Fracking

The Associated Press had a story today detailing how regulators in Pennsylvania spend as little as 35 minutes reviewing gas drilling permits, before giving companies approval to blast millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to extract the gas – a controversial practice known as fracking.

In a hearing, today, lawmakers on Capitol Hill probed the health and environmental impacts of a gas drilling boom fueled by the controversial gas extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking. Using this technique, companies blast millions of gallons of chemically treated water into the earth to force natural gas from underground deposits.

Natural gas has been touted as a more responsible energy source than coal in the face of climate change, but a new study conducted by researchers at Cornell University argues otherwise.

The study, which is scheduled to be published in the journal Climatic Change Letters, argues the advantages that gas produced from fracking has over coal are offset by the fugitive emissions of methane gas.