A new report from Food & Water Watch: “The Fracking Endgame: Locked Into Plastics, Pollution and Climate Chaos” provides a detailed analysis of the emerging fracked gas infrastructure buildup, driven in part by tax subsidies. The group charges that the fossil fuel industry is seeking to use this to sustain another drilling boom in the U.S., locking the country into decades of fossil fuel pollution that will drive the climate crisis.
ALISON GRASS, via Seth Gladstone, sgladstone at fwwatch.org, @
Grass is the research director at Food & Water Watch: “We have found that there are more than 700 fracked gas infrastructure projects that have either been recently built, or are proposed for development. This includes over $200 billion in investments by the plastics industry, which relies on fracked gas liquids in petrochemical manufacturing. Over 300 new or expanded facilities will drive a 40 percent increase in global plastic production over the next decade.
“The supply of cheap fracked gas is also fueling the development of 364 new fracked gas-fired power plants by 2022, as well as terminals to export fracked gas — or what the Trump Energy Department is now calling ‘freedom gas.’
“What is revealed in this report is the industry blueprint for ensuring decades more of fossil fuel dominance over our society. If it becomes realized, the endgame would be a scary, dangerous world of omnipresent plastic waste, expanding air and water pollution, unacceptable health impacts and irreversible climate chaos. The solution is simple: We must cut off this filthy production stream at its source, by banning fracking and halting the runaway buildout of fracked gas infrastructure that is spreading like a toxic web all over the country.”
