Reply #4: K&R. Shocking facts we wish we didn't know. [View All]

[Overseas]

The benevolent seeming easy natural gas on the TV commercials make no mention of needing to shoot millions of gallons of carcinogens into the ground to force the stuff up.

Solar seems far less expensive when these ugly facts about easy natural gas are taken into account. When we learn that natural gas producers needed an EXEMPTION to the Safe Drinking Water Act to get their product out of the ground.

780 million gallons of drilling fluids containing roughly 750 different chemicals over a four year period? Sounds like a way to diversify the liability among a broader group. Can't sue one particular producer because hundreds of chemicals were used. Can't be sure where the increased cancer rates are coming from because it could be several of the cocktail chemicals.

If the safety of our fellow citizens and their children were the main concern, the number and type of chemicals used would be much more restricted and carefully monitored. But it seems like the liability of the natural gas industry has been the primary concern.

We've done more reckless things like this because it is considered a basic bottom line that the USA will do whatever is necessary to generate more fossil fuels because we need the energy.

And solar is "too expensive." It is only "too expensive" for the oil companies and nuclear industry because it could cut into their profits in a minor way. It is only too expensive if compared to old fossil fuels and dangerous monopoly energy sources with their exemptions from liability, with the public picking up the tabs for their massive spills and gallons of poisons used to sustain them.

Solar is only "too expensive" if public health is devalued in the equation.