Regulators threaten energy independence

Chris Faulkner:

For decades, Americans have lamented their dependence on foreign sources of energy, especially Middle East oil. Now, however, the tables are rapidly turning. Growing numbers of analysts are concluding that within a decade, America could become the world’s top energy producer.

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There are three obvious places to start with reform.

First, regulators need to ease restrictions on hydraulic fracturing — or fracking, as it’s commonly known.

Fracking uses water pressure to extract oil and natural gas from shale formations buried deep under the earth’s crust. This technique is already in widespread use in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota. The energy boom in that state has led to astonishing economic growth and 3 percent unemployment.

The massive shale deposits in America could, if fully developed, profoundly change our national energy landscape. But so far, oppressive state and federal rules have prevented firms from realizing this vast potential.

Most of the expressed environmental concerns over fracking, which turn on possible groundwater contamination, are based on misinformation or a basic misunderstanding of how the process works. This technique has been around since the 1940s. Over 1.2 million wells have been successfully fracked. The shale formations disrupted by the process are separated from water aquifers by up to two miles of rock, limestone, sand and earth. And over 99 percent of the standard fracking liquid mixture is simply water.

In other words, fracking presents very little environmental risk — and massive potential for economic gains. Fracking operations should be free to progress in such locales as the Northern Eagle Ford area in South Texas, the Deep River Basin in North Carolina, and the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.

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There is more.

There are also huge shale fields  in California and other western states like Colorado.  Texas also has some large shale fields in the Permian Basin area of West Texas.

Most of the opposition to fracking are bad faith attempts to slow development which is seen as hurting a conversion to the inefficient alternative energy market pushed by the greenies.  In the past they have pushed their agenda based on scarcity as much as global warming.  They have lost the scarcity argument with the advent of fracking and directional drilling to increase production in shale oil and gas developments.