Yielding to the inevitable power of industrial machinery, the loose earth gives way and is siphoned gently to the surface, discarded onto a slowly rising heap of waste. The drill drives deeper and deeper until it hits a wall of solid rock where it lingers a moment before shattering the shale into dust.

Millions of gallons of water are sluiced from local streams and rivers, and are redirected to the fresh perforation in the earth’s surface and incorporated into a mix with toxic chemicals and sand. The concoction is then fired 9000 feet into the ground with the power of a bomb.

The ancient shale is instantly annihilated, surrendering contents that have long been trapped like bugs in amber; tiny packages of natural gas, freed from an existence of useless idleness, are drained along with the deadly brew that freed them. All that progress leaves behind is a hollow hole and some toxic waste with no place to go.

This is called hydrofracking, and if you live in the Southern tier it’s coming to a city or town near you.

To many, from John McCain to T. Boone Pickens to (regrettably) Barack Obama and David Paterson, hydrofracking is the future. To Binghamton, a boom town left in the dust of another era, these bubbles of liquid gold far underground might seem like a new frontier for an age of economic expansion.

Indeed, the state, the federal government and the natural gas industry are dangling a billion dollars a year in the face of every New Yorker, claiming that despoiled land is the price we must pay for cheaper energy and increased government revenue.

It sure does look good: some estimates say that the Marcellus shale formation, on top of which sits Binghamton and much of Southern Tier, contains enough natural gas to meet the needs of the entire United States for two years. The benefits of extracting this resource, some might argue, outweigh the costs: new jobs, new money pouring into an economically depressed area, local investment and overflowing government coffers.

But Binghamton has been a boomtown once before, and this short term resource could do long-term damage.

The biggest danger is in the toxic slew of water, shale, gas and deadly chemicals that are created by each well. Drilling companies refuse to identify what chemicals are used in the process, calling the information a “trade secret,” but independent researchers have found a myriad of carcinogens at other sites. In states like Colorado, where similar drilling has been done, there have been many cases of groundwater contamination through use of these cancer causing chemicals.

The drilling industry has also not yet told anyone how it would dispose of this byproduct. The most likely possibility seems to be creating reservoirs and hoping that the stagnant brew does not leak.

The last great industrial age of Binghamton already poisoned the land. As a wise man once said, when you’re in a hole, stop digging. The natural resources that we are blindly exploiting predate us by millions of years, but if we’re not careful they will be gone in the blink of an eye.

And hydrofracking will not bring long term economic expansion to the Binghamton region. While it is economic growth, it is not sustainable and lasting growth. We have a finite amount of buried energy resources, so no matter how deep we drill we will never fully solve the structural issue of having unlimited wants but limited means. Even if natural gas brings a decade or two of growth to the area, in the end we will be left with empty wells, lost jobs and poisonous contamination.

The only real answer to the nation’s energy problem is building a renewable energy infrastructure that harvests the natural forces of the earth and does not have a 20-year expiration date. In the coming years, Binghamton University, with its yearly crop of top-notch engineering grads, should be on the forefront of looking ahead for long-term solutions — not backwards for superficial fixes — as our nation confronts what will be the greatest energy crisis the world has ever seen.