Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed over fracking throughout Tuesday’s presidential debate. Right here’s an introduction to the gasoline and oil extraction course of that has reworked the US fossil gasoline business.
What’s fracking?
Hydraulic fracturing, higher generally known as fracking, is a technique of extracting fossil fuels. Producers drill into shale and different rocks deep underground, then pump in water, chemical compounds and sand to kind cracks and launch oil and gasoline.
By offering entry to as soon as hard-to-reach oil, the know-how unlocked oil and gasoline reserves throughout 20 US states together with Texas and Pennsylvania. It’s now essentially the most generally used fossil gasoline extraction technique in the US.
For the reason that fracking growth, US oil manufacturing has surged at a historic price. No nation in historical past has extracted as a lot oil and gasoline because the US has in every of the previous six years, and gasoline has turn out to be the nation’s mostly used electrical energy supply, eclipsing coal.
Why is fracking so controversial?
Fracking is controversial due to its environmental and well being impacts. Scientists have lengthy warned that the world should section out fossil fuels to protect a livable local weather.
The drilling approach may create contaminate ingesting water. Many People’ introduction to those dangers got here from the 2010 documentary Gasland, which famously confirmed a house owner who was capable of mild on hearth the water flowing out of his kitchen faucet
Greater than 17.6 million folks stay inside a mile of a fracked properly, researchers present in 2022, with these dwelling in shut proximity to wells generally reporting well being points starting from complications and nosebleeds to low toddler beginning weights and endocrine disruption. Pennsylvania researchers have discovered that kids dwelling near lively wells or close to many wells had a better danger for creating lymphoma, a type of most cancers.
The apply can be water-intensive, and has been linked to earthquakes.
But it surely has turn out to be a part of a bigger tradition battle, with some rightwingers believing that calls to finish fracking are anti-American calls from the so-called “woke left”.
Is fracking really dangerous for the local weather?
Fracking is used to supply fossil fuels, which account for the overwhelming majority of all planet-heating air pollution. A 2022 report discovered that deliberate US fracking initiatives might launch 140bn metric tons of planet-heating gases, tipping the world towards local weather catastrophe.
However fracked gasoline has lengthy been pitched by corporations and even some environmentalists as a “bridge gasoline”, or a short lived answer to transition from coal to renewable power sources. When burned, gasoline emits about half of the greenhouse gasoline emissions of coal per unit of power, and it might probably even have a smaller land footprint than coalmines.
Some research, nonetheless, recommend fracked gasoline could also be even worse for the local weather than coal all through its life cycle from extraction to move to utilization. Importantly, fracking for gasoline can result in leaks of methane – a greenhouse gasoline that warms the planet far sooner than carbon dioxide – which analysis suggests are routinely underreported.
The US is aiming to scale back emissions by a minimum of 50% by 2030, however, below present plans supported by inexperienced insurance policies within the Inflation Discount Act, is on observe to see solely a drop between 32% and 43% by that point interval, researchers have discovered.
Why was fracking such a contentious subject in Tuesday’s debate?
In relation to fracking, politicians can discover it onerous to find out the most effective pitch to voters. Pennsylvania, the place Tuesday’s debate befell, is the second-largest gasoline producer within the US – and likewise an necessary swing state within the presidential election.
However Pennsylvanians have decidedly blended opinions on the apply, with a 2020 survey discovering {that a} slight majority of Pennsylvanians – 52% – really oppose fracking, and a 2021 ballot by the progressive thinktank Ohio River Valley Institute discovering that lower than a 3rd of residents saying they need fracking of their state.
Some People are involved a few lack of fracking jobs, which have already been steadily declining, together with in Pennsylvania.
Analysis reveals clear power at the moment employs eight occasions extra folks in Pennsylvania than gasoline. However although unionization charges are rising in clear power, considerations about pay and the necessity to manage stay.
Why is fracking such a difficulty within the 2024 election?
Trump has been a staunch supporter of the fossil gasoline business. On Tuesday, he reminded viewers that Kamala Harris as soon as supported a ban on fracking– one thing he mentioned would devastate the Pennsylvania and US economic system.
Throughout her 2019 presidential marketing campaign, Harris did again an finish to fracking. However in July, her marketing campaign mentioned she was not in favor of such a coverage, to the disappointment of inexperienced teams and a few climate-concerned People.
Harris reiterated her assist for continued fracking throughout Tuesday’s debate, even boasting that the Inflation Discount Act, which contained historic funding for inexperienced power, additionally opened extra leases for fracking.
She additionally mentioned that whereas her “values haven’t modified”, she now feels that “we now have bought to put money into various sources of power so we scale back our reliance on international oil”. The prioritization of “power independence” is commonly seen as a degree in favor of continued fossil gasoline extraction together with fracking.
However oil and gasoline are a part of a world market, and each US president up to now 75 years has continued to import international fossil fuels. And a few argue that clear power might play an necessary position in untethering US power provide from unstable power markets.
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