Fracking? (Hydraulic Fracturing)

[TJ in Oregon]

Hydraulic fracturing should be legal in some capacity as long as regulations can be written to properly mitigate the downside risk, which has been expressed ad nauseam in this thread already.

The point I want to make here is the overall importance natural gas plays in the future of an affordable energy supply. The US produces an overwhelming majority of its energy from fossil fuel sources, with the largest exception being nuclear (~19%). We use much of our natural gas for peaking power, which means we burn it via gas turbines that can quickly be turned on and off to match fluxuating demand. Power utilities operate with two main types of power: base and peaking. The base power consists of sources that are constantly running cannot be simply turned on and off with demand. If everyone in Madison turns off their lights, Madison Gas and Electric can't simply turn off their coal power plant because we don't need the electricity anymore. So they way they operate is to use the coal power plant to supply a base load and use five gas turbines they can turn on and off quickly to match the instantaneous demand.

It's difficult to live in the US and not be aware we have a number of environmental concerns about power generation safety and carbon emissions. Thus, we have a push to provide energy from alternative sources, such as wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. Tidal power and geothermal power are used in such small capacities in the US that they are essentially irrelevant to the conversation (tidal due to cost and geothermal due to scarcity of the resource). Wind power is close to cost effective on its own merits on the utility scale but is not wanted because it can only be used intermittently and occurs nearly at random. Wind power cannot be store in a manner that is even close to cost effective. This means we could potentially use it for about 10-15% of our power at most since it relies on other sources for most of the base load and still requires peaking power. Wind power accounts for about 3% of our energy right now. While utility scale wind farms are reasonably cost effective, smaller scale residential wind farms are only viable at all due to heavy subsidies.

Solar energy faces some of the same challenges as wind when it comes to intermittence and storage, but is somewhat better in both regards. Solar surface radiation certainly does have a random component to it from weather, but occurs at much more of a predictable pattern than the wind and in desert locations is almost completely predictable. Solar radiation also fortunately coincides more than not with peak energy demand, so it could be used to cut into a part of the peak demand in a repeatable, predictable, and dependable fashion. Storage is still extremely infeasible for traditional photovoltaic systems, but there are utility scale concentrating collectors now in the southwestern US that heat ionic liquids and collect the energy with turbines rather than simply turning illumination to energy from semiconductor junctions, and these systems can store the heated ionic liquid. However, the primary problem with solar energy is that it is much more expensive per unit energy than most other forms, and only accounts for 0.1% of our electricity. Additionally, we have taken some of the same mistakes as with wind (for some reason) heavily subsidize residential systems that only make a small dent in the peaking power load, and certainly not a kind of dent worth their price tag. While the price of residential systems has declined in recent years, the decline has been due to the outsourcing of their manufacture rather than any kind of technological advancement. Indeed much of the cost is due to the difficulty of installation rather than the panels themselves, which makes it very hard to envision what possible advancement could change this. Barring a major breakthrough in storage, I have difficulty seeing solar energy amount to more than another little piece relevant only in desert climates as a part of the base load.

So what options do we really have for the base load? Mainly we have coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydroelectric. Together they make up more than 90% of our energy production and will likely remain about 75% for years to come. Coal is the source no one really likes since it is the dirtiest and kills more people per unit power production when you take into account mining, operation, and pollution, than any other by far. Coal is cheaper on average than any other source except natural gas today and only due to the fracking boom has natural gas become cheaper. The main reason why we still use coal rather than natural gas for the base load is because we've already built the power plants, but as coal plants are slowly replaced in years to come, I suspect they will be largely replaced by natural gas. Hydroelectric power is clean, can supply a consistent base load, and is cost-effective, but limited in how much of our power we can get from them due to the need of rivers with large elevation changes we can dam, and the large effect on anyone who lives nearby. The portion of our electricity that comes from hydroelectric power is shrinking. Oil can be used for the base load, but the plants are typically more expensive to operate than natural gas and coal, and the oil is more valuable than the others due to automotive consumption, so it doesn't really look like a large part of our future base load generation.

Nuclear power could be a massive portion if wanted it to (and remains the only non-fossil fuel source economically viable for base load generation), but it would require a political will to make it happen that, quite frankly, I don't see coming from anyone right now, and if we are seriously concerned out global carbon emissions and global warming, if we're honest with ourselves we'll recognize quite quickly that nuclear power is the only source we have the capability of harnessing to produce energy on the scale we require at a feasible price that doesn't produce significant carbon emissions. Additionally, due to intense oversight and scrutiny, a whole lot of possibilities surrounding nuclear energy, such as fuel reprocessing and thorium reactors, haven't been explored with the sort of effort we're capable of. However, all of this would require a political will to make it an actual priority or no one's going to invest in nuclear energy.

So where does fracking fit into all of this? First, we need natural gas to operate the peaking power turbines regardless of what we do for our base load. Current projections tend to suggest that the peak load is actually growing faster than the base load, even if it is still small in comparison. Also, even if we do invest considerably in solar and wind to cut into the peak load some, solar and wind aren't dependable and would still require gas to back them up. If we don't invest in nuclear (which we currently aren't), natural gas stands to slowly replace coal as the primary source of our base load, and without fracking this wouldn't be happening.

I just want to make sure everyone understands the importance of this as we make a decision about how it should be addressed.