Affordable Natural Gas and Bettering Low-Income Americans’ Lives

“Fracking saves low-income Americans’ lives”… This article is about research earlier this year. This is a calculation that lowers heating costs with surging domestic affordable natural gas production. Its result is 11,000 winter deaths in the U.S. each winter from 2005 to 2010.

A lot of taxpayer dollars are useable to help make life better for less-advantaged Americans. The energy produced right here at home has had a significant positive impact. The impact is on the quality of life for many of our fellow citizens.

The researchers are two from Northwestern University and a third from Monash University in Australia. With that, they take note that there is an increase in natural gas production. As a result, it was possible by advanced hydraulic fracturing and modern horizontal drilling, helped drive down energy prices, allowing Americans to affordably heat their homes without affecting their spendings for other needs, such as food and health care.

We find that lower heating prices reduce mortality in the winter months. The estimated effect size implies that the drop in natural gas prices in the late 2000s, induced largely by the boom in shale gas production, averted 11,000 winter deaths per year in the US. We also find that the effect does not just represent short-run hastening of mortality. We show that the effect, which is driven mostly by cardiovascular and respiratory causes, is robust to several checks on the specification.

Read the full article here
Source: API.org (American Petroleum Institute)

If you have more questions about Affordable Natural Gas, feel free to reach out to us here.