EcocentricNatural Gas
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 …
EcocentricNatural Gas
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 …
EcocentricNatural Gas
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 …
EcocentricNatural Gas
I’m beginning to think solving this global warming thing is going to be really, really hard. We all know that the burning of carbon-intensive coal is just about the single biggest source of manmade greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why groups like the Sierra Club are fighting so hard to get America off coal—whether or not we burn …
EcocentricEnergy
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 …
EcocentricNatural Gas
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, …
EcocentricNatural Gas
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 …
EcocentricNatural Gas
As science journalists (nominally, at least), we’re in the business of explaining things here at Ecocentric. Climate change, air pollution, offshore oil drilling, species loss—these are all complex subjects that require some background knowledge, for both journalist and reader, before we even get to the news of the day. The challenge …
EcocentricNatural Gas
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?
EcocentricNatural Gas
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 …
