So I'm very sorry to cut off the conversations, but I've got to ask if you would please join us here now And if you need to continue your conversation, I'd certainly understand But I'd ask you to take it outside So welcome everyone Welcome to the Stanford Silicon Valley Energy Summit 2017 lunchtime debate. I Understand people will need to get up and move around. That's perfectly okay. We're a little informal here during the lunch hour And I'd like to welcome all of our listeners that are on the internet today at lunchtime This is being broadcast Live I and my name is Jeff Byron I'll be your moderator today Unfortunately our expert moderator who's in the program Jeff Ball Was not able to be with us because of personal reasons and I know he misses this terribly and since his regrets He's been with us the last couple of years So I was chosen to be the moderator because my name is the closest to Jeff Balls Jeff Byron. I'm next in the alphabetical order Actually, I am one of the conference organizers a former California Energy Commissioner I'm somewhat versed on this subject and One of the principal organizers of today's debate, so I'll do my best to replace the other Jeff The debate topics from the past few years have been the highlight of the summit because of their topical interests the expert panels Panelists and our informed audience We've had some lively debates on the adoption of electric vehicles on a renaissance of nuclear power And I think you'll find today's topic just as interesting It's resolved the benefits to the United States of fracking shale oil and gas Outweigh the environmental costs Now if you think there's nothing to debate here think again There's a lot at stake for the economy the environment and the health and safety of all Americans Oil and natural gas recovery from shale oil fracking has quietly transformed domestic production It has significantly lowered prices Yet it may have a substantial impact on our environment It's a difficult topic It's difficult for discussion because it's problematic to accept the environmental impacts While enjoying the economic and security benefits of cheap fossil fuels Now we know the benefits to the economy they include lower gasoline and heating and electricity prices savings for consumers Higher stock market valuations increased GDP and improved balance of trade However, these benefits are not without environmental and health impacts Lower costs lead to increased consumption more criteria of pollutants greenhouse gases environmental degradation of land at drilling sites Groundwater contamination and increased seismic activity We have a dilemma and we know we need answers So today we're debating topics such as how do we reduce greenhouse gas production when domestic oil and natural gas Shale production continue to increase unabated Although there may be alternatives to low-cost oil and natural gas do we forsake this boon to the US economy? Do the security and economic benefits of lower production costs outweigh the environmental costs and What kind of example are we setting for the rest of the world? To reduce greenhouse gases if we continue down this path So how many of you were here for one of the last two debates in the last previous years? Excellent, so you have an idea of the format. I'll be quick through this. You may recall. We had some difficulty determining a winner I'm hopeful that we can resolve that Anonymous so now so we're trying We're trying something new and Somebody's typed in an anonymous question here, so I don't know where this is coming from or how to control this But please don't okay So let's see if I can override this There we go. Here's a test question What you need to do is you need to log into that website that was up earlier slidu.com Let's go back to that previous screen so you can see it Can we bring up the well? It's on the left-hand side of this slidu.com and you need to input under the The topic the event code is debate 2017 and you go to the go to the polls tab you can do it on your phone your iPad computer whatever I'd like everybody to participate in this and And so what we're going to do now is we're going to bring up just a test question to see how you all Do with regard to logging into this? So let me open this up Okay, the voting should be open says at the top. No just closed all right Voting active polls, so please go right ahead and we'll watch some numbers spin by at the top gives us an idea of how the voting is going I Just would like to take just a little bit of time to get you all in there This is not as crucial obviously is the next question. This is just a test How's everybody doing anybody? If you have any problems raise your hand Ask the person next to you for help All right, I'm just going to shut this off because all we really need to do is test the question Let's just see how the results come up No, they will they will I got to close the poll Unfortunately, I was hoping to be able to do this all with my computer But Stanford won't let me log in because I have a former Stanford address all right well good So look at that so Giants, of course tonight, which means we have the faithful here today Although not in high as numbers as I might have expected All right, so let's shut that down So again, I don't I don't know where these anonymous are coming from or how to shut them off and I apologize The it didn't go well in my this didn't happen in my test So I think we're ready The resolution again is the debates the excuse me the benefits to the US of fracking shale oil and gas Outweigh the environmental costs Many of you have formed your opinion already this group will try and change your minds or at least not lose your support However, you can also be undecided. That's okay When you start the debate The winners of the debate are those who change the most votes to their side So let's bring that screen back up again Let's make sure we're vote unlocked All right, hopefully this supersedes So here you go. Please log in and and give us your vote We'll let that roll for a while while I go over the format for the debate and provide some introductions The protagonists are Mark Zoback. He's the Benjamin Benjamin m-page professor of earth sciences and a senior fellow at the pre-court Institute for Energy He directs the natural gas initiative at Stanford Dane Boyson I'm going to To my left here is the chief technologist cyclotron road former executive director of research operations at the gas Technology Institute and he was a program director at ARPA II the antagonists The ladies Brianna Mordek. She's a senior scientist land and wildlife and climate programs at NRDC and a former geologist for the rather poorly named company Anna Darko petroleum Lena Moffat all the way to the left is the director of the dirty fuels campaign for the Sierra Club and she was formerly She led the National Wildlife Federation's climate and energy program Just in case nobody gets any clapping later on Let's make sure we get my hand I can't thank you all enough for being here. It's very kind of you So this is an Oxford style debate. Let me go over the rules very quickly each speaker will get an opening statement We'll begin with the first speaker for the motion. They will have three minutes Then the first