Last week the French government was the first to enact a law forbidding hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking” (more…)

The U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 8 percent, almost half of the country’s unofficial 2020 emissions reduction goal, by increasing use of natural gas plants, according to a new M.I.T. report.

The report, “The Future of Natural Gas,” found that (more…)

Natural gas has a relatively comfortable relationship with the transportation world. It is largely seen as clean, domestic, and inexpensive, a win-win-win situation that is not often found in the transportation industry. While the market for natural gas vehicles (NGVs) remains comparatively small, the growing (more…)

Natural gas is domestically abundant (2,587 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable natural gas in the United States) and it burns cleaner than oil and coal (30% and 50% less carbon dioxide emissions respectively), but removing the hydrocarbons from mile deep shale beds has proven to be a dangerous and environmentally damaging endeavor. (more…)

The Ukrainian government, long reliant on imported sources of energy to power the country, is aggressively pursuing the latest advances in natural gas drilling in hopes of tapping into large reserves trapped in shale deep underground.

The former Soviet state is working with major energy (more…)

A large U.S. producer of natural gas from underground shale formations says it will suspend the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, at seven well sites until it has investigated the causes behind a drilling accident last week.

Chesapeake Energy has halted its (more…)

Congress isn’t going to regulate hydraulic fracturing any time soon. But the Department of Interior might. For starters, Interior is mulling whether it should require drilling companies to disclose the chemicals they use to frack wells drilled on public lands, and already the suggestion has earned Interior Secretary Ken Salazar an earful. (more…)

In a scramble for new sources of natural gas, European energy companies are increasingly turning to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a drilling technique that has generated controversy in the U.S. because of potential harmful environmental effects.

In Poland, Halliburton has constructed a well for the state-owned Polish Oil and Gas (more…)

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” a controversial practice used to drill for natural gas, also causes uranium trapped inside shale formations to be released, according to a new study.

After mapping Marcellus shale concentrations in Western New York and (more…)

Hydro fracturing is a profitable method of natural gas extraction that uses large quantities of water and chemicals to free gas from underground rock formations. But New York City’s concerns that the practice would threaten its water supply have slowed a juggernaut that has been sweeping across parts of the northeastern United States.

The highly productive method of natural gas extraction known as “hydro fracturing” has spread rapidly across the United States in recent years, opening up vast new reserves in Texas, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, and other states.

Last fall, however, the process — also known as “fracking” — ran headlong into opposition from New York City. And for now at least, stiff resistance from the city, which fears the contamination of its pristine water supply in upstate New York, seems to have slowed the momentum behind this highly touted — and highly controversial — drilling technique. (more…)