Dirty Gas Has No Place in a Clean Power Plan – Pennsylvanians Against Fracking Position Statement

Pennsylvanians Against Fracking supports the swift and just transition to 100% renewable energy. We oppose the continued reliance on any and all fossil fuels. Since shale gas development began in Pennsylvania, every administration has aggressively promoted, not just continued but expanded, reliance on natural gas. This has spurred shale gas development and its inevitable damage and is absolutely unacceptable.

Gov. Wolf plans to rely on natural gas in his Clean Power Plan by building new gas power plants and using shale gas to meet energy needs, despite the damage this will cause. The Obama administration has also promoted an increased reliance on natural gas, touting it as a bridge fuel to get the nation through the transition to renewable energy because it is considered to be cleaner than coal and oil. When burned, it generates about half the CO2 than that of coal or oil.

If that was the whole story of natural gas and climate change, there would still be plenty of reasons to oppose continued shale gas development — contaminated water, polluted air, illnesses, deaths, destruction of natural resources, and many others. However, natural gas’ role in climate change cannot be fully understood without looking beyond consumption to see its impacts during production.

When unconventional drilling began in Pennsylvania, little peer-reviewed science had been done on the new technology. The Environmental Protection Agency incorrectly assumed that methane release rates at well pads were negligible. We now know that a 3% leakage rate at well pads alone cancels any climate benefit natural gas provides when burned; leakage rates of more than double that are typical. Even worse, leaks occur at every phase of production; processing, transmission, and distribution. In addition, every well drilled today will join a legacy of hundreds of thousands of old wells that leak methane unless they are maintained every 25 years. The state has not even located the vast majority of the old wells yet, much less maintained them or developed a system to maintain the new glut of legacy wells.

The only solution is to stop fracking and speed the transition to 100% renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation. Methods for accomplishing that as soon as 2050 have been proposed. All of the methods rely on honest scientific and technical analysis to guide us forward, and aggressive measures requiring political will, measures not found in the Clean Power Plan (CPP) put forward by the Obama administration. Some may view the CPP as a small step forward, but small steps are not helpful when you are at the edge of a cliff and it’s the leap that will save you. Make no mistake, we are collectively at the precipice.

Unfortunately, its lack of sufficiently aggressive measures is not the only problem with the Clean Power Plan. In fact, the Clean Power Plan may well do far more harm than good. It may ensure that we will be unable to avert warming the planet beyond the 2 degree C climate scientists have been telling us for several years is the point of no return. More recently, climate scientists have noted more extreme climate impacts at a 1 degree C change than they’d anticipated. At COP21 in Paris in December, 2015, representatives of island nations implored world leaders to agree to reduce the target to 1.5 degrees C. Their nations will be under water by the time the planet hits 2 degrees C.

Wanda Guthrie is an environmental activist, and Thomas Merton Center, GreenFaith and Pennsylvanians Against Fracking Steering Committee member.

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