July 2011 Commentary: Hydrofracking

Hydrofracking, sounds obscene, and it is if you care for, honor and respect Mother Earth.  Short for high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracking involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and toxic chemicals at high pressures to break up deep shale rock formations (see map below) and release the natural gas through a well to the surface. For a gluttonous energy-consuming country such as the USA, hydrofracking is the newest energy gold rush to meet an ever-growing demand, but at what environmental and human health expense?  If we rush to poison our remaining water supplies for short-term economic gain to exploit non-renewable energy resources such as shale gas, what we have left is a dry, barren wasteland.