Whether you consider problems of fracking people will object to, or whether you make a thorough economic analysis considering the “externalized costs,” which must be borne by society, it doesn’t pay. The (problems-externalized costs) just keep coming. Most recently, radioactivity drawn up from the black shale has come to attention.

Several decades ago, at the beginning of the atomic power era, black shale was given as an inexhaustible supply of material for atomic reactors. It took several decades to get our heads straight on that one, but the sources of radioactivity are still down there, still soluble, and come up with the frack water returning to the the surface and contaminating wherever it goes.

Global warming is an insurmountable attribute of producing carbon dioxide, and worse, methane. There is no way to get around it. Some 90 percent goes into the ocean, and will come out again if some means is invented to sequester it, so ten times as much as is in the air must be removed to reduce the level causing damage by heating!

Still one more problem, or externalized cost is never mentioned. Our gargantuan military is necessary to assure sale of the fracked gas overseas. Many other places in the world have vast reserves of free flowing oil and gas, look at references for oil and gas reserves by country. They haven’t exported their free flowing petroleum in times past as the United States has.

The technology needed to extract it is not so complex nor so expensive. Many of them can ship to Europe and China by pipe, too. Much cheaper than liquefaction, shipping by tanker and re-gasification for gas, or shipping by tanker for oil. Arab countries we buddy with in spite of the fact they are autocratic, but Russia and Iran and others we bully to prevent sale of their resource.

One of the main jobs of out military is to do the heavy lifting on this project. Around one fourth of the national budget is to maintain the military.

Is fracking worth it? How long will it take before our society catches on?