FRACKING: GOOD THING
Natural gas is rapidly emerging as a major fuel of the world economy, meeting the rising requirements of natural gas is hard to achieve. Fracking is one of the most important technologies for natural gas production. Fracking has been used widely in oil and gas industry for decades; it is a technique used to get gas and oil from shale rock. The process of fracking is injecting the mixture of water, sand and chemicals into the rock at a high pressure to release gas (BBC, 2013). Fracking technology experiences long time of development. In 1947, Stanolind Oil conducted the first experimental fracturing to stimulate natural gas; in 1949 Halliburton conducted the first commercial fracturing to extract natural gas (Montgomery and Smith, 2010). Until 2003 fracking was used widely, energy companies actively expand natural gas exploration in Texas and Pennsylvania (Eecworld, 2010). fracking played an important role in America's natural gas resources for many years and countries such as Canada, England and China are actively pursuing implementation of fracking. Nationally, fracking can boost energy industry and promote economic grow in countries. However, like any advanced technology, it can also raise environmental concerns, cause water and air pollution. Therefore, whether the advantages of fracking worth the disadvantages? Yes, it worth. fracking is good, so it should be used on a massive scale to contribute to the increasing demands of energy.
There are three economy advantages of fracking. Firstly, fracking can increase natural gas production. With enough supply of natural gas can meet countries’ domestic demand for natural gas at current high levels consumption of natural gas for more than decades. Nowadays, countries such as America, Russia and Qatar are using fracking as a way to enhance natural gas production to meet the demand of natural gas and fracking makes the exploitation of high amounts of natural gas become true (Economides and Martin, 2008). Especially for US, fracking makes US become the world’s first in shale gas production and shale gas accounted for 39% of all natural gas in US in 2012 (Koch, 2013). And in 2035, shale gas production would increase to 50% of total natural gas production in US (Sergie, 2013). Shale is big proportion of natural gas, so fracking can be used widely in extracting natural gas. Moreover, fracking has contributed to the US energy production. In 2007, natural gas from fracking accounted for 10% of total US energy production, with the increasing amount of fracking activities, it rose to 30% in 2010 (Mcelroy, 2013). The increasing amount of natural gas can significantly help reduce the net import of natural gas. In 2005, the natural gas imports is 30% of total energy consumption in US; in 2012, it decreased to 12% and the predict in 2040 is only 4% (Eia, 2013). So the increased natural gas extraction can positively impact energy trade balance in US.
Secondly, fracking can increase employment for countries. The increasing amount of fracking activities can boom jobs and increase the number of people employed directly in production activities. In 2010, fracking supported more than 600,000 jobs in US, and the number will be likely increasing to 870,000 in 2015 (Hassett and Mathur, 2013). Moreover, natural gas extraction in the Marcellus shale region contributed 44,000 jobs to the economy in 2012 (Hassett and Mathur, 2013). Furthermore, by 2025, fracking can create 515,000 manufacturing jobs in US and average US household disposal income can more than $ 2,700 (Thomasnet, 2013). In UK, fracking needs to be done to create jobs to ensure exploration companies to seize the energy market (Reuters, 2013). In Britain, fracking supports one third of jobs in kinds of area and shale gas industry create more than 74,000 jobs (Chorley, 2013). Also in Canada New Brunswick area, fracking plays a great role in creating jobs that one well can create more than 20 jobs each year (Vincent, 2013).