Fracking

[tiepolo]

I thought a 'truth about fracking' (as in shale gas) might be a good topic for a video, since it's a controversial issue, with different parties and national governments taking very different lines on it. 

[Pepin]

Though I am uncertain about this as I heard it second hand, apparently in Texas fracking companies have a legal immunity till some date for any damage they have caused. This might be the case as there are previous examples of this, such as railroad pollution and forest cutting, though I am having trouble verifying this.

 

I am finding a lot of sites that seem to be saying that they can't be sued on X, Y, and Z reasons due to regulation exemptions, but with the description of the exemptions it seems like they are saying they can't be sued for reasons that are not related to the issue of polluting an environment. Like there is a regulation about the amount of water that can be used in these sorts of extractions, but since they have an exemption from this regulation, they cannot be sued for having gone far above this amount.

 

I am finding it very confusing as most of the anti-fracking sites aren't quite straight forward. The language and the concrete information are in disjunction.

 

I find it a good bit likely that the fracking industry is doing damage, but at least for now after doing about half an hour of research, I feel far more skeptical.

[tiepolo]

American fracking companies have apparently been very reticent to tell the public, or even doctors, what chemicals they have pumped into the earth, making the treatment of people with poisoning symptoms difficult. I find this monstrous, personally. The leaking of methane into water supplies, and the phenomenon of bubbly, flammable tap water has also been associated with this industry.

 

The best suggestion I have heard is to make underground gas the collective property of the people who live above it, so that the community can decide what to do with it and take a share of the profits as well as the environmental consequences, if they agree to it going ahead. 

[scn]

Yes.  Make natural gas fully the property of the people above it so they bear the costs as well as the benefits of fracking it out of the ground.

 

Remove immunities from liability that bought-off legislators grant the crony frackers and by extension property owners who sell them fracking rights.  End privatizing gains and socializing costs.  End disassociating companies and property owners from the consequences of their actions.

 

Then frack away.  So long as those doing it take fully-insured financial liability for all its property and health consequences, both short and long term.  If energy companies and property owners who sell to them are so confident fracking is safe and profitable net any harmful impacts to human life then let them put their money where their mouths are.

 

Insurance companies with money on the line would not insure frackers at an affordable rate unless they disclosed the chemical composition of what they were pumping into the ground and could convincingly characterize its safety.

 

All it would take is a few incidents of contaminated well water or higher than average incidence of cancer associated with fracking to emerge and insurance companies would flee the market of insuring frackers.  Judges would pound their gavels finding frackers and property owners liable for staggering judgments.

 

Judgments for medical costs.  Pain and suffering awards.  Property devaluation from contaminated water wells.  The totality of economic losses associated with contamination of a watershed.   Fracking companies and property owners who lease to them would suddenly become even more worried than the rest of us are about the long term consequences of fracking.  They and their insurers would become obsessed with it.

 

Whatever uncertainties remain after exhaustive analysis, insurance companies would factor the extra cost of insuring against those into the premiums charged to frackers.  The cost of natural gas obtained by fracking would then have that risk premium built into it, reflecting its true cost.  This cost could be compared to natural gas from other sources.  Or to other sources of energy like solar.

 

With fully-loaded, true risk-adjusted costs on the table, companies and consumers alike could then weigh trade-offs and make rational energy production and consumption decisions.