Fracking

Fracking is an action of digging down to the Earth, to extract oil and gas from shale rock. Shale rock is a type of rock that is buried underground. It contains fracking fluid, which generally helps to extract oil. So in order to extract as much energy, the digging should be operated vertically and horizontally. After the energy is extracted, it is collected by the company and provided to citizens or imported to other countries.

Fracking is becoming a debatable topic, that should it stop or not. The following paragraphs will show each perspective on the debate.

People think they need to frack shale rocks because it gives many economic benefits. In California, citizens and companies could earn significant economic profits. People in California benefitted from $181 per year, because of fracking. Also, gas bills have been dropped by 13 billion dollars (Fred Dews, “The economic benefits of fracking”). Outside of California, there are 725000 new jobs and a $243 increase in wages, because of fracking (Reuters, “U.S. fracking boom added 725,000 jobs”). Therefore, because of fracking, people could save more money in their savings.

Still, fracking is not 100% profitable. People who think that fracking needs to be stopped, are saying that fracking is not quite friendly to Earth's environment. According to Erica Gies, the fracking process includes clearing all the trees nearby, so the heavy materials can be transported. This obviously causes habitat destruction. This caused a reduction of intact forests, by 22% (James D Nations, “Fracking and National Park Wildlife”). Lots of species that used to live there, would need to migrate or be killed. Fracking also causes groundwater pollution. In the process of digging down, the drill contacts the groundwater. If some toxic substance leaks out while extracting oil and gas, the groundwater will be polluted. According to Environment California, one farmer in Kern County reported he lost millions of crops due to groundwater pollution.

Consequently, fracking both comes with profit and consequences. It causes environmental harm but brings economic profits. Some states are banning fracking, and some states are not. Banning it means that they respect the value of the environment, and keep doing it means they are valuing the economical growth. The future of fracking depends on everyone if they value the environment or the economy.