- by Chris Cooney, attorney, and Diana Csank, attorney for Sierra Club
At first
glance, you wouldn’t see the connection between earthquakes in Oklahoma and
Florida’s electric power supply. But the recent decision by state regulators to
allow Florida Power and Light (FPL) to take money from ratepayers for a natural
gas fracking project in Oklahoma[1]
is just one example of the Sunshine State’s profoundly unwise natural gas
policies putting profits before people.
FPL’s move to
frack in Oklahoma couldn’t come at a worse time. Fracking’s rise in Oklahoma
has led to 300 times the number of magnitude 3 or greater earthquakes than
there have been historically.[2]
 |
| Source: Public Justice via dailykos.com |
The quakes have already seriously disrupted local communities:
“[W]e
met dozens of rural home owners last summer who literally cried telling me
their stories—until you are awakened every night for months on end because an
earthquake woke you up, you cannot imagine the psychological toll this is
taking on our citizens.”
- Johnson Bridgwater, Director of
the Sierra Club Oklahoma Chapter[3]
Property damage
from the earthquakes is also on the rise, including a 5.6 magnitude quake that
damaged a church, requiring more than $2 million in repairs.[4]
Moreover, the
quakes threaten catastrophic environmental harm, mainly through the inevitable
rupture of the storage and transportation infrastructure for hazardous
materials.[5]
Cushing,
Oklahoma faces a particularly acute threat from earthquakes. Much of this oil
hub, with its network of pipes and oil storage tanks, was built in the 1920’s,
when the hazards of significant earthquakes were not part of safety designs.[6]
Because oil prices are currently low, producers have been storing more and more
oil in Cushing—approximately 55 million barrels at last count—and a major earthquake
nearby could land Cushing in the disastrous ranks of Aliso Canyon and Deepwater
Horizon.
The cause of
these earthquakes is not in dispute.
Even state geologists and the Governor of the traditionally industry
friendly state are on the record confirming that the quakes are a result of
wastewater injection from drilling and fracking.[7]
 |
| Source: US Geological Society Research has identified 17 areas in the central and eastern United States with increased rates of induced seismicity. Since 2000, several of these areas have experienced high levels of seismicity, with substantial increases since 2009 that continue today. |
Because to date Oklahoma has proposed partial mitigation measures including voluntary compliance by industry, Sierra Club filed a suit in federal court to stop frackers from re-injecting their wastewater in Oklahoma. You can read more about the suit here.
As even
Oklahoma is starting to acknowledge and address fracking’s hazards, it is time
for the Scott Administration and the Florida Legislature to do so. It is time to finally rein in natural gas over-reliance[8]
by abandoning the dangerous gambit to open Florida to more fracking, and by
taking down barriers to clean energy resources like solar, wind, energy
efficiency, and storage at record low prices.
Thankfully,
this year, pro-fracking legislation met strong opposition,
backed up by nearly 80 local government bans on fracking.[9] Just yesterday, the Florida Senate rejected a bill that would have stripped the
power from these same local governments to regulate fracking and conventional
oil and gas drilling.[10]
Such
pro-fracking policies are particularly unwise when clean energy is so cheap and
abundant. We need look no farther than
Florida’s municipal utilities for evidence; they are adding solar to the grid
at five times the speed of the big investor-owned utilities—FPL, Duke, Gulf,
and TECO—because solar is so cheap. In
fact, last summer, Orlando procured solar for 7 cents/kWh—less than energy from
coal and natural gas power plants (8 cents/kWh), and exerting downward pressure
on rates (10 cents/kWh).[11]
While there can
no longer be any honest dispute about the economic and environmental case for
clean energy investments—to be sure, natural gas is far from clean—the costs
and risks of using natural gas are only growing. Indeed, less than a year after FPL persuaded
state regulators that its Oklahoma project would save Floridians as much as
$100 million over 50 years, FPL has revised that down by a half and has given
no assurance the project will not end up in the red.[12]
Tallahassee has
an even worse record of approving massive, multi-billion dollar natural gas
power plants[13]
and a so-called hedging program, all of which puts the profits of the state’s
biggest monopolistic utilities before people. The hedging program
alone cost Floridians $6 billion from 2002 up to an including 2015, [14]
while insulating those big utilities from the costs and risks of their bad
decisions to double down on natural gas. Think of all the solar, wind, energy
efficiency and storage we could have bought for $6 billion!
So not only is
fracking directly putting lives in danger in Oklahoma and across the Southeast,
it’s a terrible deal for Florida ratepayers. Fracking needlessly exposes
Floridians to higher priced power while also robbing us of the wide-ranging
benefits of clean energy resources.
We must not
relent in our fight against fracking in Florida!
[1]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/psc-approves-fpls-controversial-fracking-plan/2234240
[2]
http://www.sierraclub.org/planet/2016/02/sierra-club-sues-over-oil-company-earthquakes
[3] Id.
[4]
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/oklahoma-earthquakes-damage-st-gregorys-university.html?_r=0
[5]
http://www.sierraclub.org/planet/2016/02/sierra-club-sues-over-oil-company-earthquakes
[6]
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/30/456777184/confidence-in-oil-hub-security-shaken-by-oklahoma-earthquakes
[7] http://earthquakes.ok.gov/what-we-know/;
http://kfor.com/2015/08/04/gov-mary-fallin-acknowledges-direct-correlation-between-earthquakes-and-disposal-wells/
[8]
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/rating-the-states-on-their-risk-of-natural-gas-overreliance#.VsY1A_krLIU.
[9]
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/us/in-florida-an-unlikely-battle-over-fracking-intensifies.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
[10]
http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2016/02/by-a-10-9-vote-senate-committee-rejects-bill-to-regulate-but-allow-fracking-in-florida.html
[11] Sierra Club letter of December 12,
2015, available at http://goo.gl/CT8l1j.
[12]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/fpls-fracking-investment-is-a-money-loser-so-far/2242478
[13]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/utilities-will-ask-psc-for-permission-to-gut-energy-saving-goals/2189192
[14]
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/energy/psc-rejects-call-to-focus-on-utility-lost-hedging-bets/2243090
