What the Frack?

What the Frack? (Part 1 of 2) - Liberty Conservatives
Answer’s to Potential “cons”:

1. Negative environmental consequences from the amount of water needed to frack-

THE NUMBERS….

According to the website www.dangersoffracking.com, the following numbers corresponding to the amount of water needed are true in the USA:

-500,000 active gas wells in the US

-8 million gallons of water per fracking

-18 times a well can be fracked

So, that’s a lot of water…right? However, let’s compare the amount of water needed to frack, with what an average family of 4 uses each year. Any guesses? SURELY with all of our government mandates and energy efficiencies we have pared this down to almost nothing right? Wrong. Every year a typical family of four in the USA uses 146,000 gallons of water…and that is a 2013 statistic, so this INCLUDES the gallons saved from many of the most recent EPA mandates! The fact is that the amount of water used for fracking isn’t really all that significant when you think of the money savings and national defense implications of having energy independence.

2. Negative consequences from the chemicals used in the water that is used to frack-

Over 600 different chemicals are used in the creation of “fracking fluid”, and include the “scary” ones like radium, lead, uranium and mercury (just to name a few). The thought is that, as these chemicals are shot into the shale, that MUCH of what is in this dangerous cocktail will seep into the ground water supply and make many sick. The truth? According to some recent research done out of Duke University, the claims from the left about the seepage are just plain wrong. In fact, it is now proven fact that shooting these high powered water and chemical cocktail streams into the shale deposits thousands of feet below the surface does not cause groundwater contamination…AT ALL. The truth? As long as there is regulation helping to make sure that the process is done properly, this is a 100% complete non-factor as far as “potential problems” go with fracking.

3. Negative consequences from VOC’s-

I am sure somewhere in the arctic right now there is a family of polar bears teetering on an iceberg the size of the wood plank that Rose from the famous Titanic movie rested on as she watched Jack sink to the bottom of the sub-zero temperature ocean, that are SUPER concerned about what the  liberals are referring to as “harmful VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) and how it will affect their already dwindling ice caps (this of course is sarcastic in nature as it has been proven that Al Gore and his crying polar bears is a bunch of malarky). It is being said, right now, in many university classrooms and “enviro-wackadoodle” think-tanks across the nation that these VOC’s are being released into the atmosphere, creating harmful contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone. Looking deeper though, we see the ACTUAL truth behind the progressive fear mongering. According to an article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, there are new EPA mandates, that are required to be in place in 2015, that are going to drastically reduce the amount of these “VOC’s” to a pretty much insignificant amount:

“The EPA estimates the green completion process and other required changes will annually cut about 95% of the VOCs emitted from 11,400 newly fracked and 1,400 refracked wells.17 For 2015 the agency estimates that full implementation of the new rules will result in reductions of 190,000 tons of VOCs, 11,000 tons of hazardous air pollutants, and methane equivalent to 18 million tons of CO2 above and beyond reductions already mandated in Wyoming, Colorado, and a few places in Texas.”

So, when we look at “what is” and “what liberals are saying”, again, we have discrepancies. I am not saying AT ALL that fracking is a “be all end all” with NO DANGER whatsoever. There is danger and there is also potential for abuse if these companies don’t have accountability. What I am saying is that the potential positives of fracking FAR outweigh the potential negatives and, when we are energy independent, I feel that many of the progressive dissenters will be doing all they can to distance themselves from the anti-frackers and lining up to take credit for helping to make fracking a reality—you know, the way they normally do about, well, just about everything good that happens that they have had no hand in WHATSOEVER.