Don 't Vote And Run

In particular, the state of Pennsylvania has created a number of regulations to control the modern day fracking procedures and practices. Companies like Chesapeake Energy utilize a combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling to obtain more natural gas and cover more area. Currently, 30% of our country’s natural gas supply is extracted domestically and contributes to the 25% of our nation’s energy that comes from natural gas. Coal is the main source of energy at 30% and following natural gas are nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar. Natural gas leaves half the amount of carbon footprint that coal leaves. Natural gas is primarily used for electric power, but is also used to create material such as steel, glass, paper, cloth, and brick. It is also used in raw material such as paints, fertilizer, plastics, antifreeze, dyes, photographic film, medicines, and explosives. (EIA,

for approximately 20 years.7 Once hydraulic fracturing was commercialized, independent gas companies quickly pursued the opportunity. Today, nine companies compete for shale gas production in the U.S., and the major oil companies have moved more slowly since the smaller firms were the originators of fracking technologies.8 Hydraulically fracked wells in the U.S. today total over 500,000 and continue to grow rapidly.9 Another key factor which allowed rapid shale gas development is that U.S. law provides that landowners also own the natural minerals under their property, which enabled shale gas developers to lease land for drilling directly from homeowners (in most other countries, the government owns minerals found under properties). Future success with clean energy will require collaboration between the U.S. Government and industry, and our leaders must commit to advancing this agenda in parallel with the continued development of U.S. shale resources.

Introduction: In the kind of world we live in today, we are in dire need of oil. Our cars need oil, our buses need it, our planes and machines. Oil and gas production are very important in order for the many tasks we do day to day and we have become dependent on it. Fracking is a process that uses high pressure water and other chemicals to gather oil under the ground. Although fracking is a fantastic way to gather oil, there have been several problems that have been occurring. In Texas many jobs and drilling locations are appearing because of the high demand for oil. Fracking is a very good way to gather natural gas however, it is causing a lot of problems for society and the environment in Texas.

Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, has become a large part of the economy in northeastern Pennsylvania, and has impacted the area’s economy, environment, and mindset. Fracking is the process of extracting natural gas from the earth, and the industry it has brought to areas like northeastern Pennsylvania shows effects consistent with the ideas of neoliberalism and hegemony.

These environmental and social harms develop because the oil and gas industries and the Native nations' governments externalize costs of environmental and social protections onto the public in order to reap the benefits of saved costs” all the harm to our water is real and only we the consumers can stop it..The U.S is a high user of fracking methods as it is the cheaper version to achieve natural gas . According to Shale gas and fracking: The Science Behind the Controversy, that number almost doubled to 510,000, by 2010. Each year about 13,000 new wells are drilled near safe drinking water and a study released in 2011 by the U.S Environmental Protection Agency that some drinking water that comes up from shallow wells near hydrofracking drilling sites in Pennsylvania had about 17 times as methane as those far away from drilling. Imagine the danger that this water can cause to people, one always thinks that natural water is good for use and that the government will not let companies contaminate our limited water

Given fracking’s youth and considering its only significant sites are in the US, research is largely confined on the Marcellus region which runs across two-thirds of Pennsylvania and extends into other states (MSTEC 2011) or the Barnet region in Texas.

Industrial leaders feel as though many residents are pushing to create stricter zoning restrictions on something they do not fully understand. People for fracking expansion see fracking as advantageous to the United States economical status and thus compensating for the statements that fracking harms people’s domestic life. Leaders in the fracking industry tend to rely on the benefits of natural gas over the alternative energy sources because it burns clean unlike some other current sources of energy. Other benefits include the supposable rise in economic growth. They often use the rhetorical appeal of logos or logic in their political avocation for the removal of zoning laws. Industrial leaders do this by using the fact that there is no absolute proof in fracking contaminating drinking water, and therefore there should be no concern whether or not it is being done in residential areas. Additional points made in the discussion of local fracking include that the nation's newfound reserves of gas can aid the offset of importing oil from other countries. Trucks and large vehicles can switch to cheaper natural gas and away from diesel, which would better the environment. (Minor, 2014) It would be an overall bettering of the economy for the United States. Not to mention the increase of job availability; in the

In 2000, shale beds where the number one source of America’s constant need for gas. Most of that production increase has come about to the growing need of hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking”, which is a process used to release oil or gas from underground formations that are otherwise too hard to mine with other tools. Over the past few years, advances in fracking technology have made huge reserves of natural gas in America economically recoverable. According to the Energy Information Administration, shale gas plays, or fields, in the United States, most notably the Marcellus, in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New York, and the Barnett, in Texas, are said to contain enough natural gas to give power to the country for a hundred and ten years. With the everlasting specter of energy independence, some have argued that such efforts to recover natural gas need to be expanded. Activists concerned with fracking’s potential environmental hazards view the new process as a serious threat to our environment. There are many different opinions on wether or not fracking is a safe way to gain our gasoline, and to meet the growing demands of gasoline around the world. The process of fracking creates cracks that come from wells into oil and gas formations by pumping highly pressurized fluids, ceramic beads, sand, and a mixture of chemicals, into the gas formation. As this fluid holds the underground fissures open, oil and gas fly up the well to the surface where they are

