The concept of nuclear war is so insane that man should destroy it's nuclear weapons, so we never accidentally go that way in a moment of temporary insanity.
Interesting story about role of large-scale fossil fuel generation going forward, and how do we balance our need for energy with our broader climate goals.
The fact it snows heavily in February, at rates compared to earlier years, doesn't say much about Climate Change except that people are trying to exploit weather for a political agenda.
“It snowed a lot in February in Albany, NY.
Therefore, Climate Change is …”
I have heard a lot of statements like that lately, mostly from people who believe that the the weather is evidence of their views on the political questions of day. I have to chuckle a bit.
Politicians like to believe that they have god on their side, and any policy they are perusing is the morally-right thing, backed up by evidence. Most politicians would rather not acknowledge their views are primarily about oppressing people who are different from the group that are they belong to in their community.
There is science and there is politics.97% of Climate Scientists say that Climate Change is occurring. There is more debate on what the specific out year impacts of that climate change, or what will be the long-term impact. Even more controversial is what we should do about climate change, if anything at all.
Science doesn’t tell us what is right or wrong.It can simply give us predictions of the future what is likely to happen. We are free to disagree on whether or not we should act on those permissions or if the cost of action exceeds the cost of non-action.
While I am still not opposed to oil and gas production in NY State, I can see where the winds blow and realize like any policy choice there are pros-and-cons.
A few years ago, I was pretty supportive of fracking in New York State. I thought it would be good for the Southern Tier and Western NY, as there is already a fair bit of historical natural gas production in that part of state.
I always viewed the anti-frackers as being the same group of extreme lefties who decided they had to ban open burning on farms and rural locations to save the environment from rednecks burning a little bit of plastic in a fire. Or the same people who decided the entire state land holding in the Adirondacks could not ever be used for responsible timber production, like is common in our national and state forests. Or those at war on ATVs, snowmobiles, and even back-country campsites and trails. In other words, environmentalists who are opposed to fracking are generally bad people.
Over time claims that I once saw as best distorting the truth, are proving themselves somewhat true. Accidents happen and as you scale up, there is a potential for accidents get worst. Conventional natural gas production is not unlike the high volume horizontal wells, much like a convenience store is much like Super-Walmart. Much of the products and methods are the same but the scale is much larger than conventional processes. Bigger means bigger risk.
Is it more dangerous or polluting than conventional wells? It depends how you look at it. Natural resource extraction, to a certain degree, is always polluting, although pollution can be controlled. Areas with a lot of natural gas drilling underway tend to be busy with heavy truck traffic and big construction equipment, which can certainly bring in a lot of pollution, at least temporarily. Even modern big-rig diesels can be pretty polluting, and many of the equipment is older and dirtier from the era before strong diesel emission regulations.
I measured some of the the high-volume fracked wells in Pennsylvania to conventional natural gas wells in New York on Google Maps. The footprint was in some cases 2-3 times larger, but in other cases about the same as a New York State Black River-Trenton formation well. Regardless, any drilling campaign uses some farmland and forest, and cumulative impacts have to evaluated to the environment, even if eventually the wells will be plugged and recovered when they run out of gas.
I also think some of the water pollution and methane contamination complaints are legitimate. As was cynical at first about such notions, and I am sure the anti-fracking activists tried to milk out every little accident and problem, but there are issues and accidents that need to be considered, especially when scaling things up. We need regulations that protect people’s water and ensure that any impacts on the land are temporary inconveniences not long-term headaches.
I believe in keeping an open mind. I still prefer strong regulation over an outright ban, but we will see where this evolves. Many will argue that fracking should be banned be banned in our state. New York State created the Forest Preserve many years ago, and while controversial, wasn’t the great disaster that some people proposed. It’s something to watch.
New York, as an urban state, will never be energy self-sufficient, but we could do better if we could manage our natural resources better.
