R.I.P Cap and Trade,
Those were the headlines from the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page this morning. The article gives reasons why we don’t need the now dead cap-and-trade bill. One of the reasons the article claims cap-and-trade is unnecessary is the use of natural gas to generate electricity rather than coal. According to the article “a boom in the supply of natural gas, which produces electricity more cleanly than coal does, promises to satisfy rising energy demand while leaving behind a much smaller carbon footprint”. The article ends on a note about the virtues of the free-market and market-based solutions to the problem.
I guess part of the market-based solution was getting politicians to create laws that exempted the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process used in the extraction of natural gas from all federal environmental standards, which protect the air, water, and human health. The chemicals used in the fracking process, many of them carcinogenic, don’t have to be disclosed to the public or regulators. Every time I see T. Boone Pickens extolling the virtues and the patriotism (not supporting terrorism) of using natural gas, I wish they would at least show the dangerous side of this natural gas boom.
In my opinion natural gas is not green or clean if the extraction process pollutes watersheds and impacts human health. So while natural gas might have less of a “carbon footprint”; the front end costs of using this fuel have been conveniently left off (exempted from oversight).
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