9/2/2023 0 Comments Def of fracking![]() ![]() The bottom line is that although Pennsylvania’s gas boom peaked between 20, its unemployment rate actually increased almost a full percentage point in that time-and at 8.3%, it was a half-point above the national average-even as unemployment fell in 46 states. ![]() Similarly, former Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett’s 2014 State Energy Plan claimed that “over 240,000 Pennsylvanians work in core and ancillary jobs associated with the oil and gas industry.” However, the Keystone Research Center pointed out that most ancillary jobs (like those of UPS drivers), which accounted for the bulk of the total, predated fracking. Later, the Chamber revised the 300,000 jobs “created” down to 180,000 jobs “supported.” The discrepancy likely resulted from the Chamber’s blatant misrepresentation of several controversial industry-funded Penn State studies that looked at “ projected jobs,” meaning expected future jobs. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry counted only about 18,000. The US Chamber of Commerce declared in 2012 that shale gas production in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia had created more than 300,000 new jobs. The actual number at the time was more like 26,000-and that’s including “fracking-related” jobs not directly in the industry.Ī report by the Multi-State Shale Research Collaborative found that during the time span of the ostensible fracking boom in Pennsylvania and the Midwest (from 2008 to 2012), “firms with an economic interest in the expansion of drilling” and their political allies systematically exaggerated the industry’s impact on employment. One campaign ad that aired in the state said Biden’s “fracking ban” would “kill up to 600,000 Pennsylvania jobs.” (Biden can’t ban fracking, except on federal public lands.) At a rally in Latrobe, Trump claimed that fracking had created 940,000 jobs in the state. Yet four years later, running for reelection, Donald Trump used the same script to try to best Democratic nominee Joe Biden in Pennsylvania. The shale gas “boom” was as ephemeral as Cruz’s presidential prospects. Shareholders are revolting wealth managers are divesting. Methane emissions associated with fracking are so pervasive that many scientists now think substituting natural gas for coal won’t reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The petroleum industry has also taken a major reputational hit for its role in warming the planet while peddling climate-change denialism. As of April, the mining sector had the highest rate of unemployment in the country, at 15%. The oil and gas industry shed more than 100,000 jobs last year, and a report by Deloitte warned that about 70% of the jobs lost in 2020 may not come back this year-or ever. Chevron announced in December 2019 that it would write down up to $11 billion in shale gas assets. Some, like Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, liquidated their shale gas holdings. The stock prices of premier energy firms like Chesapeake Energy Corporation crashed (it declared bankruptcy in 2020). A wave of consolidations and bankruptcies swept across the sector. But nationwide, the glut of gas (and, to a lesser extent, oil) precipitated by the fracking boom depressed prices to their lowest levels since the 1990s. The entire model was premised on high oil and gas prices. With new wells facing average production declines of 60% in the first year, petroleum companies had to frantically drill more of them. ![]() What happened? As a Bloomberg report put it, “The numbers never added up.” Fracking has always been expensive extraordinarily generous fossil-fuel subsidies helped hide the true cost. ![]()
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