While it isn’t exactly an article, I found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uti2niW2BRA. Most of my encounters with Fracking have labeled it one way or the other, as the next step in environmental self-destruction being pushed by greedy faceless corporate interests or the conspiracy particular political groups to subvert a form of energy that’s been around for years. Both sides often have facts as well as biases to back up their views, and this video, an attempt at a balanced understanding of the issue, caused me to start asking a lot of questions I never bothered with before. If Fracking has been around for forty years, why is it suddenly the source of so many potential problems? What has changed in the industry in that time frame? Since when has Fracking been exempt from the Clean Water act and other protections and is it still exempt? If regulations state wells must be drilled well below water table levels, what are possible ways of contamination? Can the pressure crack soil and rock layers higher up then where intended?
Too often I feel I gather too little information on a subject before coming to a conclusion, and Fracking is a very technical process that is very important to both our economy and environment. Too important to come to a conclusion based off of limited information.