speaker against the motion Then we will have rebuttal speakers for and against each will be three minutes Then I'll post some questions to each side and we'll be more interactive for about 30 minutes We'll have closing statements of two minutes each in the same order and then we'll conclude with a second vote on the resolution To see who persuaded the most audience members and won the debate, but first let's check and see how the audience Feels about this issue going in So I don't want you to worry if you didn't get your vote in on the first one It's obviously the second vote that matters the most But as you can see panelists you have your work cut out for you I'll be keeping a stopwatch and I'll ask you to suspend if you exceed your time Let's begin with opening remarks Mark, would you like to come up here? Would you like to stay right there? Oh, I'll just stay here. Okay, go right ahead start the timer, please Okay, well good afternoon everyone as Jeff mentioned about three years ago after 30 years on the faculty I also agreed to take on the responsibility as the director of Stanford's natural gas initiative So why did I do this? Why did the university do it? We did it because there were so many important and obvious Environmental benefits of the utilization of natural gas that there was a lot of issues to engage and a lot of progress to be made So it's somewhat ironic to be asked to argue for the motion that these benefits Outweigh the environmental costs when in fact it was the environmental benefits that sort of got me into this business in The first place There's no there's no question that to limit global warming We have to decarbonize the global energy system as quickly as possible Replacing coal burning power plants with natural gas is doing this today at a very significant Scale in the US and could be doing it in many other countries around the world There's also no question that we have to address the severe air pollution in countries like China from burning coal and the equally severe Air pollution in countries like India from using dirty diesel for transportation We also have to curtail the cue cumulative legacy of the environmental problems associated with coal everywhere including here in the United States and Finally, there's no question that we have to find ways to promote economic growth in the developing world Countries in the developing world are building coal burning power plants at an alarming rate We need to provide energy that is as clean as possible as quickly as possible 1.3 billion people today have no access to electricity 4 million people are dying every year due to indoor air pollution associated with burning dung and burning coal The global abundance of natural gas provided in large part by horizontal drilling and hydraulic Frashering provides us with a critically needed option for addressing all of these pressing Issues natural gas is an ideal fuel to decarbonize and Cause less pollution in the energy system in the future It is not the end. It is a means to get to a decarbonized energy world Finally the motion we're arguing today that the benefits of to the US of fracking shale oil and gas outweigh The environmental cost is predicated on the assumption that there are Insurmountable environmental problems that will have to be endured to realize these benefits Well, there have been over 250,000 horizontal wells and multi-stage hydraulic fractures carried out in North America Mostly in the last 10 to 12 years and the assertion that this has caused or will soon cause Severe environmental damage is simply not true and needlessly alarmist through emphasizing best practice appropriate regulation and Enforcement of those regulations. I have every confidence that horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing can be done with minimal environmental impact Thank you very much You're all very good. This is fantastic. Okay now against the resolution three minutes as I understand it's Lena Please Well, thank you so much to appreciate the opportunity to be here today to talk to you about why the impacts of fracking vastly outweigh the benefits Fracking is inherently a risky process for those of you who aren't familiar with it This is a process that entails mixing large amounts of water with toxic chemicals under high pressure and injecting it Miles beneath the surface of the earth to fracture rock to release Hydrocarbons now as logic would lead you to believe that's a process that comes with a lot of risks And if any of you have had the opportunity to go out and meet with the families living amongst fracking rigs and living Directly adjacent to them sometimes more than 15 million Americans live within a mile of a fracking rig You will know that the impacts are very real and that they cannot be ignored For instance, I've had the opportunity to meet with families who've been forced to go without running water in their homes because using the water That was coming out of their faucets was causing their children to have nosebleeds to have rashes on their faces on their skin To be unable to go to school because they were so nauseous and so dizzy Those families were then forced to rely entirely on bottled water purchased out of their own pockets from their local grocery store I also work with colleagues in states like Oklahoma who have felt the very real impacts of the incredible increase in Earthquakes that have been triggered by the fracking process and the wastewater injection wells That the fracking industry is now using to dispose of the billions of gallons of toxic wastewater that the process Triggers every year our Oklahoma chapter director has told me a really upsetting story about his eight-year-old daughter Waking up in the middle of the night running down the hallway terrified to his bedroom Because their house was shaking from yet another earthquake before 2009 Oklahoma experienced about two earthquakes a year and Since the advent of the tens of thousands of deep wastewater injection wells, they now experienced a thousand Significant earthquakes a year that is a huge increase But the fact of the matter is you don't have to take my word for it There is a growing body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence that has demonstrated Quantifiable specific harm from fracking to public health the environment and our climate for instance studies have shown that Natural gas including fracking releases significant amounts of carbon pollution It is not a way to decarbonize our economy methane, which is a highly potent greenhouse gas emission 86 times as potent as CO2 at trapping heat over a 20-year time frame Leaks from the entire fracking life cycle Other studies have demonstrated the public health impacts of fracking For instance the toxic chemicals associated with fracking like benzene toluene and xylene are known not only to cause cancer cardiovascular impacts, but they've also been shown to cause birth defects a 40% increase for women who live near a fracking rig for pre-term births 30% increase in Women who would give birth to a baby with a congenital heart disease Twice as likely to give birth to a baby with a neural tube defect these these impacts are real They are significant and they cannot be ignored and because of