Fracking? There are no significant negative consequences for the environment.
Sure, if you don't mind the earthquakes (got a lot of experience here with that seeing as I live 12 miles from a well that just caused over a half dozen minor earthquakes in the past year including the largest one in this area in recorded history (i.e. 3.8). These are minor quakes compared to out west, but they still can crack foundations and cause other damage near the well site (latest well site is near a downtown area and the whole building I work in shook as I was all of 2 miles from the site which was positively identified to be the epicenter of the earthquake right at the EXACT well position (and the other 5 were within a 1 mile radius and this is NOT earthquake country in the Mid-West here and the quakes started right after the wells were put into use). You might want to call that a
coincidence, but that's like saying my neighbor's house caught fire for completely different reasons than the fact mine was on fire that same night and the wind was blowing in that direction.
The latest study data (the wells have finally been shut down for now and no quakes since) have a theory that the brine disposal water is acting like a major lubricant on the existing plate, thereby causing quakes to occur that would not have under normal circumstances for hundreds or even thousands of years. Hey, maybe they could try putting these things out by the San Andreas fault line near Los Angeles or San Francisco. We might as well get the "big one" out of the way now instead of just waiting for it.
There's also the matter of possible ground water contamination from disposing of the toxic waste water underground. They claim the water is below well level and typically sealed within or under a non-permeable layer, but rocks get cracks and liquids have this odd way of finding their way to the surface sooner or later. Just look into plutonium well contamination in Nevada. They thought injecting it into the underground layers wouldn't hurt since it does not suspend in water. However, it does attach itself to minerals that can suspend in the water and managed to find it's way out of the area in a relatively short amount of time. Gotta love government coverups.
Due to improved technologies, natural gas reserves in the US are now large enough to provide ample supply for many decades if not 100 years -- and this presumes that extraction methods don't improve even more in the future. These reserves will continue producing far beyond the serviceable lifespan of any of the solar panels now in production. Coal reserves are even larger.
You act like 100 years is this HUGE span of time or something. It's a drop in the bucket. Your grandkids will likely experience a complete loss of fossil fuels. But who cares about them? You'll be dead so it doesn't matter, right? That is the prevailing EXCUSE used to foster the current profits and keep things following the status quo. We don't need fusion research! Those nuclear waste producing reactors from 50 years ago are good enough! What we need is an oil pipeline from Canada to Mexico!
I'll give you that switching cars over to natural gas would be a good SHORT TERM solution to Mid-East oil, but it would also raise home heating prices considerably and then there's always that pesky "we don't have the infrastructure to support it" EXCUSE that's always made (i.e. gas stations don't have natural gas pumps in most areas and they don't like chicken/egg situations and so we go NOWHERE).
Meanwhile, I'm forced to use ethanol laced gas that is more corrosive on my engine, decreases my gas mileage (by as much as 2-3mpg) and raises the price of corn to the point where I rarely by corn chips anymore (2x what they used to be several years ago) and have to buy generic corn in a can because it's also 2x what it used to be. But they don't measure that on the inflation index, so it doesn't exist.
It also takes 1.5 gallons of oil to make 2 gallons of ethanol and combined with the 2-3mpg decrease in gas mileage and increased price of corn, exactly WHERE are the savings and advantages supposed to be for the consumer? I see that it's a boon for corn growers....
Until solar efficiencies increase enough, and prices come down enough to become cheaper than natural gas without subsidies, there is no reason for a responsible company to install them.
I'd have to disagree with your choice of word there, "responsible". Like I said, you don't seem to care about handing a dead future to your grandchildren, but I find nothing responsible about that. You also have your chicken/egg scenario once again where the prices won't come down because they are not produced en masse and they won't be produced en masse because the prices are high. So that creates the situation where no one will do anything about it until we run out of fossil fuels. Unfortunately, it might be too late to avert a major crisis at that point. It takes TIME to build and replace infrastructure and if you don't start ahead of time, you end up screwed in the long run. By screwed, I mean a depression that will make this recession we recently had look like a day at the park. Few on here remember the lines for the gas pumps in the 1970s. But those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
