Boom in Energy Spurs Industry in the Rust Belt

Eli,

The New York Times has an article on the impact the US energy boom is having on Ohio. Nothing special, or new, in the article, from my perspective. What caught my attention were the comments. The "Readers' Picks" had a few that were interesting.

From Gary J.

While it's great news that a moribund factory has been revitalized, it's beyond terrifying that the equipment being made is for fracking.

Fracking is nothing more than environmental rape.

From barbara8101

Unfortunately, fracking comes with an environmental cost that is as yet both inadequately understood and inadequately funded and that will be inadequately compensated. Moreover, the money generated by energy extraction now occurring in states such as Pennsylvania is not reaching the ground, as it were. Corporations are benefiting; the inhabitants of the states are not. Natural resources belong to us all, and their use should not be at the expense either of nearby landowners or of the public at large.

The environmental lobby has done a pretty good job of sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt about fracking, as the comments in the Times indicates. And I think many of those fears are fabrications, and/or lies.

Fracking has been around for over a century, and its practice has been accelerating for the past decade. If there really were environmental catastrophes from fracking, I would expect to see the evidence in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and North Dakota and other states. The anti-fracking contingent can't produce this evidence, and maybe the reason is simple: fracking isn't the "environmental rape" same claim it to be.

As for me, I like cheap gas, warm houses and lower electricity prices.

Bill