Junk Science War: Fracking Quakes and ‘Dirty Faces’

Though I write to defend the natural gas industry from the junk science hurled at it and the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing (fracking), I do so with mixed emotions.

Two recent government reports, one from the United Kingdom and the other from Oklahoma, have tried to draw a connection between fracking and seismic activity occurring in those areas. In the UK, the seismic activity registered 3 on the Richter scale (vibrations similar to a passing truck). In Oklahoma, the activity registered between 1.0 and 2.8. Neither report could attribute with any certainty the seismic activity to the local fracking, as that would be nearly impossible to do given the multifactorial nature of seismic activity.

So: of the more than one million fracking or fracking-like operations that have occurred, unattributable seismic activity has been detected twice. Moreover, no structural damage was attributed to any of the seismic activity.

Scientifically and from a risk management perspective, fracking should be off the hook. But of course it’s not, because radical environmentalists loathe fracking — cheap natural gas means that the world won’t be giving up fossil fuels anytime soon — and so they have their long knives out for it. You can safely bet that anytime seismic activity coincides with fracking activity, they will use that coincidence to whip up fear.

And if it’s not earthquakes, it will be fracking fluids in drinking water. Or fracking’s greenhouse gas emissions. Or whatever can be dreamed up to scare people about the expanding industry of extracting natural gas from shale formations.

As we’ve learned with other environmental scaremongering, there are countless junk science-based ways to scare the public, and you can rest assured the radicals will dream them up and employ them to great effect.

What this means is that the shale gas industry will be under continual attack, and that the attacks won’t stop until fracking does.

However, while I’m more than happy to spotlight and debunk the enviros’ use of junk science, I’m also more than a little annoyed at the junk science that the shale gas industry itself is apparently quite happy to use against its brethren fossil fuels.

If you’ve followed the 21st century environmentalist war against fossil fuel, you’ve probably heard of the “Dirty Faces” anti-coal campaign: advertisements featuring coal-smudged faces, proclaiming that coal is “dirty” because its emits greenhouse gas carbon dioxide — ironically, a colorless and odorless gas.

>Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.