Paul Krugman may be a Nobel Prize–winning economist, but his most recent column in the New York Times, which condemns hydraulic fracturing and praises solar energy, displays an astounding disinterest in numbers and woeful ignorance of the facts.
Without providing any sources, Krugman writes, “We know that [fracturing] produces toxic (and radioactive) wastewater that contaminates drinking water; there is reason to suspect, despite industry denials, that it also contaminates groundwater.”
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Huh? Over the past 60 years, the process of hydraulic fracturing has been used more than 1 million times on oil and gas wells here in the U.S. If fracturing were as dangerous as Krugman implies, then hundreds, perhaps thousands, of water wells would have been contaminated by now. And surely the public would have been made aware of those many contaminated wells.
Krugman could have consulted the Times’s own reporting on this subject. Over the past year or so, NYT journalist Ian Urbina has been writing extensively about the oil-and-gas sector and fracturing in particular. Urbina has spent months, some of it working with the Environmental Working Group, to document cases of water wells that have been contaminated by fracturing. Urbina’s finding: One water well in West Virginia was likely contaminated by fracturing in 1984. After laying out the details of the contamination, Urbina writes, “Drilling technology and safeguards in well design have improved significantly since then.”
Or, Krugman could have looked at the findings of a multi-year study on natural gas released last summer by the MIT Energy Initiative. The 170-page report addresses hydraulic fracturing directly, saying, “The fracturing process itself poses minimal risk to the shallow groundwater zones that may exist in the upper portion of the wellbore.” The report goes on, “The physical realities of the fracturing process, combined with the lack of reports from the many wells to date of fracture fluid contamination of groundwater, supports the assertion that fracturing itself does not create environmental concerns.”
Krugman, who continually writes about the need for more jobs in America, also might have considered the jobs that are being created by the oil-and-gas sector, both directly and indirectly. Over the past 18 months or so, some 48,000 people have been hired in Pennsylvania by companies working in the Marcellus Shale. In August, Halliburton announced it would hire 11,000 new workers this year in North America, most of them to work on shale-related projects. Better still, none of those jobs require Solyndra-style subsidies.
Hydraulic fracturing is driving down the cost of natural gas, which creates jobs in other sectors, including steel and petrochemicals. From 2005 to 2008, U.S. natural-gas prices averaged about $7 per thousand cubic feet, but today, the spot price is well below $4; the price drop saves consumers about $60 billion per year. In March, Nucor, America’s biggest steel producer, broke ground on a new $750 million direct-reduced-iron plant in Louisiana. The availability of low-cost natural gas enabled the project. Nucor may ultimately invest $3 billion in steel plants in Louisiana that could create as many as 1,000 permanent, high-paying jobs. Meanwhile, the abundance of low-cost natural-gas liquids has convinced several major chemical producers to announce expansions of existing plants as well as the construction of new facilities on the Gulf Coast and in Appalachia.
Krugman is only interested in one job-- his own. His perverse 'logic' has taken him to advocating war or alien invasions as he blithely ignores actual solutions to our energy problems. Yes he is cheap, abundantly sophistic, and truly unreliable.
Ahh Lemnos, Krugman is actually quite reliable. He can be relied on to get it wrong 100% of the time. His columns are simply mailed in opinions, and like most self anointed liberal elites, he cannot be fettered with anything so mundane as facts.
Krugman is the classic example of the modern day Luddite. Indeed, most Lefties are Luddites masquerading as people who care about "science".
In the meantime, I wonder if people like Krugman ever disconnected themselves from the power grid and use only solar panels and only drive electric cars, and never ever fly to go anywhere.
I read Special K's op-ed. It's a screamer. Most of his are. He really starts with a bang by getting Moore's Law wrong in the second sentence of the article (Moore's law has nothing to do with prices).
I'm puzzled, though, by how he objects to fracking on the grounds that it will cause roads to be torn up by increased truck traffic. Shouldn't he be in love with this, like "I wanna have your baby" in love? Isn't endlessly repairing roads basically the cornerstone of Keynesian economic policy? A conscientious liberal Keynesian Democrat like himself should be tumescent at the thought of endless union road work. Surely repairing roads is a more realistic way to jump start the economy than wishing for aliens to come blow things up, but it's basically the same boat.
