A reader wondered how Nova Scotia’s fracking ban would result in safer oil and gas company drilling operations instead of just balkanizing the world into fracking permitted and prohibited zones. Actually, Energy Minister Andrew Younger said:

“This way, people will know before it’s allowed — if it’s ever allowed — there will be a full debate in the Legislature.”

And the panel report that was the proximate cause of the ban, by the Nova Scotia Hydraulic Fracturing review, led by President Dr. David Wheeler, explicitly is for:

…an independent review and public engagement process to explore the social, economic, environmental, and health implications of hydraulic fracturing practices and their associated wastewater streams.

This will be a chance for the fossil fuel industry to demonstrate safe methods of drilling. Which is something they didn’t do before they started fracking.

If there are any safe methods of fracking, which I doubt. But come on, oil and gas industry, here’s your opportunity!

Meanwhile, solar power is already cheaper than any other form of energy including natural gas and getting still cheaper, and solar jobs already (a year ago) outnumber non-managerial oil and gas extraction jobs in the U.S., solar has already increased deployment more in two years than is projected for shale gas in the next 28 years, so we can also just get on with deploying faster, cleaner, cheaper solar power uses half the acreage as pipelines without eminent domain, doesn’t need water for pressure testing or cooling, and brings jobs right here where we need them. Solar will overtake everything in less than a decade, as former FERC Chair Jon Wellinghoff predicted a year ago.

-jsq

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