Bernie Sanders is now calling for a nationwide ban on fracking | Hacker News Reader

Bernie Sanders is now calling for a nationwide ban on fracking

inhabitat.com

33 pointsneurobuddha31 comments

Sometimes I think Sanders is just the anti-Trump. And while I think Trump likely would normalize if elected, my feeling is Sanders has more real intention behind his rhetoric.

What I mean by opposite sides of the same coin is that neither, if elected, would deliver on their unrealistic goals and policies they have set themselves up for. So, I feel their maneuvering, if either is elected will lead to disappointment by the electorate.

The immediate problem with fracturing as I see it is unregulated wastewater discharge. They need to regulate that. They don't need to throw out the baby with the bath(waste)water.

> The immediate problem with fracturing as I see it is unregulated wastewater discharge. They need to regulate that. They don't need to throw out the baby with the bath(waste)water.

Regardless of fixing the underlying mismanagement of fracking waste, which is never going to get fixed due to the incentives to oil rig service teams not to, the problem is we shouldn't be burning natural gas.

There is enough clean, renewable wind and solar in the US to satisfy all of our energy needs, several times over. To replace coal, natural gas, and nuclear in their entirety. Its time we stop being pathetic on this issue as a country and scale up.

US Wind Potential: http://www.nrel.gov/gis/pdfs/windsmodel4pub1-1-9base200904en... (warning: PDF)

US Solar Potential: http://energy.gov/maps/solar-energy-potential

Understood, long term yes. But it's better than coal. So till we get to 100% renewable, we need an acceptable vehicle to take us there.

We don't need to frack to obtain natural gas though.

It helps keep prices of natural gas lower than coal, which is helping drive coal out of business. Its also hurting nuclear though, which we don't want.

> the problem is we shouldn't be burning natural gas

Agreed, in the long term. But we have to get there from here, and I think that a clean-burning resource like gas is probably the lowest priority problem on our long list of disgusting energy issues.

I agree it must be done. But who is going to enforce it? Conservatives have been extremely haphazard in letting tight oil producers due what they want, environment be damned.

If someone gets into office with a big enough stick, it might get solved.

But we don't need to frack to obtain natural gas. It seems to me the only reason to frack is because we plan to use every bit of easily obtainable natural gas, which probably isn't good for the environment.

> because we plan to use every bit of easily obtainable natural gas, which probably isn't good for the environment

It isn't good for the environment, but it's better for the environment than any other non-renewable resource.

It's not that we shouldn't try to reduce dependence on natural gas, or reduce waste, or reduce consumption- it's that anybody picking on natural gas specifically, would produce far better results for the environment by focusing their efforts on coal or oil.

Yes. I agree.

However, when industry gives 0 shits for external costs because they can 'get away with it' then I can see taking a hardline approach. E.g. Bernie is essentially saying: "Hey you guys screwed up, you polluted the environment, tried to hide this fact by funding shoddy research. You could have been adults at the table by acting on the early reports or done better on the cleanup, but you didn't do the right thing. So we the people need to punish you, and there is no better way than by taking away your toys."

It's a hardline stance, but hell if your tap water became flammable you might feel the above is perfectly reasonable. Now add this across the nation with all the other examples of large entities unfairly getting away with it and we can all understand why Trump/Sanders are popular.

Fracking has a great deal of problems besides waste water. The process it's self inherently has a high risk of ground water contamination, a very large amount of methane is released into the atmosphere and on just a business level many of the wells never turn a overall profit for the investors the companies get good money up front and the well investors are left with the bill.

> The immediate problem with fracturing as I see it is unregulated wastewater discharge. They need to regulate that. They don't need to throw out the baby with the bath(waste)water.

I think this is one of two immediate problems with fracking, the other being that there's far too little oversight when wells are being drilled, so we have no idea whether they've been cemented properly. Most of the problems we've had in PA have resulted from poorly cemented (and thus leaky) wells.

"And while I think Trump likely would normalize if elected, my feeling I Sanders has more real intention behind his rhetoric."

That sounds to me like, "I'm sure he'll straighten up if I marry him."

It simply doesn't work like that.

I'm not denying that Sanders has more intention behind his words. But I don't expect Trump to suddenly start making good and reasoned policy decisions just because he gets elected.

