The bad effects of fracking are beginning to be seen—earthquakes where there never were any before, water coming out of the tap catching fire. However, there have been profound economic changes which have been largely ignored. Some beneficial.
Fracking has allowed the U.S. to step up domestic production of both oil and natural gas, changing the economic environment for the large scale consumers, such as power plants. About a year ago the report was that that one kilowatt-hour of electrical output from coal cost about six cents to the four and a half cents for gas. If you were running such a business, and you could secure a 25% decrease in input costs without having to lower rates, which fuel would you prefer? Businessmen are entirely predictable in this regard. Since most of the coal mined went to power plants, the market has largely collapsed.
The prices for gasoline here in California have dropped considerably, and the same is true elsewhere. Fracking has increased domestic production of oil, decreasing our need for imported oil and lowering prices. Now we find that the current prices will not support tar sand extraction, a dirty and expensive form of oil. Royal Dutch Shell, a major investor, has just pulled out.
All the political action and social pressure has been important, highlighting the issues, but the force which pushed coal and tar sand oil off the edge of the table was purely economic.
The republicans seem intent in destroying anything that President Obama has accomplished, and their attacks on the ACA are not over, but I think he snuck one past them. He was a strong supporter of fracking, something I was appalled by at the time, but now I think I see how clever he was. He set a trap, baited with profit, and they fell right into it. The benefits of his maneuver are being reinforced by the surge of renewables, and the handwriting is on the wall.
Businessmen are among the most predictable and thereby the most controllable people on earth. For a large proportion of them, profit is the only thing they care about. By affecting their profit margin, they can be persuaded that the socially responsible act is also the smart thing for them to do.
I used to have a hard time selling economic tactics to fellow progressives, but no longer. This is a change I heartily endorse.