Act One: The Prequel, starts in 2008 and ends with the publication of the Supplemental Generic Impact Statement.
The act begins with a wave of boilerplate drilling leases, the formation of landowner coalitions to counter those leases, the pushback by anti-drillers, and the Department of Environmental Conservation and Environmental Protection Agency hearings. Approaching the end of Act One, the anti-drillers control the narrative (gas drilling is bad; no good can come of it) and on the surface, they are in their ascendancy.
Act Two: The Empire State Strikes Back.
After three years of review, New York state issues the strictest set of guidelines in the nation for natural gas drilling. Since anti-drillers want to ban gas development, they will take to the courts. The court cases take time, but the anti-drillers inevitably lose.
Act Three: The Aftermath.
No one knows when the curtain rises on this act, but drilling comes slowly to New York. It starts in Broome and Tioga counties and slowly works its way north as infrastructure fills in. Otsego County is drilled because it has multiple gas plays estimated to contain at least 100 billion cubic feet per square mile. Otsego gas sells at $1 premium to Texas or Colorado gas because it's only 180 miles from the wellhead to a stove in Queens.
As gas flows out and money flows in, the loss of farmland in Otsego County stabilizes. Farmers don't have to work two jobs or sell of roadside parcels to survive. School (and general) populations start to rise as young families are once again able to find good-paying local jobs. School and town taxes stabilize and, hopefully, trend lower. Each well is a business, taxed separately, contributing to the community.
More jobs accrue as local businesses use local energy, giving them a competitive advantage. Plans for the use of Coventry gas for Bainbridge and Sidney businesses and residents are in the pipeline (pun intended).
As welders, truck drivers, gravel pit operators, carpenters and dozens of other businesses and occupations experience an uptick in activity, more jobs are created. Workers and landowners buy goods and services, thus creating more jobs. That's how it works.
There will be no wholesale degradation of the environment. Accidents will happen and there will be inconveniences, but no post-apocalyptic nightmare that the antis are predicting. Twenty years from now, people will wonder what the fuss was about.
In optimistic moments, I see people on both sides of the issue joining together to monitor and consult with industry to ensure safety and convenience, to suggest modifications for a flexible SGEIS, and to advocate for ample staff at the DEC for monitoring and enforcement.
Probably won't happen as long as the hardcore leadership pushes for renewables and sees cheap, plentiful, local natural gas as an obstacle to their goals.
A renewable energy future is an admirable goal, perhaps even attainable in some far-distant time. However, nationally and locally, we need a mix of energy sources and we need it now. We also need a basic understanding of TANSTAAFL _ There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.
Currently, a little more than 5 percent of our national energy mix is renewables. Roughly 3½ percent is hydroelectric. Wind and solar (less than 2 percent) have problems. Biggest problem _ sometimes the wind doesn't blow; the sun doesn't shine. When it does blow and shine, it's often in inconvenient places needing huge infrastructure investments. Wind and solar need market-distorting subsidies and mandates just to be marginally competitive. These subsidies usually support existing technologies rather than cutting-edge advances that might one day make renewables competitive.
A renewable such as hydroelectric needs 250 square miles of man-made Lake Mead behind a Hoover Dam. Goodbye, environment. Replacing just one of the two 1,000-megawatt reactors at Indian Point would require lining the Hudson River from New York City to Albany with 45-story windmills one-quarter mile apart. That's 600 windmills. But there's a catch _ the 600 windmills would only generate electricity one-third of the time, when the wind is blowing.
For solar, let's go local. Let's fill the fields across from the Clark Foundation building on state Route 28 with solar panels. Cooperstown would be provided with clean energy, but at what cost to the viewshed? Plus, panels have to be cleaned with water. Easy in Cooperstown; environmentally difficult in Arizona. TANSTAAFL, anyone?
Finally, what can renewables do for global trade? Diesel engines power 94 percent of trade, from oceangoing vessels to trains and trucks. It dominates because of cost, efficiency, reliability and durability. What kind of battery pack would be needed to power a container ship across an ocean? What's in the renewable pipeline to replace the gas turbine that has shrunk our world through transoceanic flight? There's nothing even remotely comparable.
As the Gas Wars unfold, no matter what the regs or how strictly they are enforced, accidents will inevitably occur. Just as inevitably, these accidents will be addressed and remediated, and life will go on. Otsego County could be on the cusp of an economic opportunity that, if managed wisely, will far outlast all of us who are at each other's throats. Misinformation, fear and emotion are no substitutes for reason and reality.
Dick Downey of Otego is a founding member of the Unatego Area Landowners Association.
Columns
Gas Wars: A play in three acts
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
- Cary Brunswick
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Some wisdom is best passed down through books
I was visiting a friend out-of-town recently and the subject of providing a "reading list" to young people came up in conversation. He said years ago he had asked a respected acquaintance in Oneonta to compile such a list for his teenage daughter, to help her be better prepared for life, culture, education, politics and people.
Continued ... - Let pragmatism, not politics, determine birth control debate
- As Center Street Elementary goes, so goes Center City
- U.S. intervention in Syria's uprising would be a gamble
- Santorum, Obama both got it wrong on Honduras
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- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
In Otsego County’s local elections last fall, a number of candidates — most of them on the independent Sustainable Otsego line — ran on an anti-fracking, pro-sustainability platform. They recognized that our current way of life — dependent on increasingly scarce, costly and polluting fossil fuels — cannot continue.
Continued ... - Time to get off the bus and on the computer
- Cuomo's Machiavellian maneuvers are a danger
- Home rule laws aren't a radical idea
- Sustainable shouldn't be a dirty word
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
- Lisa Miller
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor in the dressing room, waiting for Allie's dance number to be called. The cave girl costume has been donned, the jazz shoes double-tied, the hair pulled back, the requisite dab of lipstick applied.
Continued ... - Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
- Untethered from the cable box
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Mark Simonson
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
Oneonta became a settlement and has been a place to do one's "trading," whether it was the 18th century, or 2012, because of the five valleys that converge here. Only the places of doing the "trading" have changed a bit over the last 100 years, and Oneonta remains a place that attracts visitors and has always been a decent place to live and work.
Continued ...
100 Years Ago - Recalling the Hindenburg, John D. Rockefeller in May 1937
- Oneonta residents had diversions aplenty in the spring of 1952
- Damaschke essential to ensuring Oneonta baseball in 1927
- Area tunes to WONT in November 1972
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
- Rick Brockway
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
OUTDOORS COLUMN BY RICK BROCKWAY ... Last week, my friend George and I returned to the Gunks for another rock-climbing adventure. After last week's column, I asked about the rattlesnakes and was told not to worry. Rattlers are usually quite timid and will avoid people as much as possible. It's the copperheads that'll give you trouble. They're aggressive and will stand their ground to defend it. Oh great!!
- Rattlesnakes may be closer than you think, so pay attention
- Spring is here, so fishing should pick up soon
- Sneaky fox may be the next animal looking to horse around
- Pass down the rush of turkey hunting to your kids this weekend
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
- Sam Pollak
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I'm happy with our kids to a certain degree
It was several years ago, and I was in the kitchen, telling my eldest daughter and my then-teenaged son about the person who was taking over as publisher at The Daily Star.
Continued ... - I get by with a little help from my 'friends'
- It’s not easy for a politics junkie to get off the stuff
- The Encyclopaedia Britannica in print, unmourned by me
- Angelo Dundee was always a good man to have in your corner
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- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