There was a gold-played in the New York Times I saw once speculating on a Trump/Sanders debate that went something like this:

Moderator: Mr Trump, how will construct your wall, and how will you pay for it if Mexico refuses?

Trump: We aren't gonna take no for an answer. Mexico is gonna pay for that wall, believe me.

Moderator: Senator Sanders, how will you pass your policy ideas through a recalcitrant congress?

Sanders: We need a political revolution! People need to vote in large numbers and elect people who will support my bills.

Moderator: Thank you both for your detailed and informative responses.

The amusing part is that Hillary will face the same pressures as Sanders in trying to push even moderate or GOP-appeasing policy through the current congress.

So the only policy that would get passed is the ones which benefit the funders of both the GOP and centrist Democrats - ie, corporate friendly legislation like the TPP and/or perhaps revenue repatriation tax holiday.

Sanders' benefit (from a progressive viewpoint) is that at the very least, he is a guaranteed veto on stuff like that. Meanwhile he would be drumming daily on voting out those who oppose his policies instead of caving to the GOP/Centrists.

This. And that's why "settling" for a centrist democrat simply slows the slide into corporate ownership of the US. The real issue here is having winner-take-all elections. We'd have a much more spirited public debate if we had ranked-choice voting.

I think that sums them up and the process pretty well. Sadly true.

Here in PA, the Marcellus shale is pretty well fracked already. A ban would do precious little to stop shale gas extraction here, since the fracking operations have mostly moved on. Time and money would be much better spent ensuring that transportation and storage operations are conducted safely.

I've seen plenty of articles about the potential negative impacts of fracking, but does anyone have a well-written piece on domestic fracking's upsides? Cheap gas as economic stimulus and a lessening dependence on foreign oil seem like they hold some sway on the issue.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/brookings-now/posts/2015/03/e... is a good start, but the biggest benefits come from being less reliant on petrostates like Saudi Arabia, Venezula and Russia, as well as causing economic pressure which reduces fundamentalism in the bellicose petrostates.

Instead, it will create the petrostates in our own country. We still have to buy the end result from energy companies one way or another.

The only ones who profit from fracking directly are the energy companies who sell into the commoditized market.

Perhaps check out: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/fury-over-frackin...

(Don't let the title get in your way.)

I left reddit to come to HN to get away from constant Bernie/Trump posts. Oh well.

This is silly! Absolutism is not tenable.

Fracking may be bad for the environment in absolute terms, but it also has effectively made the US energy independent.

Geopolitically, this is a brain dead position to take.

By "energy independent" you still mean the US is dependent on fossil fuels? Because fracking is not sustainable, it's still extraction.

The natural gas that is extracted is owned by the energy companies, not the US. Sure, everyone who's ok with poisoning water tables [0] and flammable faucets [1] so that energy companies can increase their profits, please raise your hand!

[0]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-reese-halter/fracking-poiso... [1] https://www.rt.com/usa/flammable-water-dakota-fracking-023/

>it also has effectively made the US energy independent.

Source?

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=20812

The president doesn't legislate. This means nothing.

I like Sanders, but I can't agree with this. How will he deal with the following: 1) less natural gas could mean more coal => worse carbon emissions 2) this would almost certainly lead to increases in energy prices. These would hit the poor the hardest. 3) So if the US isn't producing then who would be? This is great news for the Saudis, Putin and others.

The above three points are not my original ideas. They were explained in a NYT article a day or two ago.

So kill the earth as long as it helps America in the short-term and it's the more affordable option?

I'm personally a libertarian and I find it funny that the left has spent damn near a half century getting people hysterical about global warming, telling them it's the greatest threat to humanity, and then they don't really take the measures that scientists/researches claim we need to take against climate change, and now they want to expand fracking because the easily obtainable natural gas isn't enough for them -- we gotta burn all the oil.

I think the oil/gas industry have bought many members of congress (even Hillary agrees with this) and that's why their sector of the economy is always finding new ways to "innovate". If the green/clean energy industry was paying republicans money they would be the ones in an economic and regulatory environment that's conducive to innovation.

Na-Na Naaaa-Na Na-Na Naaaa-Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye Fracking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com