all of those impacts I say they vastly outweigh the benefits of fracking Thank you You must be very encouraged that the former Attorney General Oklahoma is now the Secretary of the EPA then So rebuttal Dane three minutes Wow, she's good So last Sunday I called my parents for Father's Day I told them that I was gonna be participating on the on this debate about Benefits of fracking and the cost environmental costs and my mom's response was fracking that that sounds bad And I thought then she asked what side are you on and I thought I'm really in trouble So I actually I spent most of my career actually developing alternative energy technology Rit scale batteries at MIT we had I had a fuel cell company later on work for RP investing in alternative energy technologies So you may wonder how it is that I came here To defend unconventional oil and gas development a.k.a. fracking And at this moment, I'm kind of wondering the same thing but Actually, it's pretty simple as a scientist thing I value the most About pretty much anything else is the truth and and facts matter and the truth matters and There is so much misinformation around fracking out there that I believe I'm obligated to present its case the truth is my friends I have some legitimate concerns about fracking But environmental active activism did not kill coal. It was the success of unconventional oil and gas to build and The truth is the success of fracking is not the horror story. You've been told in fact It's the opposite. It is an American story that is the result of Over 30 years of public-private effort started in the Carter administration after the 1970 OPEC crisis where the Department of Energy and the Gas Research Institute funded R&D Into advanced fracking directional drilling and underground mapping technologies Ultimately it wasn't big oil But the visionary entrepreneur George Mitchell who successfully cracked the code of shale gas and produced the first profitable well in Texas Barnett and let's not forget It was the the importance of the unconventional tax credit which Created the market incentive to bring this unconventional gas to market so the the truth is these developments and unconventional gas have put us on a path towards energy and independence Making us safer in the world safer They've added 1.2 trillion to the gd us GDP and 9.3 million jobs They've reduced the carbon intensity and emissions per capita the lowest levels in 30 years They've increased energy efficiency and economic productivity So I'm closing the truth matters The truth is unconventional oil and gas is the single greatest advancement we've had In energy infrastructure in the last half century. Thank you So now we have the rebuttal Against the resolution Yeah, thanks, and thanks for having me. I agree completely with my opponent that the basic facts and truth Matter and what is important and the basic fact is that burning fossil fuels is Fundamentally changing our planet in a way that threatens the continued existence of humanity And the way to stop that is to deeply and rapidly decarbonize our economy So the proposition is about environmental cost But let's just say you're somebody who doesn't care about global warming or ocean acidification Are all the very real impacts of extraction that Lena just talked about you should still want to stop using fossil fuels to generate Energy and the reason is because fossil fuels are also finite We are going to run out of them one day and if we wait until we run out of them to come up with alternatives We are going to also plunge ourselves into chaos So when you think about those two things and you think about the fact that we burning fossil fuels inevitably leads to chaos for human society the idea of Continuing the fossil fuel era of continuing to burn fossil fuels is in the words of Elon Musk the stupidest experiment in history And it's even stupider when you think about the fact that as we are hearing today The alternatives are readily available They're increasingly cost-competitive if not cheaper than the traditional sources and by continuing to extend this era of fossil fuels We are risking additional lock-in of infrastructure that's going to make it more difficult for us to extract ourselves from using fossil fuels and Create a huge potential economic problem with all the stranded assets that we're continuing to invest in So you know as the saying goes we didn't leave the stone age because we ran out of rocks and as a society We have a moral imperative to not wait until we run out of fossil fuels to leave the fossil fuel era because the environmental costs vastly outweigh the benefits very good So thank you all very much you were on time and that's appreciated very much But it gives us a little more time for some discussion This next period will be a little more interactive with us here on stage But let's take up where you where you just left us the we didn't the stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones I'm sure everyone would like to see the fossil age end at some point is an issue of speed Is it possible? Why isn't it happening? Why aren't we making this transformation? Gentlemen, let's go to you first Unless you don't want it. No, I think I think we are making this transformation and you know What we're looking at is just kind of a you know a step in this progression of Decarbonization certainly fuel switching is as part of that You know oil is tough because you know in this country in many countries oil is principally used for transportation And we have no viable alternatives now. We all are you know looking to the electrification of the transportation system But there's you know 250 million cars in the United States there's a billion cars and light-duty trucks in the world and It would be great to see all of those electrified, but it's going to take a tremendous amount of net generation It's going to have to you know, we're going to have to rebuild the grids We're going to have to solve the storage problem and we're going to have to replace this fleet So that's not going to happen overnight, but it needs to happen. It should happen We totally I think they and I totally agree we have to stop burning fossil fuels The question is whether you know, we just oppose everything that we only look at fossil fuels as a problem and not Part of the solution and I think they can be part of the solution But we agree about where we're trying to go. We just I think disagree about how we're going to get there And I'd like to kind of add to that You know having been on the R&D side of developing energy storage just give you like kind of a back of the envelope Yeah, the US uses about 4,000 terawatt hours per year of electricity If you say that you need batteries to shore up for eight hours a day You're solar and wind and at a hundred dollars per kilowatt hour You're talking about two hundred two hundred trillion dollar investment Ten times the US GDP. So we're not there yet on the R&D I'd love it if we were and we certainly need We need some incentives what through probably through policy to drive some of these technologies faster But we can't switch because we're not that we don't have sufficient alternatives yet. Oh I suspect we may get an opposing view over here Well, I'll take