What's the rush?

10/22/13

Why are we as a global society pushing for advances in fracking at such a high pace? Why aren't we being more cautious with fracking technologies? Oil companies are trying to push fracking into real world use as quickly as they can for a number of reasons.

The main influence in most technological advances: Greed. The big oil companies all want to make as much money as they can, and then some. They realize the "next best thing" for energy use could be fracking due to it being inherently cleaner than coal. These oil and gas companies are expediting the widespread use of fracking so that it will catch on around the world allowing for increased fracking. Without worrying about the unknown consequences of fracking, oil companies are causing a revolution of sorts with energy.

Another potential reason for this immense focus switch from oil to fracking could be due to the dwindling amount of oil left in already discovered reserves. As Klare discusses in his book, The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources, many, if not all of our current oil wells around the world have been either stagnated or have begun to decline in productivity. This is largely due to our large extraction and consumption of oil to fulfill the current global need for oil as energy. New wells are becoming harder and harder to find in safe environments and so energy companies must either resort to drilling in very dangerous environments (like off the coast of Greenland or Norway), or focus their efforts on a new energy source - Fracking for natural gas.

Energy companies have been influencing the way the world and the U.S. specifically react to new technologies. Instead of being a precautionary approach to technology, we have a head first approach where we only worry fixing consequences of our actions instead of preventing them in the first place. In an ideal situation in terms of environmental friendliness, we would focus more on "doing the science" behind new technologies and making sure we understand and perfect them before implementing them in our daily lives. Energy companies nowadays do not want this to be the case and so by pushing fracking as hard as they can, they are effectively stopping a precautionary approach from being feasible. Unfortunately, this is causing the world to be in a more now-centered approach to living as opposed to one that worries about the long term. The long term has been put on the back-burner and is not even thought about from most of these large energy companies. All they are focusing on is making as much money as they can, as quickly as they can. The precautionary approach to technology would also change how regulation is dealt with. In society today, uncertainty becomes a barrier for regulating new technologies and techniques. However, if we had a different approach, we would be able to pass regulations in order to make new technologies safe and effective before they are used, as opposed to being unable to implement any form of regulation on these technologies.

As we continue to make the transition between coal and natural gas, regulation and technological understanding should play key roles in how energy continues to be handled. Fast-pushing any new technology can have clear downsides that may not be foreseen without proper understanding first. Whether or not energy companies research and follow safety precautions is wholly up to them. But from an outsider's perspective, the correct procedure seems glaringly obvious: Do the science before implementing any new piece of technology.

"Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate." (Alvin Toffler)