Fracking accident, thanks to Chevron. How do they respond? Free pizza coupons.

[EgoRaptor]

OK, now for some responsible reporting of the incident:

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/...1402110126

http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/...ne-county/

Do you know which word you won't find in the reports? That's right, fracking. Care to know why? Fracking had nothing to do with the accident, other than it was a technology that allowed us to access the natural gas. Did you notice that the second link was from NPR; that bastion of corporate apologetics.

I am perplexed at the recent backlash against hydraulic fracturing. The technology is only over 70 years old and there are more than one million existing wells created by fracking. Even the large scale shale fracking has been around for over 30 years, but has now only become economically viable.

The reality is that someone lost his/her life in a dangerous job extracting the cleanest burning source of fossil fuel there is to allow people not to go to bed precisely when the sun goes down. Why does everyone complain about energy production, but has no problem consuming energy? Lights, stoves, heaters, air conditioning, gasoline pumps, freezers, refrigerators, transportation, communication, sanitation, healthcare delivery...the list goes on and on. Life in the 'first world' would immediately become an unimanageable hell hole if we turned the power off. Just look what happens if the power is off for a few hours.

I love when the conversation reaches this point and someone starts talking about solar and wind. Great, love it, but the reality is that it cannot keep up with demand and no it's not because we don't invest enough in it; it's because we consume too much. I love nuclear power, but the same people that ignorantly bitch about fracking are equally terrified of nuclear power.

There is inherent risk in every form of power production required to meet modern demand. Accidents like this happen, but rarely do people sit back and wonder why they don't happen more frequently. People want to disparage Exxon or BP or others as if to say these entities don't give a shit for the sake of a dollar...this is ignorant demagoguery. You can't have it both ways: claiming that energy companies only exist to satisfy their bottom line at the expense of people that have no problem consuming what they produce and simultaneously ignore how accidents like these give immediate and drastic impact to the bottom line.

Let's also try this. The internet is beautiful for fact checking. Exxon-Mobile's last quarterly net margin is reported around 7.5%; Coca-cola's last net margin was 18.7%. Why do I bring up net margin? Only to be able to state that 'people need to reevaluate their priorities'. When's the last time you were enraptured by a campaign against big soda?

Just more capitalist apologetics.