“Natural gas drilling techniques have either advanced or deteriorated, depending on your viewpoint, with the increased use of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking.
Fracking is being used to release gas from hard shale deposits in various hot spots across the U.S. and the world. It has allowed gas companies to access gas supplies that were not viable with traditional drilling methods, opening up a spigot that could supply the U.S. for years to come and launching a drumbeat for domestic natural gas to become the “bridge” fuel to the future, because it burns cleanly in combustion engines and because it has created thousands with much-needed jobs.
Critics, however, say fracking comes with a high environmental cost and even its promise of increased U.S. supplies could go unfulfilled if speculators sell the gas off on the global market. Gas companies, they say, are overly optimistic about natural gas production, withevidence emerging that fracked wells may run strongly for a few years, then diminish to a trickle, potentially hurting investors and landowner leasees.”
Fracking forces recoil in New Jersey and France, and new rules in New York via Barbara Kessler – Green Right Now