LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 15: Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe ... [+]
In the Democratic debate Sunday night, former Vice President Joe Biden ended a troubling weekend for most Americans by promising that, if elected, his administration would have a “no new fracking” policy. Instead, he would focus on somehow subsidizing Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s fantasy of an impractical and unaffordable network of high speed rail lines criss-crossing the country.
With the national economy shutting down around us due to government measures taken to inhibit the spread of the coronavirus, it is becoming obvious that most Americans will end up being asked to at least self-quarantine at home for a period of weeks. If that doesn’t work, the government could move to force the issue upon the population. Governors from both parties in Illinois, Ohio, California and New York moved to close down bars and restaurants over the weekend, and we can expect more similar and more stringent moves to control human behavior as this week goes on.
All of which means that, with average Americans spending an increased amount of time at home, the importance of maintaining a power grid that supplies plentiful and affordable energy has never been higher. Here is the problem with the plans of Biden - and Bernie Sanders, who would go even further - to ban fracking: No new fracking essentially means little to no new natural gas supplies.
The vast majority of new natural gas production in the U.S. comes from shale wells, and those wells require hydraulic fracturing - or “fracking” - to produce. No new natural gas supplies would inevitably result in diminished reliability and higher costs for the average American to heat, cool and keep the lights on in our homes.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), more than 38% of the utility-scale electricity in our country was generated by natural gas power plants in 2019. Natural gas is now, by far, the single-largest electricity source in the U.S. mix. Coal is a distant second at just 23.5%. Nuclear comes in third at 19.7%, and total renewables amounted to 17.5% last year.
It is important to note that over 1/3rd of that renewable percentage comes from hydropower (6.6%), a source that Democratic politicians also tend to oppose. Add that 6.6% to natural gas, along with coal and nuclear, which both Sanders and Biden also like to demonize, and you are at 87.2% of the electricity generation in the U.S. for 2019 that these two Democratic presidential contenders have at various times in their campaigns proposed to get rid of. Do that, and everyone’s electricity bill skyrockets and reliability is a distant fantasy.
Americans who are self-quarantining themselves at home today need to look around them and think about what their lives would be like if they no longer had ample and affordable power, or natural gas to use to cook their meals. Because, make no mistake about it, that is what Biden and Sanders are really proposing here.
Of course, like most politicians, Biden and Sanders tend to make promises in order to get elected that they have no intention of keeping - or understand are practically impossible to get done - once they assume office. That is likely to be the case here, at least with Biden, who has never been a real ideologue like Sen. Sanders. Still, the act of repeatedly promising to bring about these illogical, unaffordable and impractical energy proposals in debate after debate, something both Biden and Sanders have done since last summer, is wholly irresponsible, and does nothing productive to further the real debate over America’s energy future.
It seems likely that, after Biden sweeps this week’s primaries in Ohio, Illinois, Florida and Arizona, the Democratic National Committee will step in and call off all future debates between the two men, essentially declaring Biden the party’s de facto nominee. That will help put an end to these public displays of energy policy fantasy, which will in turn be a blessing for a country that is being forced by the coronavirus to deal with its energy reality.
Thanks largely to abundant, affordable and domestically-produced natural gas, America’s current energy reality is very strong. Fracking says, “You’re welcome.”
