Last week, the International Energy Agency released its annual report, which noted that peak oil — that point in which conventional oil reserves have been fully tapped and production will begin to decline in the coming decades — came and went around 2006, at about 70 million barrels of oil a day. This is the point of no return, where the economics of dirty energy becomes entirely unsustainable for even the short-term forecast of energy demands. This news should compel all responsible governments to start planning for a green future.

Instead, we are seeing a rise in unconventional practices, such as hydrofracking, here in New York state. Not only could this contaminate our drinking water, but it also gives natural gas developers a competitive advantage at the public’s expense.

Hydrofracking helps natural gas developers easily collect the natural gas deposits found in shale. It’s a process by which millions of gallons of water and other usually undisclosed chemicals are pumped into a drill bore to fracture the shale blocking a natural gas deposit. Currently, New York state has two such large-scale shale formations that can be exploited for natural gas deposits: the Marcellus Shale at about 600 miles long, extending from Tennessee to Central New York, and the Utica Shale that extends into both Canada and Ohio.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel and contributes to climate change. Now it’s true that per joule of energy, natural gas is cleaner than both coal and oil. But in absolute terms, natural gas is a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It tends to be released in smaller quantities but still poses a threat to our atmosphere. The Obama administration even seems to think it’s a valid source of energy that should be exploited. It isn’t, and we shouldn’t. Natural gas development is a very poor bandage for our country’s dangerously irresponsible energy policy.

Even though the process produces millions of gallons of contaminated water, it’s entirely excluded from the Safe Drinking Water Act because energy developers lobbied for exclusion in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The environmental concerns are two-fold: the undisclosed chemicals that may unwittingly be found in underwater aquifers and contaminate drinking water and the unneeded benefits afforded to developers of dirty energy by allowing such unregulated practices.

The legality of hydrofracking and the future of New York state’s energy portfolio were largely ignored during the recent gubernatorial race, except in Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins’ campaign. Andrew Cuomo has said of natural gas, ‘Development needs to be highly sensitive to environmental concerns.’ While it’s admirable that his administration plans to be ‘highly sensitive,’ it is nonetheless disconcerting that he was unable to say it is a demonstrably bad practice that contaminates groundwater with unknown chemicals and that it should be outlawed until proven environmentally safe.

Cuomo will need to address these concerns. The energy portfolio of this state is one of the most progressive in the country. There are a number of wind farms in the development stage that could produce hundreds of megawatts of energy. That’s enough to shut down coal processing plants and start the shift from the dirty electricity of the past to the green power of the future.

The creation of a sustainable energy platform is the single greatest challenge for both the United States and the world in this century. I would feel a lot better about our chances of success if ecological sanity began to replace short-term profit margins as the main prerogative for energy development. At this point, I am far from assured.

Luke Lanciano is a junior political science major. His column appears every Tuesday, and he can be reached at lllancia@syr.edu.

 

Published on November 15, 2010 at 12:00 pm