Fracking is our best method of obtaining energy.

While fracking does provide a great many jobs in the United States, it also causes an undue amount of environmental damage. Contrary to what my opponent suggests, fracking does cause dangerous effects to drinking water, especially regarding radioactive and toxic substances. In 2011, the New York Times reported that it obtained thousands of internal documents from the EPA, state regulators and fracking companies, which reveal that "the wastewater, which is sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle." Additionally, 90% of the water used in fracking never returns to the surface, heavily reducing the amount of water available for crops and other vital uses, making droughts in already struggling states like California much worse. This usage also raises the prices of water, meaning we may end up paying more for our food in the future, as well as more for directly supplied water. Additionally, a recent study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University found that homes located in suburban and rural areas near fracking sites have an overall radon concentration 39 percent higher than those located in non-fracking urban areas. A naturally occurring radioactive gas formed by the decay of uranium in rock, soil and water, radon"odorless, tasteless and invisible"moves through the ground and into the air, while some remains dissolved in groundwater where it can appear in water wells. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer worldwide, after smoking. The EPA estimates approximately 21,000 lung cancer deaths in the U.S. are radon-related. Earthquakes are also caused by the high pressure water, as conceded by the Oklahoma State Government after many years of denial and avoidance. Oklahoma Geological Survey, a state agency, stated that it is "very likely that the majority of recent earthquakes, particularly those is central and north-central Oklahoma, are triggered by the injection of produced water in disposal wells." Finally environmentally, fracking causes significant methane leakage during the process, meaning that if enough methane is released into the atmosphere before it is burned, the less CO2 emitting fuel may be actually causing more global warming than burning the same amount of coal, as methane is 86 times better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. I believe that renewables can provide just as much reliable energy through the use of storage methods, meaning that the US could produce enough energy with renewable methods alone. The US government has found around 5 GW of potential hydroelectric power while building no new dams but instead converting those dams which do not already generate power to hydroelectric dams. These dams could also be fitted with pumps that pump water back to the top of the dam for use in surplus power times to store energy as gravitational potential energy from renewables. From some basic calculations, using just solar to cover all of the USA's energy needs would cost around 100 billion dollars, or around 1500 dollars per taxpayer. This cost would most definitely be worth it for the savings to our environment. However, this is unfeasible and a variety of renewable generation techniques would be much better. To wrap up, fracking is most definitely not the best method of obtaining electricity, instead a wide variety of renewable methods should be considered to minimize our damage to the ozone layer while also not costing as much as some people say. Sources: http://wichita.ogs.ou.edu... https://en.wikipedia.org... https://www.earthworksaction.org... http://www.jhsph.edu...