Fracking Pays

Fracking has net financial benefit despite drawbacks, study finds

. . . a recent economic study on the controversial gas drilling method hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, says accounting for both the known downsides and benefits, it does more good than bad.

The study, published last month by the University of Chicago, also notes Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region does better than nearly all of the nation’s oil and gas fields.

Considering benefits like salaries, housing prices and other public welfare indicators, it showed communities that host hydraulic fracturing, a technique that saw a meteoric rise in popularity in 2008, see an economic gain of $1,300 to $1,900 per household, per year.

On the other hand, the researchers value the increased drag on a household’s quality of life by $1,000 to $1,600 per year.

“We wanted to understand what the local economic impacts are of fracking as a means to provide policymakers with information so they can better reach decisions for their local constituencies,” said co-author Christopher R. Knittel, Ph.D., director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research.

Dr. Knittel and his fellow researchers bill their work as the first comprehensive research on fracking’s economic implications for local communities.
. . .
Notably, median housing prices rose 6 percent, and salaries rose 8 percent in all gas- or oil-producing regions. In the Marcellus, which sweeps up and across Pennsylvania from the southwest to its northeastern corner, wages grew 8 percent. Housing prices grew 9 percent, the second highest of all shale fields.

Fracking in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale, which saw the greatest economic benefit, raised housing prices 23 percent; wages, likewise, grew 29 percent.

Frack, baby frack.