Natural Gas Fracking Threatens Drinking Water (Video)
This weekend 60 Minutes aired an investigative story about the dangers of a largely-unregulated method of extracting natural gas from shale miles below the Earth's surface – known as "fracking" – and the dangers it poses to drinking water, our health, and the environment.
If the BP spill taught us anything, it's that exploring for energy has safety risks, but that can get lost in all the excitement," begins Lesley Stahl of CBS's "60 minutes" in her segment. Stahl explores the controversies surrounding this new drilling method, from the undisclosed toxic chemicals pumped into the ground to the extract the gas to the safety record of the industry. It's not pretty.
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In the US But that is changing, and now this stepchild is being touted as the hope of the future - the answer to our energy problems.
What has brought about the change is there is a new unconventional process for extracting natural gas from shale, a dense rock formation two miles underground. And if you're sitting on top of it, you may become a new American phenomenon: a "shaleionaire."
And yet, if the BP spill taught us anything, it's that exploring for energy has safety risks. But that can get lost in all the excitement.
What is increasingly evident is that shale gas is overwhelmingly abundant right here in the U.S.A.
Shale Gas Drilling: Pros & Cons
Extra: Meet The "Shaleionaires"
Extra: Gas Drilling Horror Story
Link: Haynesville Shale
"In the last few years, we've discovered the equivalent of two Saudi Arabias of oil in the form of natural gas in the United States. Not one, but two," Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of
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