I did not. I have not found any studies that compare the total cost/footprint & effect on the environment of either of the green energy, gas fired or nuclear energy sources. And I'm skeptical of the amount of bias in articles/studies released by the industry and trade organizations. If anybody has found a study that looks at the totality of these energy sources and summarizes the cost values and impact on the environment please share.
Buzz, I'm aware that the extraction industry can be quite disruptive. I take advantage of those well roads you speak of while hunting WY; and from a high vantage point looking out over the vast landscape seeing the spider web of roads reaching out to the horizon is disturbing; although, not as disturbing as the massive coal operations. And the question of what to do with the flowback (the water that returns to the surface after fracking). I've watched it go from being trucked to municipal water treatment facilities (very bad idea) to being mixed with an absorbent to create a slurry and buried in landfills to being run through centrifuges to extract the heavy metals which are then containerized and trucked to the U.P of Michigan for burial. I don't walk around wearing rose colored glasses, normally. Well, sometimes after a few adult beverages.
Suffice to say that the old saying "there is no free lunch" applies to energy production.
It's a complicated web with no easy answers and can lead to smart people arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I can only tell this crowd as I spent a day touring operating solar farms (average 600 acres) and looked at the vast solar array I was sick to my stomach. The same way I feel when looking at stripped land or the massive mines of WY. Mans impact leaves nothing for the other inhabitants of the land.
