Hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, has transformed the United States into the Saudi Arabia of natural gas — but not in New York, where foolish politicians like Gov. Hochul stubbornly refuse to tap the enormous wealth beneath our feet. [emphasis, links added]
Two giant shale formations sit beneath much of northeastern North America.
The relatively shallow Marcellus Shale extends from West Virginia into New York’s Southern Tier region.
The Utica Shale, which lies below the Marcellus and may hold even more natural gas, extends further northwest into Canada and further east toward Albany — a vast swath of the Empire State.
Together, these two formations are estimated to hold at least 500 to 1,000 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas, distributed throughout their extent.
While it’s difficult to determine exactly how much of the gas lies within New York’s borders, one study from the New York Energy Research and Development Authority estimated it at between 160 and 300 Tcf — enough to supply the state’s total natural gas needs for up to 300 years, at current consumption rates.
At today’s market value, New York’s reserves could be worth up to $1 trillion.
Rather than exploit the economic benefits this offers, however, New York has allowed environmental hysteria to crush its nascent fracking industry, beginning with a moratorium imposed by Gov. David Patterson in 2008.
Legislation banning fracking entirely was signed in 2014 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who also effectively banned new natural gas pipelines that would have transported Pennsylvania’s low-cost natural gas to New York.
Last month, Hochul piled on, signing legislation banning the use of carbon dioxide for fracking instead of water.
“We’re not fracking … we’re not going backward,” she said in September.
Fracking is an extraction method that injects high-pressure liquid or gas into fissures in subterranean rock to release energy resources.
Environmental zealots have cited multiple reasons to oppose it, from cancer fears to water-contamination worries to tales of flaming faucets that have been definitively debunked.
They have successfully smothered the industry in New York state — even in the face of the enormous benefits reaped by neighboring Pennsylvania.
Fracking has provided the Keystone State with billions of dollars in economic benefits.
Impact fees collected from drillers have generated over $2.7 billion for rural Pennsylvania communities since 2012 — money that these previously ailing towns and counties have invested in new schools, housing, and economic development.
To his credit, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has resisted environmentalists’ continuing efforts to ban fracking in his state.
The average retail price of electricity was 50% higher in New York than in Pennsylvania in 2023.
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry supports hundreds of thousands of jobs: more than 100,000 direct jobs with drilling companies, according to a 2023 study, and several hundred thousand more in indirect ones — that is, jobs supported by fracking company outlays on goods and services and workers’ wages.
And fracking jobs pay well.
A study by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated average wages in 2017 of almost $150,000 in today’s dollars.
By greatly increasing natural gas production, fracking in Pennsylvania has lowered energy prices for state residents — for natural gas used for heating as well as for electricity, much of it generated using natural gas.
The average retail price of electricity was 50% higher in New York than in Pennsylvania in 2023.
If New York were able to produce just half the natural gas Pennsylvania does, the statistics show that upwards of 50,000 direct jobs could be created, plus many more indirect ones.
It would mean a tax bonanza, too, providing several hundred million dollars in new revenues to Albany, plus over $100 million annually in impact fees for local communities.
A 2021 study prepared by the US Department of Energy found that a nationwide ban on fracking would cause a surge in energy prices, the loss of millions of jobs, and almost $1 trillion in lost wage income.
It would also have national security implications, making the United States dependent on costly foreign sources of natural gas.
Like all energy resources, fracking is not environmentally pristine.
But its benefits are proving to be enormous, even beyond jobs and earnings: Lower energy prices are a huge economic boon, lowering the prices of virtually everything else, and natural gas power plants have largely replaced dirtier ones fueled by coal, reducing pollution and carbon emissions.
Yet fracking opponents rarely acknowledge these economic and environmental positives.
Lost in New York’s green energy quest and environmental hysteria is any concern about the economic well-being of its own citizens — especially Upstate residents whose communities have suffered decades of economic decline.
Fracking has for years offered an opportunity to reverse that trend by creating thousands of new jobs, just as it has in Pennsylvania.
Still, New York Democrats, led by Hochul, choose to waste that chance.
Fracking alone won’t solve New York’s economic problems, given the state’s sclerotic regulations, high taxes, general hostility to business, and unrealistic green-energy goals.
But reversing the ban on fracking is a good place to start.
Read more at NY Post