a crack at that one I think we're not making the transition because the fossil fuel industry is a very well vested player in our political system The rest of the world is starting to make this transition and we are significantly lagging behind and I agree fossil fuels are not going to go away Overnight or even tomorrow, but I also agree that we very much need to start making that transition as quickly as we possibly can To actually decarbonize our grid and yet the fossil fuel industry is racing towards Expanding our reliance on fossil fuels at a time when we need to be doing the opposite The energy information administration is projecting a 55 percent increase in gas extraction in the United States and a 24 percent increase in reliance over the next couple of decades That's the opposite direction that we need to be going in and honestly, I don't think that's gonna change We're not going to see the kinds of incentives that we need to really drive investments in low-carbon truly low-carbon technologies Until we have elected officials who are going to demand that we do so and right now the fossil fuel industry is paying to perpetuate the status quo so let's drill down on that for a second is that the When you deploy solar you need to somehow address the intermittency and there was a say just came out That basically struck showed a very strong correlation that you actually have to add natural gas to get more renewables into the energy into the energy system, so It's just it's not that simple Did you want to add anything? Well, I would say Studies have also shown that we do not need to add the amount of additional capacity that the gas industry is pursuing To transition to a low-carbon economy. That's just not true Okay I'm wondering is it right, I don't know You know, I think questions like that are gonna get resolved in the marketplace. That's right, and it's Good point. It'll happen naturally. Well, but the problem, you know Which is you know kind of what Lena was getting at is that the oil industry has been the dominant player in this field for a Long time and they're not getting the signal from the market that what they're doing is a problem There's not a price on carbon. There's no signal You know, it's a huge market failure the fact that they can release unlimited amounts of CO2 and there's no penalty for that So maybe the market will correct itself But some policy is gonna have to be put in place to cause that market correction and the reason we have the reason we have our government is to help put a price on those Externalities that are not reflected in the market right now and like we just talked about there are a significant number of externalities that are very real associated with continued use of oil and gas and they're not reflected in the marketplace right now and the fossil fuel industry is Fighting to keep it that way so that they can maintain the status quo. I'm up on Capitol Hill almost every day in DC Their lobbyists are there and they outrank us Incredibly the fossil fuel industry has enjoyed this benefit of billions of dollars of subsidies and a lot of Cash that they can use to hire lobbyists and they're fighting for it They're up there outnumbering us and we need people to get engaged to ensure that we actually are incentivizing low carbon So I want to make sure we're arguing against fracking here, not just fossil fuels Right. I mean your argument is against fossil fuels in general Yes, although I would say that fossil fuels is quickly starting to mean oil and gas I think my colleagues over here are right the era of coal is going away and Gas is rapidly replacing it at least in the United States And what we as a society need to do is ensure that we're not expanding reliance on gas But that we are going to renewable energy technologies that don't pass in the climate Crisis or poison our communities. So unless you control the marketplace Isn't going to natural gas instead of coal a good thing. Yeah, that that's what I was going going to say It's a it's an evolutionary step in decarbonization and and the remarkable thing is it's it's You know, we now have an unlimited amount of natural gas, which means we have more than will ever burn So we can use it as part of a decarbonization strategy, you know, we don't have energy storage We don't have a grid that's capable. We don't have enough deployment of wind and solar We will solve all those problems at some time in the future But in the meantime, you know in the meantime, we can cut co2 emissions in half and deal with all of these other, you know tremendous Environmental penalties that comes along with coal. So why not do that? Why wait for these perfect solutions? You know when you when you go to the developing world and you see a solar panel on a you know On the roof of a little hut. That's good Everybody can agree to that. It's good. It's clean. They have light They can you know use that energy, but that's not a basis for building, you know Economic growth in these places to lift these people out of poverty now Maybe someday there will be you know sufficient deployment of renewables, but in the meantime, you know natural gas can help You know fill that need as well because right now the developing world puts out a few solar panels at the same time They're building lots of coal burning power plants because it's the cheapest and easiest thing to do Well, I'd much rather see them put out more solar panels and replace those coal burning power plants with natural gas Power plants everybody wins and eventually it'll be time in the you know Both in this country and around the world for those gas plants to be replaced But let's take this one step at a time. We we have the means to do that We don't have to wait and the technology development that we need for a sustainable energy future Well, we'll happen in parallel while we're doing a lot of good things at the same time Do you do you contest the notion that? shale fracking and access to lower-cost natural gas is increasing, I mean sorry decreasing The use of fossil fuels these are coal use of coal. No, I mean I think that's clear But I think the the piece that's the key to that is you know You go back and look at the the way you know world in this country has used resources over time You can look at the graphs of it, you know, we started with wood it peaked in a dropped off We were using oil it peaked in a dropped off. We're in the air of natural gas now We are but we can't wait for that Drop off to happen on its own We have to be much more aggressive if we have any chance of meeting the targets that the world's best scientists say That we have to meet if we want to avoid the worst cost of climate change We don't have time to let the market figure that out on its own We need government policies aggressive government policies to ensure that we're going to move off natural gas much quicker than what would happen Just naturally under the market You know, I I think we would agree agree with that But you know kind of going back to Mark's point about how long it takes to change an infrastructure Fuel it takes a long time and one of the reasons I introduced the history part of how we got to unconventional gas development Is to give you a sense of like what that takes