Hydraulic fracturing for natural gas is a water-intensive process—as critics love to point out. But by enabling the switch …
Natural Gas
As Obama Visits Upstate New York, the Fracking Debate Takes Center Stage
While the President might want to talk education on his visit to upstate New York, there will be no escaping the war over fracking
The War Over Fracking Comes to the English Countryside
Environmentalists have been fighting against fracking in the U.S. for years — with little success. Now the British government is pushing to allow drilling for shale gas in the U.K. Will British greens stop fracking from starting?
Deep Disposal Wells from Oil and Gas Drilling Linked to Earthquakes
A new study finds that the deep disposal wells used to store drilling wastewater—not fracking per se—may help trigger earthquakes. Regulators and the industry should take notice—and find ways to recycle that wastewater, …
The Unintended Consequences of Exporting Natural Gas
A move to increase U.S. exports of natural gas could pay off for the economy, but it could also lead to more pollution and higher carbon emissions
China’s Millennials: Get Rich or Save the Planet?
One member of a rising generation wrestles with choices his parents never had to make
Why the Shale Gas Industry Needs Regulations for Fracking
You’ll rarely find a business in America—and especially one in the fossil-fuel industry—asking for more regulation. The default mode of industry groups like U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute (API) …
Fracked: CNN Looks Into the Legal Gray Zone of Shale Gas Regulation
Oil is all we seem to want to talk about these days—$3.82 a gallon gas will do that—but the shale gas boom is still going on in much of the U.S. Ground zero—as we wrote about last year in TIME—is Pennsylvania, where some landowners have made a lot of money leasing their land for shale gas production. But as Poppy Harlow reports …
Shale Gas: It’s Not the Fracking That Might Be the Problem. It’s Everything Else
If you were trying to invent with a term that sounds as scary as possible, you couldn’t do better than “fracking.” That’s industry terminology for hydraulic fracturing, the process used to get at unconventional natural gas and …
Exclusive: How the Sierra Club Took Millions From the Natural Gas Industry—and Why They Stopped [UPDATE]
Mainstream environmental groups have struggled to find the right line on shale natural gas and the hydraulic fracturing or fracking process. Gas has a much smaller carbon footprint than coal—according to most scientists—and …