FRACKING, WHICH OBAMA OPPOSED, IS DOING MORE TO CLEAN UP THE ENVIRONMENT THAN ANY GOVERNMENT PROGRAM: This Is The Year That Shale Gas Passes Coal:
2016 is shaping up to be a year for the record books: the Energy Information Administration is anticipating that this year, for the first time ever, natural gas will displace coal as America’s largest source of electricity generation. . . .
Natural gas emits just half as much greenhouse gases as coal, and far fewer of the dangerous local pollutants that can lead to the sorts of toxic smog choking China’s megacities. The fact, then, that natural gas is increasing its market share at the expense of coal is a green triumph.
It’s especially noteworthy because it’s being driven by market forces, not lavish government subsidies. The shale revolution has created a domestic glut of natural gas here in the U.S., and that’s helped depress spot prices here well below $2 per million Btu (among the cheapest prices in the world). Fracking is dethroning Old King Coal, and that controversial drilling practice deserves more credit for the environmental good it’s doing.
Market forces don’t offer the opportunities for graft that “lavish government subsidies” do. Hence the appeal of the latter to our corrupt political class.