Looking at the glistening waters of our streams and rivers, it may be hard to believe that approximately 5,300 miles of streams in Pennsylvania are so polluted they are currently classified as "dead". Due to loopholes in the Clean Water Act, more than half of the streams in the Keystone State are vulnerable to pollution. This affects an approximate 8 million Pennsylvanians who are served by public drinking water systems that draw from surface water. Only recently has the EPA taken action to restore protection to waterways in the United States. Unfortunately, it will take time for our streams and rivers to be truly clean again. Clearly, it is time that we act to preserve these waterways. Most people,

Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking for short is the process of pumping water, sand, and numbers of chemicals into deposits of Marcellus Shale to release the natural gas that is trapped under ground. Fracking is a process that is the center of debate between well companies and environmentalists. Pennsylvania is a huge center of Hydraulic Fracturing so much that there is a town called Frackville. These small mountain towns are few and far in between. The rest of the area is untouched wilderness besides the Hydraulic Fracking wells that intrude on this pristine land. Hydraulic Fracturing needs to be highly monitored and regulated and the people affected by it firsthand should be aware of what exactly is being pumped into their backyards. Natural

The United States has one of the largest deposits of shale oil, so drilling for it may seem like a logical decision “…over 750 trillion cubic feet of …shale gas and 24 billion barrels of … shale oil resources…exist in…shale plays… developing these resources creates jobs and fuels our economy… the key…is through the process of hydraulic fracturing…” (Energy Tomorrow 2013). The number of jobs created by the institution of hydraulic fracturing is widely touted by proponents of hydraulic fracturing, but the number of jobs directly created may actually be smaller than claimed. In Pennsylvania, many jobs were created from hydraulic fracturing, though most are not as a direct result from the institution of hydraulic fracturing. In the third quarter of last year, 216,946 jobs were created in Pennsylvania as a result of hydraulic fracturing…but only 30,000 of those jobs are actually from fields that are closely related to hydraulic fracturing. “It (number of jobs created) covers industries whose connection to oil and gas development is tenuous …ranging from freight trucking to highway, street, and bridge construction… agency officials …admit that the figure—when used to estimate jobs supported by shale—amounts to little more than a guess” (“Foran”). Even though hydraulic fracturing is continuing to create jobs, the number is starting to decline as a result of the success of hydraulic

(Article 1, Brantley) “In Pennsylvania, shale gas is accessed at depths of thousands of feet while drinking water is extracted from only depths of only hundreds of feet.” (Article 1, Brantley) There are also many pros considering the government’s role in fracking. Fracking means that we are extracting natural gases and our nation would be less dependent on other nations for man-made fuel. We would be less dependable. (Article 2, Wheeler)

Morse attempts to show the positives of fracking by citing economic benefits. One of his purported benefits is that fracking will “bolster employment by some three million jobs” (Morse 3-7). Although this evidence is convincing, it relies on rosy estimates and ignores the potential loss of jobs associated with fracking. Even Pennsylvania, a state that experiences one of the strongest economic impacts of fracking, has not experienced such levels of growth and prosperity. Former governor Tom Corbett campaigned on the fact that fracking supported 200,000 jobs, yet the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry reported “…just over 30,000 people were employed by industries directly tied to the fracking boom in the third quarter of last year” (Foran 7). The PDLI did also report the 200,000 figure as an expanded estimate; however, officials admit it is mere guesswork.

“The Utica shale is a black, calcareous, organic rich shale of Middle Ordovician age”(King). It is found under Marcellus Shale and is located in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, New York and parts of eastern North America. Utica is a couple thousand feet below Marcellus Shale. Utica has large amounts of natural gas, crude oil and natural gas liquid. The United States Geological Survey estimates about 38 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, 940 million barrels of oil and 208 million of natural gas liquids. The formation is interesting due to its vast size and depth. Also, the gas and oil has very low permeability that

pg. 1) “In a July 19 letter to ten oil and gas producers – including BP, Chesapeake Energy, and ExxonMobil – the lawmakers requested information on the companies’ hydraulic fracturing operations and on possible human impacts. According to a subcommittee staff memo, the hydraulic fracturing companies ‘do not track whether the wells they fracture are located in underground sources of drinking water (Hobson Penn.).”