Anti fracking Greens war against poor

Jeff Durstewitz:

Recently there was a blessed event at our house. No, it wasn’t that –  my wife and I are long past child-bearing age. It was an arrival, though — the arrival of our monthly utility bill. We’re on the “budget plan,” meaning that our bills tend to stay level for a year or so at a time. What was “blessed” about getting a bill? It had gone down by roughly 15%, from $179 per month to a little over $149 per month.

The reason for the big expense “haircut” — good for over $355 a year to our bottom line — is that the cost of natural gas, which we use for heat and cooking, had gone way down over the prior year (from $3.71  in November of 2010 to $3.34 a year later). Not only did the reduction affect our biggest utility cost directly, it also apparently cut our electric bill, presumably because some of the electrons we buy are generated by gas-fired plants. The reason for the welcome decline can be summed up in one unfortunately freighted word: “fracking.”

Environmental activists may hate it, but there’s no question that hydraulic fracturing — the process of drilling horizontally into shale formations and then blasting the well with water (a new variant uses recyclable propane gel rather than water), sand, and additives aimed at keeping the gas flowing after the rock has been fractured — has brought gas prices down dramatically. In fact, a report from IHS Global Insight (quoted in the Wall Street Journal’s “Heard on the Street” column 12/7/11) quantifies the impact as follows: Without fracking, natural-gas prices would be roughly triple what they are now, and the annual savings per household will be about $926 between 2012 and 2015. That equals about $113 billion to the bottom lines of about 122 million households.

... 

There is more.

These lower cost will eventually result in lower costs for manufacturing and transportation.  But, that is exactly what troubles Big Green.  They want higher energy cost to make their favored less efficient energy sources appear more competitive.