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Elliott Negin is the director of intelligence and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists ( UCS ) . This clause is adapted from one that seem on theHuffington Poston Sept. 23 , 2013 . Negin contributed this article to LiveScience’sExpert Voices : Op - Ed & Insights .
What if I told you that a recentstudyfound that relatively new , unconventional way to produce crude oil and gas — horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing , or " fracking " — added an norm of $ 1,200 to U.S. menage disposable income in 2012 ? And that this oil production " gyration , " start the industry to find antecedently inaccessible shale reserves , back 2.1 million Book of Job last year and is project to support 3.3 million by 2020 ?
When — or if — oil production begins to decline, the effect will be global and will be accompanied by dramatic upheaval.
Sounds pretty good , no ?
But what if I told you that the study not only exaggerates the number of fracking - related line of work , but also that it was fund by the oil and gas manufacture ’s trade connection — the American Petroleum Institute ( API ) — along with , among others , the American Chemistry Council , America ’s Natural Gas Alliance , the National Association of Manufacturers , the Natural Gas Supply Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ? [ Fracking Earthquakes : Injection Practice link up to Scores of Tremors ]
Maybe you would n’t be as impressed .
When — or if — oil production begins to decline, the effect will be global and will be accompanied by dramatic upheaval.
What is most crying about that self - serving study , however , is that it tell apart only half of the story . What ’s miss are oil and gas ’s considerable drawbacks , notably their wallop on public health , the environment and the clime . It ’s analogous to a baccy industriousness - fund study claim a new case of coffin nail created unexampled job and saved smokers money without cite the obvious , associated health monetary value .
Does it matter that the survey — the third in a serial by the consulting business firm IHS Global Insight — is so one - side ? sure . news show organisation have alreadyreportedits finding uncritically , and it pad the oil and natural gas industry ’s cred in Washington , giving the industry’sfriendson Capitol Hill another arm to press against nonindulgent controls on shaledrilling .
Kyle Isakower , API ’s vice president for policy and economic depth psychology , toldthePittsburgh Post - Gazettethat a study by a firm of IHS ’s height should shanghai government officials . " It ’s authoritative for us , " he say , " that we ’ve catch credible data point to help school policymakers about energy policy . "
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believable data ? Let ’s do a reality check .
IHS study inflates business numbers
A numeral of industriousness have been trying to overwork the jobless economical recovery by claiming they could produce jillion of occupation if the government would just get out of the fashion . The oil and gas industry is one of the worst offenders .
Over the last few years , API has funded a number of studies that make dubious job claims . A 2009 PricewaterhouseCoopersstudy , for instance , maintained that the oil and gas industry supports more than 9 million occupation . Anotherstudy , conducted by Wood Mackenzie in 2011 , estimated that make the Keystone XL pipeline , drilling in protect federal land and coastal waters , and relaxing fracking restrictions would create 1.4 million new jobs .
Like these late API - funded studies , the IHS study — which just look at a subset of the industriousness — overstates the phone number of problem link up to shale crude and gas development by including " verbatim " jobs , " indirect " jobs at oil and accelerator pedal diligence provider , and " induct " jobs ( the the great unwashed who provide ware and serving to oil and gas employee and their suppliers ' employee ) . According to an APIadpromoting its 9 million occupation claim , make task can admit just about everybody , from bakers to depository financial institution Edward Teller , lawyers to librarians , and literal demesne agent to retail shop assistant . All told , the ad cites 42 line categories .
Keeping that in brain , let ’s face at IHS ’s numbers . The consult business firm says that last year unconventional shale crude oil and flatulence development and " energy - related chemical substance activity " supported some 2.1 million task in the lower-48 states . About 494,000 were direct jobs , most 640,000 were indirect Job , and nearly 1 million were rush . About 17,300 of the workers IHS include in its lineal jobs family in reality act at chemical substance plants that manufacture natural gasoline - based products . IHS counts them because it says they would n’t have jobs were it not for the " revolution " in unconventional oil and gas output .
lease ’s put apart indirect and induced Book of Job stats , which are imprecise at good , and focus on the most reliable data for direct jobs . According tothe Department of Labor ’s Bureau of Labor Statistics , the oil and accelerator industry use 570,251 people at the end of last yr . That includes worker in conventional and unconventional development , as well as 13,641 mass in Alaska . leave off the Alaskan workforce , there were 556,610 employee in the lower-48 states .
When you compare IHS ’s number with government data , IHS ’s numbers do n’t tally up . Even if you do n’t count the chemical substance industriousness job , which should be turn over indirect anyway , IHS is essentially saying that 85 per centum of the oil and gas industriousness ’s employees in the lower-48 state are take in shale fracking - related piece of work . That ’s just not plausible . And no matter how much the industry huffs and puffs about millions of jobs , the fact is the bit of the great unwashed it employs directly — 570,251 — amounts toonly one - one-half of 1 percentage of total U.S. individual - sector jobs .
The hidden cost of crude oil and gasolene
So what about that extra $ 1,200 that Americans supposedly found in their wallets last year ? That ’s IHS ’s estimation of how much more each U.S. menage would have had to spend if shale oil and accelerator were result in the primer . All distinguish , the consulting business firm estimate that U.S. households write $ 138 billion last yr and bode the savings will jump to $ 2,700 per household in 2020 and $ 3,500 in 2025 .
