Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed that Ohio Governor John Kaisch can’t take credit for his state’s economic boom because it was cause by oil, but Ohio fracking produces natural gas, not oil, and the state has a fairly diversified economy.
“First of all, John [Kasich] got lucky with a thing called fracking, OK? He hit oil. He got lucky with fracking. Believe me, that is why Ohio is doing well … and that is important for you to know” claimed Donald Trump during the third Republican debate.
Kasich responded, “Ohio does have an energy industry, but we’re diversified. We’re one of the fastest growing states in the country. We came back from the dead. And you know what? It works very, very well.”
Ohio’s economy outperformed neighboring states in 2014, growing at a rate of 2.1 percent, thanks in large part to its auto, machinery, plastic, manufacturing and chemical industries. Natural gas played an important role in Ohio’s boom by reducing energy prices, but it did not cause the boom.
Fracking has been going on in Ohio since 1951, but new hydraulic fracturing techniques have nearly doubled the amount of natural gas produced in Ohio. The state produces twice as much natural gas as oil according to the Energy Information Administration.
Ohio is an important part of the large increase in American natural gas production, which has caused American natural gas prices to decline by almost 30 percent in a single year.
The amount of electricity generated by natural gas exceeded the amount generated by coal in the United States last April for the first time since the government began recording such things, according to data from the Energy Information Administration. This wasn’t just a one month blip either as the same thing happened again in July.
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