The Guardian : Is fracking greener than solar power and wind turbines?

Is fracking greener than solar power and wind turbines? An easy one today... I don’t know. From this study it would be improper to draw a conclusion about which energy source causes less environmental damage.

In the end, it’s all about how you define ‘green’. There are some environmental problems that are more closely related to the production of solar panels or wind turbines than shale gas extraction. The reverse is also true. But without proper context this is chalk and cheese.

To make an informed judgement about the best energy sources, these effects need to be quantified. How much land could each fracking well turn toxic and how likely is that to happen? Could solar panels exhaust our resources of silver and tellurium? What would that mean? This study has given us a way of building towards that more informed discussion.

There is an inclination to prioritise climate change as our most pressing concern. In this case, renewables become very attractive. But the shale gas industry argue that you can’t compare shale energy with solar without also factoring in the potential for it to replace coal as a baseload power source.
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