The United States has become the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the world, surpassing Russia and Saudi Arabia, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
You may have missed this important story. That’s because the media virtually ignored it.
How did the United States reach this goal? Two simple words, which were excluded from the Department of Energy press release and the single U.S. news report I found: hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking.”
...When you drive on Interstate 476 near Scranton, Pa., you see towering windmills, the “clean” energy solution favored by environmentalists that contributes less than 1 percent of Pennsylvania’s power. But the blades of the wind-powered turbines kill bald eagles and bats, which farmers complain caused a huge increase in insects that the bats would eat. Nearby, more than 1,000 fracking sites have produced the following results, according to the Pennsylvania state officials:
• The jobs pay an average of $62,000 a year — about $20,000 more than the state average.
• A recent study of what is known as the “Marcellus shale” formation which produces the fracked fuel has created more than 70,000 jobs in the past four years and could support more than 200,000 jobs.
• Investment in Pennsylvania’s fracking operations has already reached $4 billion....
