The "Rally to Fight Fracking" in Harrisburg, Pa., last week got the name wrong. "Rally to Fight Jobs" would have been a better title because stopping fracking - the endgame of the anti-fracking crowd - would cost Pennsylvania many thousands of jobs.

Without hydraulic fracturing technology - which essentially uses water pressure to create fissures in rock to allow natural gas and oil to come to the surface - Pennsylvania would not be able to develop more than a small fraction of its immense natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale formation that runs under much of the state.

This could mean stopping an energy renaissance that is already producing enormous economic benefits, including large numbers of high-wage jobs that are driving unemployment down and putting food on the table f... more »

Houston Chronicle: Shale Work Benefits Railroads: Wherever oil and natural gas comes out of the ground, plenty of people make money, from the landowners and investors to the drilling equipment companies and crew workers. So do the companies that provide services to those people. The railroads are among those companies, and they are grateful for the new South Texas oil and gas play known as the Eagle Ford shale. Omaha, Neb.-based Union Pacific Corp. has reopened a nearly dormant switching yard near downtown, has reactivated short lines in South Texas and has organized two new business development units, one to track down new customers and another to assist existing customers with their expanded needs stemming from the Eagle Ford...Union Pacific has not only rehired all the Texas workers it... more »

You've probably heard the line: The United States holds 2 percent of the world's oil reserves but consumes 25 percent of the world's oil. It's boilerplate rhetoric for folks who'd like Americans to think the United States is both running out of its own oil and using too much of everyone else's. President Obama has used this misleading line in two major policy speeches recently (here and here), and others have followed suit.

Let's focus on the first point. The 2 percent stat lacks context and a false impression results. The figure refers to "proved" reserves - that is, an official classification of oil "that has been discovered (and) is economically and commercially viable," says API's Marcus Koblitz. The McKelvey Diagram below illustrates how narrow the definition is:

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murko... more »

Good discussion of hydraulic fracturing Wednesday at the American Enterprise Institute, which hosted a panel that included Reason magazine science writer Ronald Bailey, University of Wyoming economist Timothy Considine, the Environmental Defense Fund's Mark Brownstein and the Natural Resources Defense Council's Amy Mall. The key takeaways:

• In terms of fracking methods and technology, so-called "best practices" are coming from free-market competition, not the prod of government regulation, Bailey said. Although Brownstein is more of a regulation proponent, he acknowledged government rules aren't always needed to coax innovation.
• Hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania has produced 50,000 new jobs, according to Considine, who authored a 2010 report to API on the impacts of shale gas developmen... more »

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson telling a House committee there's no evidence hydraulic fracturing has affected water supplies isn't totally new news. Jackson has said similar things before. But in the context of the current public debate over "fracking," it's huge. Here's Associated Press energy reporter Dina Cappiello's Tweet from the hearing:

@dinacappiello EPA admin Lisa Jackson at House oversight hearing: "I'm not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water."

Think about it: Of all the officials in the federal government, Jackson would have heard if fracking - injecting a mixture that's 99.5 percent water and sand into subterranean rock to free trapped natural gas and oil - was tainting water. Anywhere.

Maybe the administrator's latest statement will... more »