Again , IHS is not recite the whole story . There ’s no doubt that lower natural accelerator prices have save consumer money over the last few years , but there are other cistron that have contributed to lour electrical energy and heat bills , include boil down demand and energy efficiency . And natural gas toll are unlikely to remain so low . The Department of Energy ’s Energy Information Administration ( EIA)projectsthat after 2015 , rude gas price will rise steadily over the next three decades .
So the consumer welfare are in all likelihood impermanent , but what about oil and gas ’s social costs ? They ’re potentially permanent — at least when it comes to the climate . It ’s here where IHS study is the most deceptive : It exit out the bad news .
First of all , oil and gas production causes air and piddle contamination and , of course of action , spills . The 2010 BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is in all probability the most extreme late example of what can go wrong , but since then there have been more than 600 crude pipelinespillsacross the country , the worst of which fouled Michigan ’s Kalamazoo River with more than 840,000 gallons of rock oil . And just last hebdomad , monumental implosion therapy trigger off at least 18 fall in Colorado . [ Arkansans Still hurt Effects from ooze Oil Months After Mayflower Spill ( Op - Ed ) ]
On the consumption side , the transportation sphere — which still mainly runs on oil — answer for fornearly 30 percent of U.S. global thaw emissions and is thebiggest sourceofair pollutionnationwide . scientist have linked chemical substance and particulates in vehicle exhaust fumes to cancer and cardiovascular and respiratory disease . And , a late MITstudypublished in the journalAtmospheric Environmentreviewed breeze pollution datum from about 5,700 U.S. cities and found that vehicle fumes causes 53,000 premature deaths every yr .
But rock oil ’s social cost go beyond death and disease . In 1998 , the International Center for Technology Assessment ( ICTA ) issued areport , " The Real Price of Gasoline , " that factor in oil and gun diligence tax breach and subsidy ; the U.S. military mien in oil - rich regions ; environmental , wellness and societal costs ; and other externality , include climate variety - related policy losses . The report card may be dated , but its finish are still illuminating . It reckon that the price tag for all of gasolene ’s external cost ranges from $ 800.7 billion to $ 2.4 trillion in today ’s clam — dwarf IHS ’s estimate of $ 138 billion in vim savings last twelvemonth .
ICTA made its calculations based on an assessment of conventional fossil oil developing . There ’s less heavy data when it get to more recent , unlawful approaches to fossil oil and gas drilling . A September 2012reportby the Government Accountability Office ( GAO ) on fracking ’s environmental and public wellness risk of exposure reason that those risks , which are primarily to air and water quality , remain largely strange .
Adrienne Alvord , the Union of Concerned Scientists ' ( UCS ) western states film director , explains why the GAO number up empty - handed . " inquiry about the safety , public health and environmental impacts of fracking have been difficult to serve in many case because circumscribed information is uncommitted in the public land due to a combining of trade secret protections and odd , weak or nonexistent regulations , " she said at a UCS - buy at frackingforumin July . " It ’s even hard to determine where , when and how fracking may be drive post . "
Nevertheless , we do know that oil color and gas developers areexemptfrom key provision of at least seven of the 15 major Union environmental Pentateuch that protect air and water from toxic chemical substance . Giving the manufacture a free base on balls to flout these safeguards not only allows it to pollute with impunity , it also agitate the price of monitoring , remediation and cleansing to taxpayers and can have a annihilating impact on local community where frackers have lay out up shop .
On the intake side , born gasoline may be the clean fogy fuel , but it is still a major contributor to global warming . The electric power sphere calculate for nearly 40 per centum of U.S. C pollution , and last class innate gas — which latterly has been put back aging coal and nuclear readiness — was responsible for a quarter of those emissions , according toEIA . If more utility turn to natural flatulency during the next few decade , the galvanising power sector could emit 5 percentage to 25 percentage more carbon paper emission than today ’s level through 2050 , accord to a novel UCSreport , " petrol cap : Assessing the Climate Risks of an Overreliance on Natural Gas for Electricity . "
The bottom line ? The cost of exempting the diligence from environmental regulations and failing to rule in its carbon emissions far outweighs any little - term benefits the IHS study tout , exaggerated or not .
Fortunately , there are practical , low-cost ways to get to where we need to go . UCS ’s National Oil Savings Plan , for example , demonstrateshow the United States can sheer projected crude use in half over the next 20 days by developing downcast - carbon fuel and galvanising vehicles , expanding public transportation alternatives , and improving the energy efficiency of plane , train , ships , factories and dwelling house . Likewise , UCS ’s " Gas Ceiling " write up recommend steps that local , state and Union government can take to meliorate free energy efficiency and boost renewable vim ’s share of the electric power supplying to 25 percent by 2025 and 80 percentage by 2050 , which the Energy Department ’s National Renewable Energy Laboratorysaysis eminently feasible with today ’s commercially available technology .
In the meantime , expect to see a firm stream of slick , industry - fund studies spurt over oil and flatulence . Do n’t be horse around . It ’s all too appropriate that one of the patronage groups that pay for the IHS study was the Fertilizer Institute .
Negin ’s most late Op - Ed was : " Senator ’s Policies Leave People and the Planet in Bad Health . “This article was adapted from " The Oil & Gas Industry ’s Fractured Fairy Tales , " which appeared on the Huffington Post . The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily ponder the view of the publisher . This version of the clause was originally published onLiveScience .
