“We can have this conversation, but you cannot show me one place — not one! — where there is a proven pollution of groundwater by hydraulic fracturing. I am truly offended that the American public would be hoodwinked by stories that do not scientifically hold up.”
fracking
Fracking: Sizing Up the Quakes That Come from Hydraulic Fracturing
We already know that hydraulic fracturing—the process of injecting millions of gallons of water and chemicals deep into the earth to exploit the natural gas trapped inside rock—can likely help cause earthquakes. The British …
Contaminated? EPA Says Fracking “Likely” Polluted Groundwater
If you report on the environmental issues surrounding hydraulic fracturing and shale natural gas, you’ll hear a certain line from gas industry representatives over and over: there has never been a documented case of groundwater …
Political Fractures Over Fracking
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC)—a five-member committee that governs the water resources around the Delaware River—was supposed to meet today to decide on whether hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, should be …
Can a Government Panel Calm Fears Over Fracking?
There are many questions surrounding the practice of shale gas drilling—and especially the hydraulic fracturing methods used to get the gas. But it really all boils down to one issue: trust. Do Americans trust gas companies to drill in a responsible way and minimize the risk of any accidents or contamination? And perhaps more …
Is New York About to Get Fracking? Not Exactly
Environmentalists and gas drillers alike snapped to attention when the news alert went up earlier today: the New York Times reported that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was ready to lift the state’s moratorium on natural gas drilling via hydraulic fracturing. The moratorium was put into place by Cuomo’s predecessor David Paterson, …
The Benefits and Costs of a “Golden Age” of Natural Gas and Fracking
Shale natural gas—usually the most boring of fuels—has been one of the hottest energy topics in 2011, alternately lionized as a cleaner-burning and plentiful power source and demonized as a poisoner of local water supplies, and even worse for the climate than coal. That debate will continue to run hot—just last week New York …
Will Europe Embrace Fracking?
As my colleague Bryan Walsh wrote recently in a cover story, shale gas is fast on its way to becoming a total game changer in the U.S. energy market. But what about Europe?
More Problems for the Shale-Gas Industry
My Going Green column this week covers a new study that contains the strongest independent scientific case yet that shale-gas production can contaminate nearby water wells. A team of Duke researchers examined groundwater wells in northeastern Pennsylvania and New York state—the gasland I visited for our recent cover story on …
More Problems With Fracking—And Some Solutions
For all the fear about the potential for deep underground water contamination due to the hydraulic fracturing process used in shale gas extraction, there’s always been a much more present danger: the risk of something going wrong at the surface. From simple spills to industrial accidents to the ongoing problem of wastewater disposal, …