The Benefits of Fracking

I am tired of special interests driving a purely negative discussion on fracking in the US.  Fracking has some very real, tangible benefits to the average person.  What is that benefit in terms average people can understand?  Let's try and make an estimate.

If you look at the historical natural gas price trend, were it not for fracking we would be paying at least $8/mcf for natural gas.  That is still less than Europe.  Instead we are paying around $4 (ignoring the current spike due to an especially cold winter). 

Let's look at the benefit to the average person in the US: We consume 26 trillion cu ft of natural gas per year.  An extra $4/mcf would be $108 billion or $340/person. Man, woman and child.  That $340 a year is equivalent to one Big Mac meal per week per person.  Or a year's worth of Friday-night movie tickets.  Or for the elite intellectuals, $340 is equal to 5 bottles of Philippe Foreau Domaine du Clos Naudin Vouvray Reserve Moelleux or 4 steak dinners at Peter Luger's.

Cheaper natural gas disproportionately benefits the poor.  In the US, 46 million folks live below the poverty line.  Those folks spend about 6% of their money on electricity and natural gas for heating.  They spend about the same for food.  So, if you raise the cost of their fuel and electricity (in a gas-fired plant doubling the fuel cost raises the electricity cost by about 70%), they get quite a bit less to eat. Or, they freeze. 

Lower gas prices are not a promise of good things to come.  This is a benefit that real  folks are getting right now.

How many average people want to give up their fancy wine, steaks, movies Big Macs, or the health of poor families?  That is the inconvenient alternative.

While the average person in the US is getting these benefits, I don't doubt that the societal costs are being borne disproportionately by those living near fracking.  I would not particularly want a gas well next door. I would not really want to share my local road with a bunch of frack trucks and well servicing trucks.   I might be inclined to test my water well a few times. Folks in that situation might make a lot of noise and try to get fracking banned.  They might find very sympathetic, vocal friends in the environmental lobby. But, they wouldn't be average people. They would be a tiny group with special interests. 

Cheaper gas and electricity in the US means we can compete better in manufacturing, have more jobs, and have higher average incomes.  Cheaper gas means less coal, less nuclear, less birds killed in windmills.  

So, before asking folks if they want fracking, tell them what it is going to cost them to not have fracking.