from the ailments-“headaches, nausea, itchy skin, dizziness and other[s]” (“Residents of Wyoming fracking community report illnesses,” 2010)-caused by chemically-polluted drinking water, the economic advantages they were promised are not being realized. Sociological studies into resource-dependent communities show that these places, despite their rich material resources, suffer from poor social infrastructure, stratification of wealth, and distribution of resources. (Olfert, 2011) Natural gas drilling does not bring skilled jobs to the people in these communities, it brings in its own trained, itinerant workers and leaves the community members with low-wage, short-term service jobs. Of all the money these drilling companies make, very little is reinvested in the communities they exploit. (Best, 2009)
Natural gas drilling is clearly not the silver bullet to our energy crisis werewolf. Horizontal hydraulic fracturing is fundamentally unsustainable and, as such, must be abandoned for American energy to have an ethical and environmentally friendly future. But what, then, are the real renewables-the alternatives to natural gas? Water, wind, and solar power, we have heard time and again, are too expensive, too difficult to implement, or too poorly curtailed to the needs of local populations. But while each of these renewable energy resources may not be able to satisfy our energy demand on its own, some combination of them, coupled with emphasis on local workers and communities, investment (from the public and private spheres) in driving down the cost of renewable energy production, and increased natural gas regulation, might be able to put fuel in our motors without putting the sword to our human, biotic, and global communities.
Perhaps the biggest roadblock to enacting comprehensive energy reform is simply our overly voracious appetites. The task of overcoming our overconsumption is a daunting one, but a shift away from our over-reliance on energy is necessary for us to achieve any feasible sustainable use. Many Americans today have been socialized, through the manipulation of advertising and the artful presentation of an unending supply as the norm, not to question the constant abundance of fuel. Only in recent years, with oil shortages, cartel embargoes, and political strife in the Middle East, have more Americans become aware of the dire conditions of the energy market. But the Times Square lights still stay on all night, and the televisions comfort us as we sleep. To change this, our governments, businesses, media, and academic institutions must do nothing less than instigate, by laws and lessons, a shift in the public consciousness. While we wait for better renewable energies to emerge as economically viable options, increased federal oversight of the natural gas industry is absolutely necessary. The people deserve to know what chemicals are in the fracking fluid and when and where these chemicals have caused harm to human and environmental health. Natural gas companies must be forced to operate with transparency, and face those who bring grievances in an open forum, with legislation to improve drilling practices on the table and in the public eye.
There is no miracle solution. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to pay the higher price for today’s renewable energy sources, or to cut back so drastically on their own energy use as to significantly reduce our society’s total contribution to energy consumption. What we can do is educate people about the environmental and personal health costs of hydraulic fracturing. What we can do is buy, vote, and speak out for sustainable and renewable energy alternatives. When we go to the store or to the ballot box, we can refuse to contribute to the businesses and politicians who defile the environments in which they produce their products and the people for whom they produce them. Perhaps a synthesis of these solutions can satisfy our demand for energy and sustain our Earth.
Literature Cited
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Curtis, J.B. (2009, June 18). Potential gas committee reports unprecedented increase in magnitude of u.s. natural gas resource base. Retrieved from http://www.mines.edu/Potential-Gas-Committee-reports-unprecedented-increase-in-magnitude-of-U.S.-natural-gas-resource-base

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Eisenberg, N. (2010). Exposing the natural gas industry’s attempt to silence its critics. AlterNet, Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/water/147600/exposing_the_natural_gas_industry's_attempt_to_silence_its_critics/

Fox, J. (Director). (2010). Gasland [DVD]. Available from http://www.gaslandthemovie.com/

Gale, S.F. (2010). Just the fracks. Project Management Institute, Retrieved from http://content.ebscohost.com/pdf25_26/pdf/2010/1RM/01Dec10/57268642.pdf?T=P&P=AN&K=57268642&S=R&D=buh&EbscoContent=dGJyMNLr40SeprM4v%2BbwOLCmr0mep69Ssam4TbGWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGvrkivqbROuePfgeyx5HkA

Lustgarten, Abrahm. (2009). Epa: chemicals found in wyo. drinking water might be from fracking.ProPublica, Retrieved from http://natgaspollutes.com/pdf/issue%20three/Wyoming_Water_Pulltion_natgas.pdf

Medlin, W.L. United States Patent and Trademark Office, (1976). Hydraulic fracturing method for creating horizontal fractures (3965982). Alexandria, VA.

Olfert, Rose. (2011). Policies for economic development. JSGS Working Paper Series, 1-5.

Residents of wyoming fracking community report illnesses. (2010, August 20). NewsInferno, Retrieved from http://www.newsinferno.com/health-concerns/residents-wyoming-fracking-community-report-illnesses/

Sources of oil and gas air pollution. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.earthworksaction.org/airpollutionsources.cfm#CONDENSATE

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U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2011). Natural gas consumption by end use Washington, DC: Retrieved from http://www.eia.doe.gov/dnav/ng/ng_cons_sum_dcu_nus_a.htm

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Whitten, Dan. (2011, February 11). Ngvs reduce u.s. foreign oil dependence. Retrieved from http://www.anga.us/media-room/blog/2011/2/11/ngvs-reduce-us-foreign-oil-dependence