Opinion

Economic hope — if Cuomo acts

President Obama’s visit to the SUNY “NanoCollege” in Albany this week highlighted a rare New York economic bright spot. “Right now, some of the most advanced manufacturing work in America is being done right here in upstate New York,” he noted.

But Obama acknowledges another part of the US economic future that Gov. Cuomo (who introduced the president at the event) has yet to truly support — modern exploitation of our natural-gas resources.

In much of America, hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling are bringing cheap and abundant natural gas to market — a revolution that’s feeding growth in petrochemicals, manufacturing, construction and agriculture. But Cuomo’s administration still blocks that future here in New York.

It’s now conventional wisdom that gas exploitation is an economic game-changer. In the recent study “Energy 2020,” analysts at CitiGroup note that the reliable and abundant supplies of cheap natural gas means the “potential re-industrialization of the US economy.” A 2011 PricewaterhouseCoopers study estimated that high rates of shale gas recovery could yield a million new manufacturing jobs by 2025.

About a third of domestic natural gas now goes to the manufacturing and industrial sectors. (And that’s not including electricity generation.) It’s a fuel, but also a raw material — petrochemicals wind up in all manner of plastics as well as fabrics, tires and other chemicals. Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, says cheap and abundant natural gas means “the nation’s chemical companies have entered an era of renewed global competitiveness which can help generate new domestic investment, jobs and manufacturing exports.”

Manufacturing is still a $65 billion industry in New York, but the sector’s been shrinking for decades — with high energy prices a major concern. Cheap natural gas could help reverse the decline — yielding jobs in the vast stretches of the state where young people now have to leave to find work.

Other industries could turn around, too. New York’s once-robust concrete and cement sector has been ailing thanks to the recession and environmental opposition to new coal-fired cement plants. Gas-fired plants would be cleaner and cheaper — and cheaper concrete would be a boon to construction.

Natural gas is also a key ingredient in fertilizer. Dan Kish at the Institute for Energy Research notes that, five years ago, US fertilizer plants were being dismantled and moved to Trinidad and Germany; operations were too expensive here. Now cheaper gas is changing that equation.

Cheaper fertilizer has obvious spinoffs for agriculture — a $4 billion industry here, employing more than 100,000 New Yorkers who work 7.2 million acres of farmland. Of course, fracking also means direct help for some Empire State farmers, who can lease their mineral rights to oil and gas companies.

President Obama said he wants “what’s happening in Albany to happen all across the country.” If Gov. Cuomo would just let natural-gas drilling go ahead, Albany’s success has the chance to “happen” all over New York.

Abby W. Schachter writes the New York Post’s politics blog Capitol Punishment (
http://www.nypost.com/blogs/capitol
).