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Jewish World Review
December 11, 2012 / 27 Kislev, 5773
Fracking can help fix the CO2 problem
By
A. Barton Hinkle
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Last year, humanity's output of carbon dioxide rose by 3 percent, reaching a rate of 2.4 million pounds per second. There is an angle to this datum to annoy just about everyone.
Suppose you're a conservative who doesn't believe in all that global-warmist malarkey. You've read about Climategate scientists trying to "hide the decline," you don't trust computer models and you think Michael Mann's "hockey stick" is a fraud. You're not convinced the planet is warming, doubt people have anything to do with it, and frankly don't care much if they do.
So, OK. For argument's sake, let's take global warming off the table. You still should care about CO2 emissions for another reason: ocean acidification. The oceans absorb a quarter to a third of the carbon dioxide humans release into the atmosphere, because carbon dioxide is soluble in water (hence, carbonated beverages). The CO2 reacts with seawater to form carbonic acid. The more carbon dioxide in the air, the more acidic the oceans. The oceans are now roughly 30 percent more acidic than in the pre-industrial era. And unlike future climate change, the effects are already apparent. Just head down to the Tidewater area of Virginia or out to coastal Oregon and talk to the folks who raise shellfish. Four years ago the Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery in Tillamook, Ore., lost millions of oyster larvae. The company found the problem was, yep, the overly acidic ocean water it was pumping in. Now it treats the water when the pH balance falls too far. "For us, the only thing that is correlated with mortality is the CO2 level," said owner Sue Cudd. She was talking to the magazine Seafood Business, not some Soros-funded outfit cranking out leftist agitprop. If current trends continue, by century's end the oceans could be twice as acidic as they are now. Ocean acidification matters, says Shallin Busch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, because of "the fish we eat and the things we make money off of." Before we all put on the sackcloth and ashes, though, note some good news: America's carbon dioxide emissions are actually falling. In fact, they have not been this low since 1992. And while no single factor can account for the entire shift, much of the credit goes to something environmentalists often detest: hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Among power sources, the worst source of CO2 emissions by far is coal. Natural gas generates half the CO2 per kilowatt-hour, and in the past few years natural gas has displaced coal to a remarkable degree. This year gas-fired electricity generation equaled coal-fired generation for the first time. According to the Energy Information Administration, that trend will continue as shale gas production rises from 5 trillion cubic feet in 2010 to more than 13 trillion cubic feet in 2035. Fracking made this possible by opening up the Marcellus Shale deposit in Pennsylvania and many others. Twelve years ago, shale gas made up 2 percent of the U.S. supply. It now makes up 37 percent. All of that was achieved without government direction and in the face of considerable environmental resistance. Now the world's worst CO2 emitter, China which gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal has taken up fracking, too. China's natural gas reserves are 50 percent bigger than America's. If climate change is the worst danger facing the planet, as some environmentalists contend, then Chinese fracking should be good news. But most environmentalists hate fracking. Instead, they have placed their bets on other horses many of which have come up lame (see: Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, A123 Systems, et al.). And even green-energy pursuits insulated from market forces pack a remarkably weak punch. The Navy has just built a 10-acre solar panel field at its Norfolk Naval Station, at a cost of $21 million in Obama stimulus money. It can power all of 200 homes a mere 2 percent of the naval station's power needs. An audit says the money saved on utility bills will recoup the project's costs in roughly 447 years (not a typo). This is part of a bigger pattern going back decades, in which environmentalists and politicians have backed loser after loser from the Synthetic Fuels Corp. of the 1970s to the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles in the 1990s. That record of failure flows from two misapprehensions: (1) the belief that government central planners can simply legislate scientific progress, and (2) the suspicion that ostensibly soulless and rapacious energy companies would rather leave huge profits on the table than explore an unfamiliar energy source simply because it might be good for the Earth. Meanwhile, the unplanned disruptive innovation of fracking has done what all those flops could not: reverse America's CO2 emission trends. It one day might reverse the world's. That story should increase another natural resource that is in woefully scarce supply in certain circles: humility.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
A. Barton Hinkle is Deputy Editor of the Editorial Pages at Richmond Times-Dispatch
Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
• 12/06/12: Let's open the door to lots more immigration
• 12/04/12: Who's watching the kids? Just about everyone
• 11/29/12: The Real Middle-Class Champion was Mocked and Opposed
• 11/26/12: It's time to cut a deal on the budget
• 11/20/12: The case for a carbon tax
• 11/15/12: Cue the hysterics. Reports of Democracy's Death Greatly Exaggerated
• 11/07/12: The $4,000 Trash Can: We need regulation, but not this much
• 10/23/12: The Ballad of Islamist Rage Boy
• 10/17/12: Undermining the values that enable people in poverty to escape it? Sadly, yes
• 10/11/12: How Much Is This Tax Cut Gonna Cost Me, Doc?
• 10/04/12: Warrantless spying skyrockets under Obama
• 08/20/12: The wrong side absolutely must not win
• 08/14/12: America was not built on dirt alone
• 08/02/12: Libs Discover Their Inner Cheney
• 07/30/12: Feds want to help you --- whether you want help or not
• 07/23/12: Barack Obama, Storyteller-in-Chief
• 07/23/12: Nation's worst outsourcer? You
• 07/19/12: Listen up, America: You need to knuckle under
• 07/12/12: Obama, Romney: As Different as Two Peas in a Pod
• 07/05/12: Are teenagers big children --- or little adults?
• 06/25/12: Minorities treated as mere numbers
• 06/21/12: Memo to the the Little Guy: Seemingly innocuous activity could bring the federal hammer down out of a clear blue sky
• 06/19/12: We mustn't let America be buffaloed
• 05/31/12: Drop and Give Uncle Sam 20
• 05/15/12: The feds would like to know if you enjoyed that video
• 05/03/12: Obama inspires: 'America --- Still Not as Bad Off as Venezuela!'
• 04/26/12: It's everyone's favorite time of year again
• 03/29/12: GOP disillusionment is a good thing
• 03/27/12: Just what America needs: more red tape
• 03/20/12: Nation wondering: what happening to language?
• 02/21/12: Culture warriors resort to propaganda
• 02/15/12: Step away from that cookie and grab some air
• 02/08/12: Lessons in heresy
• 02/01/12: Do We Really Need Pickle-Flavored Potato Chips?
• 01/11/12: Shut up, they explained
• 12/30/11: A Modest Proposal: Let's Ban All Sports!
• 12/26/11: A Christmas letter from the Obamas
• 02/24/11: Will the next Watson need us?
• 12/24/10: Here Are Some Good Gifts for People You Hate
• 06/15/10: The Presinator
• 05/26/10: More than equal
• 04/08/10: Angry Right Takes a Page From Angry Left but guess who is ugly?
• 02/16/10: Either Obama owes George W. Bush an apology, or he owes the rest of us a very good explanation for his about-face on wiretapping
• 02/03/10: Talkin' to us 'tards
• 01/27/10: I never thought I'd see the day when progressives would howl in ragebecause the Supreme Court said government should not ban books
• 01/07/10: Gun-Control Advocates Play Fast and Loose
• 12/31/09: Nearly everything progressives say about neoconservative interventionism abroad applies to their own preferred policies at home
© 2011, A. Barton Hinkle
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