File:Frackers dont clean up.jpg

'Privatize the Profit, Socialize the Mess'

Consequences of abandoned fracking wells

Fracking oil/gas production, boom and bust

What comes with 'the bust'?

Devastating new report from the New York Times details how as fracking companies are going out of business they are leaving behind unsecured wells spewing methane and other gases into the atmosphere and paying out the same executives that drove them into bankruptcy huge bonuses—drawing condemnation from activists and climate advocates.

"Frackers don't clean up after themselves," tweeted 350.org founder Bill McKibben.

Even before the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. fracking industry was struggling amid debt obligations, the rise of renewable energy sources, and a price war with overseas oil producers... The cost of the cleanup, noted journalist Jake Bernstein, is prohibitive—and companies don't appear to be taking it seriously.

"Chesapeake Energy, which declared bankruptcy last month after paying out executive bonuses, has potential cleanup costs of $1.4 billion," said Bernstein. "Chesapeake's filings show that it has set aside only $41 million in bonds to cover the cleanup of its 6,800 wells."

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In states like New Mexico, Texas, regions in the Permian Basin and other high production fracking areas, concerns are mounting as the oil patch takes historic hits.

Production has been going up as production boomed, but now it's turned down as bust times have become reality. In both times of high production and as wells have come off line, the full-costs of production are not taken into account.

Environmental full-cost accounting

External costs, 'externalities' of oil/gas production, climate impacts, environmental impacts, or costs of clean-up during and after production -- these are the hard realities that need to be faced straight up.

With knowledge of the facts, the 'methane hot spots', the pollution and drawdown of aquifers, the atmospheric impacts, the water impacts, on and on, the profit taking of production also delivers lasting human, environmental, health and a range of adverse lasting costs to communities, local, national and global.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/climate/oil-fracking-bankruptcy-methane-executive-pay.html

• https://carbontracker.org/

• https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/28/business/economy/chesapeake-energy-bankruptcy.html

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