Time for a solar gold rush

Like the gold rushers before them, the natural gas frackers see the riches just waiting for them to harvest.

But now, we have very quickly overwhelmed demand, while continuing to frack heavily, and there is no where to put all the natural gas we are pumping.  Output is high, and with inadequate demand, there are two new issues to complicate the natural gas situation. 

Storage is one.  There isn't enough.  The industry is running out of storage capacity.  Soon, they will have to stop pumping so much.  All the while, they are trying to get as many wells in the ground and functional as possible while we are still deluding ourselves about the safety of fracking technology.  And in doing so, they are exacerbating the other new issue, price. 

Supply and demand has sent natural gas prices through the floor.  natural gas is selling for a fraction of what the cost was when this fracking rush started.  This has set up a situation where we are supporting our weak economy on the back of our environment in a new way.  Those who only care about money see only the cost benefit.  Those who care about the environment see it as just another deal with the devil. 

Natural gas does have benefits.  Electrical energy production with natural gas has the positive impacts of replacing the need for greater use of coal.  This decreases greenhouse gas pollution and slows the atrocity that is mountain top removal coal mining.  But, does the huge growth in natural gas usage, and the fracking that makes it cheap and easy to obtain merely camouflage the fossil fuel energy crisis that we choose to avoid facing?

It's time for a Solar gold rush.