I can see why you might think, at first, that this didn’t really sound like such a bad idea. If we could take existing resources that are just laying around – or worse, presenting an environmental hazard – and turn them into an energy source, why not?
But there are several good answers to why not. We’ll start with this: It is not 1973 and we are not facing an energy crisis. We have abundant sources of energy already at our disposal and we’re developing more, in addition to the utilization of new methods – like fracking – of getting at them.