Fracking: In the path of the ‘shale gale’

The oil company had hoped that by taking only written questions from the residents, it could keep a lid on their emotions. But it was only seconds after the chief executive of Great Western Oil & Gas began the Q&A with the people of Windsor, Colorado, that the lid blew off. Before Rich Frommer could read out the first submission, Connie Reifschneider rose from her fold-up chair to interrupt him. “I’m shaking because I’m angry,” she said. The family-owned oil company’s plans would turn her neighbourhood of bike-riding kids, pastureland and wild deer into a health hazard scarred by drilling rigs, trucks, noise, dust and chemical pollutants, she said. “How can you and your family, with any conscience at all, disrupt and possibly ruin the lives of so many other families by drilling in such close proximity to so many homes?” Mr Frommer was already wealthy and his only concern, she said, was to enrich his family further. “Answer this please: when is enough money enough?” Passions over fracking are on the rise in America. A boom in US production of oil and gas from shale rock formations – enabled by horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that cracks open the dense rocks – has upturned energy markets. It has been cheered by both Democrats and Republicans for making the US the world’s largest natural gas producer, reducing its dependence on Middle Eastern energy and creating jobs. President Barack Obama, a champion of action on climate change, praises fracked natural gas for being “clean”, because it produces limited greenhouse gases when burnt for electricity.  But the rush to extract more shale energy is bringing industrialisation to picturesque rural towns and densely built city suburbs, where horrified residents say fracking is anything but clean. In places such as Windsor, the industry’s growth is causing political fractures as well as cracks in the rocks. That signals trouble for Democrats and Republicans in the state, as fracking joins the long list of issues stoking disillusionment with government among voters. Next Tuesday’s midterm elections will offer more evidence of the problem...more