and that that in fact was a pretty Successful model and we need something more aggressive than that if we're going to address climate change And you know just to put things in perspective where were we You know in the last 50 years, you know, we we actually have Seen the single greatest transfer of wealth and human history from the United States to other countries to to countries that don't necessarily share our value Create fear in the world Countries like Canada And and now by 2026 we're estimated to be a net energy exporter That's a big deal and it have we solved the climate change well 1970 the climate change wasn't the issue But what they did that was appropriate is they put the tax policies in place the R&D in the place it was a public-private partnership and it takes time and Even if we accelerate it's going to take time So I just want to try and sharpen the issue a little more with regard to fracking, okay? I'd like to I mean clearly the audience has indicated They're interested in getting rid of fossil fuels as well, but let's sharpen it with regard to fracking is the Environmental issue for fracking better or worse in other words if we weren't fracking shale oil getting this enormous domestic supply this abundance that that What did you say a mark that's too cheap to meter? No you said Being facetious we have never run out more than whatever. Yes So so I want to sharpen it with regard to fracking is indeed fracking environmentally worse than not doing fracking I'll take that one, and I and I also want to respond to something mark said of why not Go down that path, and I think the the reasons are ample particularly when we consider the opportunity of non-polluting zero-carbon energy technologies that are on the rise and are increasingly affordable and if we as A society really doubled down on those we wouldn't have to suffer all of these other Myriad impacts, and I think the why not Really is captured by the specific impacts that have been demonstrated as a result of the impacts of fracking We mentioned public health impacts like birth defects I would say that if we're asking 15 million Americans to potentially choose Between the health of their family the health of their baby and a good job That is not a question that we should be asking those people to have to answer Particularly again when we could be investing in these clean energy technologies The other why not is because a lot of the new analysis is showing that methane pollution from the entire life cycle of the gas production process from fracking to upgrading to transmission Vastly erodes the climate benefit that gas we used to think gas enjoyed Some studies indicate that it may be as bad for the climate as coal. So you add to that that it is a carbon emitting fuel It's not decarbonizing the economy, and you have all these local impacts of Extraction, I think the answer why not is really clear because we have better alternatives Okay, can I address the please go right ahead? I'd like to address the methane issue and the met methane isn't a very important issue, and it's a very potent greenhouse gas Fortunately, we have some really great people here at Stanford Working on this and I'll tell you what I've learned from them because I haven't studied it myself So there's far more methane in the atmosphere than we thought a few years ago. No question about it, and that's bad I don't know if any of you if you ever have a chance Google a thousand years Or even 10,000 years of methane in the atmosphere. It's an absolutely fascinating plot And it's been going up since the dawn of the industrial age Mostly following population so methane has been increasing in the atmosphere very fast for hundreds of years Due to a wide variety of sources But in terms of the the methane in the atmosphere now that it exceeds what? You know we thought it was over half of it is coming from aggregate agricultural sources. Okay a little bit more A little bit less than half is coming from the oil and gas industry Methane the climate modelers tell us is responsible for about 25% of the warming so it's not trivial. It is important But again the oil and gas industry is responsible for about half of that So it's a 10 to 12 percent Contributor to global warming that's a lot and that needs to be addressed and methane is a real issue So where is the methane coming from this is the interesting thing is the methane is coming from a Few but very large leaks that are usually due to somebody screwing up somebody not closing a valve somebody not covering a latch cover and My colleague Adam Brandt has led a group that Says that about one in two thousand leaks is Responsible for more than 50% of that excess methane, you know, we have 250,000 miles of large pipelines we have between two and three million miles of Distribution pipelines and there are problems in all of these systems So what we need is a system that doesn't fret over every valve every connection every well head But a system that's designed to find these big leaks and to fix them as quickly as possible And those systems are coming on board both the detection systems the utilization of those systems and the response Once you know something's happening. So methane is real methane doesn't come anywhere close to Offsetting the benefit of using natural gas instead of coal. It's but it's not a trivial issue I totally agree. It's important, but its importance has been overblown You know just simply to to make the case for coal Come on. This is what's really we're talking about because you know renewables are coming along Maybe not as fast as we like, but they're coming along there's all sorts of reasons to do it and and they are cost-competitive It's just absolutely great But the energy system is so big and it's going to take so long that when you argue against You know natural gas what you're really doing saying well Let's just keep burning coal until we can start shutting off You know the coal burning power plants a few decades from now. Well, you know, that's that's time We shouldn't be wasting with you know a few more decades of coal is a few to a few more decades too much as far as I'm concerned Brandon let's hear from you on the safety issue. Is there a way that we can do hydraulic fracturing safe enough? Can we control the methane cycle so that it doesn't make the enormous contribution to GHG that Lena mentioned well, I mean, I think they will you concede something I think the issue of fracking has become a little bit of a red herring that the industry And in green maybe the other side as well can use to hold up to make the point that they want and often the point The industry makes is there's not you know for hydraulic fracturing fracking is never contaminated ground water when they're talking about it They're talking about this narrow process That's one step in the full process that's required to get oil and gas out of the ground Often when the other side uses the term fracking, they're talking about the whole process So to just talk about fracking you're kind of missing the bulk of the problem You know the the environmental impacts that are caused by producing oil and gas Aren't that different whether you're fracking or not fracking you're threatening air you're threatening water