The name of Special K's blog should be changed from The Conscience of a Liberal to The Stupidity of a Moron.
Yes, Moore's law is about the expansion of computer power. I think in this case Krugman is suggesting that the expansion of solar output might be happening under similar rules, which seems like a reasonable enough point.
Of course that doesn't give us power today or tomorrow - if we're lucky it might in 10 years or so. And since battery storage is pretty expensive, it seems unlikely to give us power for lights or heat.
It could be pretty nice for air conditioning, though. In ten years.
Sun is also not well distributed geographically. Most of America's population, sadly, lives in gloomy areas where there is something called "Winter". Apparently, during winter it gets very cold and the sun is rarely seen. The unfortunates living in these areas are not going to benefit significantly from solar power unless it's distributed to them from hundreds or thousands of miles away, which doesn't sound efficient or cost-effective.
Even here in Palm Beach County, Florida, where a 70degF day is cause to break out the heavy jackets and winter coats, there are occasional gloomy days when the sun doesn't perform as advertised. Fortunately since about half our electricity use is air conditioning, solar power is a perfect fit - you are using the reason to run air conditioning to power the AC, which seems perfect to me.
By the way, I am under the impression that in order to get permission to drill, gas companies are practically falling over each other to pay "reasonable" taxes. I'm sure local communities will figure out a fair way to get roads fixed. It's a genuine issue but reasonable folks can work it out.
Oh, I was just told to type "Get Plugged In" and it made me think of the Nissan Leaf! Then I actually looked and noticed the ad was for the Volt. Not sure if this capatcha system works as well as advertisers think it does ...
I do love the vision of being able to use solar power to run my air conditioner for free, and being able to charge my (currently nonexistent) Tesla Model S ($60,000-odd). But has it occurred to anyone that cars are generally gone during the day and at home during the night, when there is no sun?
In short, solar power is great if it can be cost effective but I'm afraid we're stuck with fossil fuels for most of our power, pretty much forever. Unless we all move down here to Palm Beach County, and I'm not sure we're ready for that much of a housing boom again.
The original Moore's law stated that the number of transistors on a die would double every (I believe) 18 months. Since the largest single factor in the cost of a computer chip is based on the surface area of that chip, packing more transistors in less area will result in cheaper chips.
There are no transistors in a solar cell. So the idea that Moore's law could be applied to solar cells is ludicrous.
Mr. Krugman does not care whether or not your house is heated or how you get to work. To him, you are nothing more than a tax-paying robot who would best serve the elite by keeping your mouth shut and your wallet open.
Once you get a Nobel Prize facts no longer matter. Ever since Yasser Arafat was awarded a Nobel Prize these things were thereafter made bereft of any moral or social value and have infected, by such association, the good standing of all those real winners that came before him.
There is greater moral status in rejecting any such 'accolade' rather than be eternally put in the company of the likes of Arafat and now Krugman.
Its a shame that NRO is compelled to constantly point out the woeful ignorance (I'm being polite) of Krugman. However, considering his high standing at the NYT and the fact that so many people still look to him and his ilk for "information" it is a good thing that NRO keeps their eye on the ball. Alas, it must be hard to keep informing the herd.
That's the sad paradox of Paul Krugman. He's great when he sticks to pure economics. When he does that he's a powerful antidote to all the crank economists that infest sites like this. However, when he strays into environmental issues, he makes a fool of himself. Paul should stick with what he knows.
The sad paradox is that there are many, many people that should have stuck with what they knew. O knew community agitation, and as he tries to continue the same in a different position it becomes obvious that he doesn't have a clue.
Another sad paradox is that libs such as your self think you are elightened by the mere fact of your leftness. You believe merely calling someone a "crank" makes them so. Sowell and The KTS people perhaps make too much sense for you and you have a tough time handling sense. It's a tough call. Studied ignorance is difficult to maintain.
Please. My use of the word "paradox" was in direct response to the above post. I merely used it in the context of which it was originally used. You could chalk this up to a shot at sarcasm. If I opted to criticize every grammatical or word choice error on these posts, I wouldn't have time to respond to your particular type of nitpicking.
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