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Running head: FRACKING
Fracking: How Fracking is Portrayed in Today's Media
FRACKING 2
Fracking: How Fracking is Portrayed in Today's Media
A concerted opposition to fracking has evolved in the green communities as well
as in the medias of the world. France and Bulgaria, both countries with huge shale-gas
reserves, have already banned all fracking activities within their borders. In England and
Poland eco-activists have been blocking potential fracking drilling sites. The recent film,
“The Promised Land” starring Matt Damon, has further villainized the fracking industry
on an international basis. The question is whether or not the realities of fracking support
all the hysteria.
Clearly, extracting anything from the earth causes an inherent instability.
Additionally, this instability may be contributed to by whatever chemicals and devices
are being used in the process. However, until such time as we are able to transition to a
non-polluting and renewable energy source – we must acquire adequate and affordable
energy from one source or another.
Is Nuclear Energy a Good Option to Fracking?
Something of an ironic twist to France’s opposition to fracking is the fact that
France is very willing to put its country’s safety at risk by using nuclear power plants
without much consideration for the catastrophic consequences of using nuclear reactors
to supply their electrical needs. In fact, France currently derives the monumental sum of
approximately 75% of its electricity from nuclear power plants and acts as a major
exporter of nuclear devices and technology.
Therefore, we have to wonder if the anti-fracking sentiment within certain special
interest groups is economically or ideologically driven. Taking this as a hypothesis, we
FRACKING 3
should then compare the dangers of fracking to the dangers of using the somewhat well-accepted
nuclear generators for production of energy.
Nuclear Power versus Fracking
The use of other forms of energy such as wind, solar, tidal and hydrothermal energy are
the safest energy sources to use and they are entirely pollution free. In addition, as time goes on,
they are becoming more and more affordable and viable on the open market; on the other hand,
they cannot be used in all areas of the world.
However, another form of energy, the nuclear option, has a very low production cost,
does not pollute the environment and will eventually become even more cost effective as
technology progresses. At least, that is what the advocates of nuclear energy (such as heavily
invested companies such as Westinghouse Electric Company and General Electric) want you to
believe; unfortunately, the truth is quite a different reality.
Both General Electric and Westinghouse Electric Company sell their nuclear plant
technologies, nuclear fuel, and nuclear services all over the world. In fact, it was General
Electric’s nuclear plant design that was in place during the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power
Plant failure in Japan that resulted in a meltdown of three of the plant's six nuclear reactors in
2011 (Zeller, 2011). Subsequently, in March of 2014, several news agencies started forecasting
that a radioactive underwater cloud was traveling across the Pacific Ocean and would soon reach
the western seaboard and contaminate a number of areas in the continental United States.
In 1986, the Chernobyl tragedy in the Ukraine was caused by a reactor explosion that
sprayed huge quantities of radioactive contamination over a large percentage of the atmosphere
in the Western USSR as well as a number of other areas on the European continent. The
immediate explosion in Chernobyl caused fewer than forty deaths; however, the subsequent and
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continuing contamination has been estimated to have caused hundreds of thousands. The total
number of deaths caused by Fukushima Daiichi melt down is still being counted. However,
some 300,000 people evacuated the area and, as of November 18, 2013, operators of the
Fukushima nuclear plant have only started the process of removing 1,500 fuel rods from
damaged reactor No. 4 -- which is considered just the beginning of an estimated $50 billion
cleanup operation (CNN, 2015). Moreover, as of February 20, 2014, an estimated 100 metric
tons of radioactive water has leaked into the surrounding soil and water ways as a result of the
disaster (CNN, 2015).
Total Nuclear Meltdown
If a nuclear reactor overheats and the plant’s operators lose control over its fission chain
reaction -- this will ultimately result in total nuclear meltdown. Such a meltdown causes the