you're threatening land and There are ways to reduce those impacts They'll never be reduced to zero but part of the problem that we've seen and you know This is the same with the methane issue industry will not do that voluntarily There are readily available solutions to deal with the methane problem I totally agree with mark, but we've seen time and time again the industry doesn't want to do that on their own You need government intervention to make those sorts of things happen The EPA has had a program for for decades called the EPA methane or the gas star program Which was to encourage operators to voluntarily reduce their methane emissions I think something only like 20% of the industry voluntarily participated in that program and the reason is that a Dollar invested in drilling new well brings them a lot more money than a dollar invested in capturing methane So again, you have to correct these fundamental market failures The industry doesn't have the motivation to clean up its problems on its own just to stop Releasing methane to to not pollute groundwater. That's not where their interest lies. Thank you. You want to give a quick response I have a few more questions. I want to try and get to in the time We've got sure just to I mean there was this a recent study that came out of NASA isotopic measurement to see what concentration of Methane in the atmosphere that was actually coming from fossil the found was actually first not gonna lie They it was a lot more than they thought 60 to 100 percent more, but it was also About significantly less than it was the previous five or six years that it made that previous measurement So their observation even though production was going up actually methane emissions from the industry is going down so Personally, I Agree with Brianna. There's always it's very difficult to regulate industry But in general the industry seems to be to a certain extent regulating themselves And I think the states have stepped up to the challenge of doing some of the regulations and They are making positive moving things in a positive direction at least on the methane. All right good Please go right a bit be quick mark. I want to get more things We are made two points and I agree with both of them hydraulic fracturing is one step in the oil and gas development process that singled out and Everything that's wrong that can occur is called hydraulic fracturing So let's fix the problems where they arise and hydraulic fracturing has not caused contamination But there's a lot of contamination caused by the oil and gas industry So let's find out what's going wrong and let's fix it and the other thing you said is that it you know There's a market failure and there is a market failure and that's why we need adequate regulations and control So I I think that's a concession So I apologize we only have about five more minutes maybe six left in in this period before we get to our clothes And I want to ask a few more things. I want to get more on the icon. Excuse me on the economic benefits So I'll go I'll go to this side first What about the energy security aspect of domestic fracturing? I mean When I was an energy commissioner, we never foresaw the benefits that would come from this in terms of The United States being a domestic producer of fossil fuels, you know, we have been importing fossil fuels We were going to build an awful lot of natural gas LNG terminals There's clearly there must be some benefit to not having to go to war in the middle of the Middle East to protect our Access to the fossil fuels that we seem to demand. Well, you can see that there is some economic benefit I Think we can concede that there have been a significant amount of profits made for a handful of companies a large number of jobs created And I readily admit that I'm the daughter of a construction worker I know the importance of having jobs in this country The part that we won't concede is that I think the impacts have been under Studied they've been under considered as we think about our energy future in this country And one of the things that we haven't really talked about is the opportunity cost of the other investments that we could be making again The more that this country continues to double down on fracking on continued reliance on oil and gas Expanded reliance on those two fuels. We are foregoing Critical investments in the clean energy technologies that are going to power the economy of tomorrow That other countries are racing to invest in and we're missing out on that opportunity And I think that's a cost that needs to be considered gentlemen response economic benefit domestic shale fracking Well, I think if we want to stop burning fossil, you know stop importing fossil fuels We should stop burning them right and the you know the issue of you know, we're we're You know 2007 we were importing 12 million barrels of oil a day Currently we're importing less than half of that Some of it is depressed, you know demand a lot of it is energy efficiency and about you know Four to five million barrels a day is from domestic production. That's better than importing oil And I think it's a you know It's a big deal and has had a positive impact on our economy and gives us flexibility and foreign policy And let's not you know spend any luck, you know blood and treasure securing oil for the future Natural gas has been a boon, you know both consumers and An industry have benefited from very low gas prices now for for a decade and that's that's great It doesn't diminish, you know the need to decarbonize the energy System at all these things should be happening in parallel Then let me ask you a different question I think the people that that probably in our audience voted against this proposition and maybe everybody Wants to know is it realistic to expect that we will see shale fracking and domestic shale fracking Yield to renewables will that happen and why isn't it happening? When will it happen? Well, this is where I think for Some agreement on boys sides here, but there's a there's some sort of mark There's a market failure. We need there needs to be policy put in place things like you know developing technology I can't tell you how hard it is to get new technology out there competing with something that's been around for millions of years Very difficult and without a price on carbon it's it's almost impossible and So we need we need a comprehensive energy policy. There's no disagreement at least not not for me on this So I don't disagree with that and until we have that honestly that is probably should be the number one thing Because once we have a price on carbon then the companies start to allocate their investment resources towards the technologies So until we really get that in place, you know I get what they're they're they're the driving for their argument and the the tactic of Abstractionism is a secondary one to the one that they can't really get through which is some comprehensive policy. So response Well, I mean, yeah, I think as he said, this is an area where you know, we broadly agree But there may I'm not sure if there's a disagreement about how fast we need to do it But I think that's the the crux of it is you know While we may have this sort of you know What I think is