Energy or environment; Obama has
to pick one of them while implementing the gas extraction plan where a
procedure hydraulic fracturing is to be adopted for its implementation.
What is hydraulic fracturing?
Under the process of the
hydraulic fracturing millions of gallon water along with the sand and certain chemicals
are injected underground to split the rocks and extract gas from them. Owing to
this procedure the mixture of the water, sand and chemicals pose big environmental
threat to the underground water and other flora and fauna. It may also spill
back to the surface in huge quantity and hits the land especially fertility of
the agriculture land.
US EPA wants to regulate hydraulic fracturing
Environmental Protection Agency
of USA has proposed to regulate this procedure of gas extraction. It suggested restricting
the gas explorers to treat the mixture of the water, sand and chemicals before
letting it come back over the surface. Similarly they have to adopt measures to
make this mixture minimum harmful to the underground land and its environment. This
proposal is in draft form which needs to be approved by the President Barrack
Obama after its necessary approval from the US parliament.
Energy at the cost of environment is opposed
Environmentalists in US are
putting pressure over the US administration to regulate the substance produced from
the process of the hydraulic fracturing while extracting the gas. They are of
the view that energy at the cost of environment can never be a green energy. It
may be recalled that green aspect of the entire recent election campaign of
Obama revolved around the green energy so he is bound to fulfill his pre-poll
promise.
Energy producers want minimum restrictions
Energy sector players are
supporting minimum regulations over the hydraulic fracturing procedure for the gas
extraction. This method is quite cheap if environmental aspect is not given so
much importance. If it undergoes strict environmental regulation then the cost
of the gas extracted through this process may rise to the abnormally high
level. Therefore, energy sector leaders are advocating the minimum or
preferably nor restrictions over this procedure.
Energy or environment; all eyes on US
On the other hand entire world is
also curiously observing this whole affair because the decision of the Obama
administration on this score would become a benchmark for the rest of the world
to follow. Other nations of the world are also quite hopeful for applying the process
of the hydraulic fracturing to extract the gas. Obviously they would also have
to regulate the watery mixture used in this procedure before letting it flow
back to the water bodies.
Conclusion
It remains to be seen how Obama
and his administration deal with this issue. Obviously there is a mid-way
solution of every problem but for the issues related to nature such type of
solutions cannot work with their true spirit. For such sensitive issues one has
to take a hard decision. You cannot please both environment and polluters
through one decision. If Obama administration softens the regulation then
environment would ultimately suffer. If it goes for the stricter one even then
gas prices would move up. It will raise the prices of the commodities and
services of all the sectors which directly or indirectly are reliant on gas as
their fuel for the manufacturing. Let’s see what Obama administration will
decide in days to come.
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