The Shale Gas Shock

"The Best is the enemy of the good." Voltaire

South of 5 and 20 alerted me to an editorial written by James Delingpole who writes for The Telegraph, in it he makes the argument that shale gas, (ie natural gas) is the savior environmentalists have for years been seeking, but for reasons that can only be speculated on, are now its strongest antagonists. This is an interesting phenomenon, in and of itself, as none other than Al Gore an John F Kennedy, Jr. have stated that cleaner burning natural gas is a bridge from the harms of coal to mid-century, when the cost and scale of renewables will be adequate to meet demand. That natural gas is a pivot point around which the energy debate revolves today: Cheap gas means renewables struggle, but no gas means more coal.

It begs the question, Why are environmentalist so vehemently opposed to natural gas drilling?

In upstate New York these folks are a vocal, well organized, and a well financed minority who seek to force their will on the populace. They make 5 distinct arguments some of are worth discussing, most specious:

The shale gas industry uses dangerous chemicals in the fracking process that might contaminate groundwater;

Poorly cased wells allow gas to escape into underground aquifers;

Wast water returning to the surface during production, contaminated with salt and radon may pollute streams;

The industry's use of water for fracking depletes a scare resource;

The exploitation of shale gas damages amenity and landscape value.

The Dellingpole editorial seeks to make some sense of the obvious hypocrisy. He doesn't fair well in his endeavor, but makes a remarkable assertion:

The ideology of these Watermelons has virtually nothing to do with saving the environment (if it were, they’d be embracing shale gas wholesale) and almost everything to do with an instinctive loathing for economic growth combined with a bullying, puritanical urge to impose energy policy by diktat rather than by allowing the market to decide the most effective method.

It would be impossible for me to say it any better or clearer!

So what is it that brings James Dellingpole to such an understanding of progressive ideology? It turns out it is a report release today titled "The Shale Gas Shock" released by the Global Warming Policy Foundation. It is a must read for every lefty spouting spoon fed talking points bemoaning the shale gas revolution.

Freeman Dyson offers the forward, comparing shale gas to wax candles, he postulates that shale gas is "not a perfect solution to our economic and environmental problems, but it is here when it is needed, and it makes an enormous difference to the human condition." For the specifics of why natural gas is like wax candles do yourself a favor and read the forward, but consider that wax candles replaced tallow candles and allowed the poor to read at night for the first time and in so doing did more than any government school could to produce a literate working class.

I will speak more on the specifics of "The Shale Gas Shock" as I have time to delve into it a little deeper, but will leave you with a thought from George Monbiot, who is beginning to realize the intellectual vacuousness of the liberal progressive position on shale gas:

You think you're discussing technologies, and you quickly discover that you'r discussing belief systems. The battle among environmentalist over how or whether our future energy is supplied is a cipher for something much bigger: who we are, who we want to be, how we want society to evolve. Beside these concerns, technical matters - parts per million, costs per megawatt hour, cancers per sievert - carry little weight. We choose our technology - or absence of technology - according to a set of deep beliefs: beliefs than in some cases remain unexamined.

Cross posted at The Lonely Conservative

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