probably an illusory kind of energy security for the moment It's not a lasting energy security as long as it's real that security is relying on fossil fuels So we need those policies we need them rapidly we need the market corrections to take place because yeah, I think he's right You know, it is incredibly difficult for disruptors to break into this market because the oil and gas industry doesn't have to pay for It's negative externalities Just to give you some idea of what an unconventional unconventional gas tax When George Mitchell started producing unconventional gas it was about a billion dollar a year subsidy and It was about one dollar per million BTU when gas was around three dollars of per million BTU So it was a significant We need a similar kind of market incentive on the carbon side for alternative technologies to start to break in Well, I was hoping to end on a more controversial subject and we only have a minute or two left So let me let me turn maybe unfairly to the to the antagonists I keep here you referring to fossil fuel this debate was about Hydraulic fracturing, okay And I'm just wondering Lena you said earlier something the effect that Well, if you will a paraphrase taking We know that methane the methane cycle is bad and we and which what which organizations taking credit for burying coal over here I forget Yes, of course So now are we against natural gas in general as well and oil in general is that really the issue here that It's not about fracking. It's about we're against fossil fuel Well, I would say as Branna referred to studies have indicated that if we are going to avoid the worst of the worst of the Climate crisis we need to get off of all fossil fuels. Yes. So that includes oil and gas. Okay, I think we Recognize that you can't do that Today you can't do that tomorrow. There's a process involved with it But we need to get more serious about what that process looks like. All right, so I thank you very much I'm going to to call this aspect this this part of the debate to a close. I think we're about 10 minutes out and that gives us just enough time to go to the closing comments Let's see Make sure I'm in the right space here Um Forgive me. I want to make sure I'm not forgetting anything Okay, so have any minds been changed Who's won the vote? No, we need to do the closing comments. I don't have those on you. Where are they? All right closing comments. We're gonna go in the same order. I need two minutes on the timer, please and Mark you'll begin closing comment for the proposition all right a Couple years ago. I gave a talk that was Entitled learning to love hydraulic fracturing and I I tried to present a sort of a balanced view and You know taking some time to expand on the kinds of comments. I made today and at the end of the talk I admitted to the audience that I don't love hydraulic fracturing and and no one should But it's also not something to fear It's it's used as sort of a scare tech tactic You know to push back against the oil and gas industry and and you know you have to push back against the oil and gas industry I think a lot of their behavior is less than admirable and and there's no question that you know denying climate changes has really impeded progress and Has you know strongly affected the political process in ways that I'm personally not not happy with But that's not the issue the issue is hydraulic fracturing and I you know if if anything I hope you've learned today that when we look at the global energy climate Environment challenge the single most important thing we can do right now is to switch from coal To natural gas and that involves hydraulic fracturing that is not the end. It is a tactic in the long term, you know and Difficult challenge to decarbonize the energy system. We have to do it There's no question, but it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be glib We can't just say okay, let's do it and and you know disallow hydraulic fracturing Let's do it and shut down the oil industry tomorrow Okay, it's all going to happen, but it's going to take some time for it to happen in a responsible way Thank you Very good Well done mark. Thank you. So closing comments We didn't even get a chance to talk about some of the very specific local impacts that I wanted to highlight So I will just say if any of you ever want to do a tour of a fracking community If you haven't had the chance to lean them off it was Sierra Club feel free to email me I would love to take you to meet with some of our chapter members in Pennsylvania whose lives have been Dramatically negatively impacted by the fracking industry and I would say if they were here They would strongly disagree with Mark's comments and say the fracking industry is very much to be feared and the US public is starting to agree with that The support for fracking has decreased pretty significantly over the past couple of years as more and more people are directly exposed to it That includes families who have to deal with wells that are literally adjacent to their houses with 24 7 drilling noise Stadium lights that never go off that present real nuisances to people's lives Which I know isn't something that we necessarily consider as we're looking at the global energy landscape But I think it should be particularly when we look at the alternatives right now the cost of solar is Plummeting it's dropped 70% over the past five years in the solar industry added jobs ten times faster than the rest of the US economy last year We can do this the rest of the world is doing it without natural gas China is going to invest 360 billion dollars in truly Decarbonized renewable energy before 2020 they're now making 75% of the world solar panels We are losing out on that opportunity to bolster our economy to create zero carbon Energy sources and create millions of jobs the more that we spend time investing in oil and gas infrastructure and fracking And that infrastructure that we're building right now isn't just a temporary bridge It's going to be around for the next century that is a long-term investment that we just can't afford and Add to that all the public health impacts and local impacts. We've talked about I would stress again that I think the impacts of fracking vastly outweigh the benefits Thank you. You may clap of course Closing arguments for the resolution two minutes. She's just so good. I I Guess before I even get going I Guess her arguments are kind of at the nut of what why I'm here. They're a bunch of proof points Fact is, you know, 85,000 people a year die from automobile accidents, but we're not an uproar You take one case out in isolation and make an entire argument around it doesn't make it true So today we we have heard three main arguments against fracking One it pollutes our water to it causes earthquakes Three it accelerates climate change. So none of it So the first one Fracking pollutes our water Yep, there are cases where that has happened and can't deny that there are definitely in almost every industry there are accidents and There's abuses but You know EPA also admitted that there's huge gaps in the data determining whether or not it's systemic and We need better data wouldn't disagree on that but I would contend that Water contamination for the most