To Frack or Not to Frack: The Shale Gas Revolution and Its Discontents

Wayland, MA – February 17, 2014 – Join the Walden Forum for a discussion with Jake Jacoby, Professor of Management, Emeritus in the MIT Sloan School of Management and a co-founder of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The forum will be held at 7:30 p.m. on March 4 at the First Parish Meeting House, 50 Cochituate Rd, Wayland, MA 01778.

Jacoby notes: “Advances in drilling technology and hydraulic fracturing of shale resources have created a revolution in U.S. gas output (oil too). The boom has brought benefits of lower gas prices to households and industries along with income to fortunately placed landowners, displaced dirtier coal in power generation, and cut oil imports. In his State of the Union message President Obama celebrated the resulting move toward energy independence, and touted natural gas as a ‘bridge fuel’ that can power our economy with less carbon pollution.”

Yet controversy rages. Some argue this development is not good for the planet. France finds the use of fracking not in its national interest and has banned it altogether. The same is true of Quebec, and New York is still debating the question. (If Massachusetts had shale resources, would you want to ban its exploitation?) Where states allow fracking, some towns propose forbidding it. (Would you support such a restriction in your town bylaws?)

Over 80 percent of the energy that supports the U.S. economy comes from fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – each of which has its well-known environmental and social costs. What leads to the focus on this particular extraction method? Is there something fundamental about the technology itself, or is it simply that our regulatory institutions have failed to keep up with the scale and dizzying speed of industry expansion? To what degree is opposition a NIMBY response, in contrast to a view that shale development is really bad for the country, or a desire to avoid any technology that helps bring more fossil fuels out of the ground?

Here we will attempt to sort out the risks and rewards, facts and fears, and to discuss how, going forward, we can effectively manage a technology that has, in a very few years, become a major component of the U.S. energy system, and is likely to remain so for decades to come.

Henry D. (Jake) Jacoby is the William F. Pounds Professor of Management, Emeritus in the MIT Sloan School of Management and a co-founder of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. The Joint Program is focused on the integration of the natural and social sciences in application to the threat of global climate change, and he is a leader of its analysis of national climate policies and the structure of the international climate regime, and of the challenge of adaptation to the change that is coming. An undergraduate mechanical engineer at the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Jacoby holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University where he also served on the faculties of the Department of Economics and the Kennedy School of Government. He has been Director of the Harvard Environmental Systems Program, Director of the MIT Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Associate Director of the MIT Energy Laboratory, and Chair of the MIT Faculty. His career of research and analysis has been mainly in study of the economics, policy and management of energy, natural resources and environment, and he has written widely on these topics, including seven books. Appropriate to this Walden Forum discussion he was Co-Chair of the 2011 interdisciplinary study of The Future of Natural Gas. He currently serves on a U.S. National Academies Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program and as a convening lead author of the U.S. National Climate Assessment.

About the Walden Forum – The Walden Forum is a free public series that brings people together to talk, listen and learn from one another in a civil environment. It fosters discussion about important ethical, religious, political, scientific, social and other topics in a live-forum setting. Dynamic speakers challenge and expand our views about the world around us and offer the opportunity for an open discussion of these issues in a convenient, local setting. Featuring world-class speakers on great topics throughout the year, the Walden Forum is a non-religious community program supported by First Parish in Wayland and others. For more information go to www.waldenforum.org or write to info@waldenforum.org.