Opinion: America Can’t Do Without Fracking

November 1, 2024

ROBINSON TOWNSHIP, PENNSYLVANIA – OCTOBER 26: A hydro-fracking drilling pad for oil and gas operates October 26, 2017 in Robinson Township, Pennsylvania. The Kendal well pad is using a horizontal drilling technique for extracting oil and gas in the extensive Marcellus shale formation. (Photo by Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

This year’s presidential race features an oddity: a discussion about a ban on fracking. What’s striking is that such a conversation is happening at all. This talk takes participants through the Wayback Machine to the first two decades of this century, when hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling—together known as fracking—came to public attention. The U.S. was then the world’s largest importer of oil. Today it is energy-independent with, S&P Global estimates, more than 70% of its oil and more than 80% of its natural gas produced through fracking. The process has become essential to the nation’s energy supply and can’t be eliminated.