part could be addressed with best practices better oversight and common-sense regulations so The second argument fracking causes earthquakes There is little evidence that this is a case But in fact injecting produced water into the class 2 wells does so that that's a real in some rare cases So just getting facts at last third fracking accelerates climate change not really They argue that methane leaps negate the benefits of CO2. However, that's that's just not true They argue that continued use of fossil fuel production investments that prevents investments and renewables Also, not true So anyway now comparing their arguments to ours. I follow up finish up quickly here What what do we know? We know that? We've replaced coal and we reduced our carbon emissions. We know that the US is almost energy independent now We know that we contributed significantly to our economy Folks folks mad facts matter We're in a culture war. I hope you reject The false narrative in which truth doesn't matter. So ladies and gentlemen are you to make facts matter again both? Yes on the motion All right very good Thank you Dean So final closing comment Brianna against the resolution two minutes So, you know, this is an anomaly a debate about hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels But I think you know partly focusing on these little silos instead of the bigger picture is what's gotten us into this problem So, you know Debating the merits of using fossil fuels seems to me a little bit like debating the merits of continuing to use Landline telephones, you know, we can have that debate But given that pretty much everyone out here sitting there with the smartphone in their pocket. It sort of misses the forest for the trees You know, the question isn't whether we're going to stop using fossil fuels It's how fast are we going to do it? And how can we do it in a way that reduces the Impacts to our economy and to our way of life the most You know it if you believe the world's climate scientists the answer to how fast is basically as fast as we can possibly do it You know, there's no question that the fossil fuel era has brought about unprecedented advancements in technology and human society and The sort of ironic thing about that is it's those very advancements that the fossil fuel era has brought about that's going to lead to its demise We are going to stop using them We are going to move past that and that is fundamentally a good thing We shouldn't have any nostalgia or sentimentality about the fossil fuel era We should gladly leave it in our rearview mirror and no matter which scale of impacts you're talking about whether it's the very real Local impacts to real people that happen that Lena has been talking about or whether it's the global scale Impacts that are happening to our whole planet and our species because of climate change The environmental costs of fracking for oil and gas vastly outweigh the benefits All right, very good. Thank you. Now. I have any minds been changed Who won the vote let's find out. Let's see if I can do this properly All right, and I need to open the voting up. All right, so please There we go. The poll is active. Please get out your devices go to slido.com Enter pound sign debate 2017 Actually, I don't think you put the pound sign in just debate 2017 and make your vote Please read them carefully. She can see what we're trying to do here. See if we can determine a winner But while the votes are being counted, let me let me do a couple of logistical instructions for the next set of panels We are at one o'clock The next panels begin at 110 if you're moving to another room. I'd ask you to please clean up a little bit don't go yet And we have a few more minutes before we vote in before we're back in this room. Please keep voting. I'm going to close momentarily Panelists you've done an excellent job. Thank you. So both very much winter lose. What do you say audience? Thank you so much for your energy and your efforts and for being here today Mark just got back from overseas these two ladies flew in in the last couple of days and I know you had to Do the traffic across the bay to get here this morning. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and there's still some votes coming in I'm going to shut that down And let's put up the results my opinion is unchanged wins and That's not too surprised, but the undecided has gotten smaller But look at that we are absolutely split on the opinions having changed to agree or disagree So I guess by the narrowest of our margins. We have a tie Thank you both very much. Thank you all very much That's amazing


On Tuesday, February 27th, Governor Andy Beshear made his way through eastern Kentucky and stopped at the Knot County Sports Plex to award grant money to those affected by the 2022 floods. Some of the money will go towards providing water and septic services for Chestnut Ridge, a new high ground housing site near the Sports Plex. Mountaintop News caught up with Beshear to hear more. Today we're at the Sports Plex first giving an update on Chestnut Ridge, the high ground site that is right here next to the Sports Plex that we're in. We're going to have hundreds of homes on that. The good news is we're about to let the road and we're going to see a lot of work moving forward. To aid in that, we had some money for water and sewer today that will help both this area and the county in general, as well as some money for tourism and for some of the businesses that operate in tourism in the area. Our goal has to be more than to just rebuild homes. It's got to be to rebuild lives and to revitalize the area. And that's what today's checks were for. And the last one was for the Artisan Center that's teaching skills to those in recovery that have gone through treatment. And it's so important with so many people who've fallen into addiction to make sure that we're giving them every single bit of help that's needed. And we know when you give somebody the skills for that next job, they stay in recovery at a much higher rate. And these are our friends and our family members and our neighbors and we want to make sure we don't lose one more of them. Find love in every connection at Appalachian Wireless, even if you want to connect with no credit check, no contracts and most features are postpaid. Talking about forward pay, this month give $50 off select pre-paid devices. It's forward pay because we are you. We are Appalachian Wireless. The money will go toward improving the community as a whole. Groups such as the Appalachian Artisan Center and Knot County Tourism will greatly benefit. Certainly on the recovery side it was to the Artisan Center that runs all these programs. So those that are coming through recovery gets them their skills and then teaches classes to many more. You look at the water and sewer money and the road money and that's to make sure our kids get to school safely. That clean drinking water comes to houses that have never had it. I mean clean drinking water is the basic human right and continuing to push to get it everywhere, especially here in Eastern Kentucky. It is a pretty special thing, but it's something we should have accomplished a long time ago. Reporting for Mountain Top News, I'm Nick Colum.