[pgkdan]

The question for the rest of us is whether we are serious about domestic energy production. All forms of energy have risks and environmental costs, not least wind (noise and dead birds and bats) and solar (vast expanses of land). Yet renewables are nowhere close to supplying enough energy, even with large subsidies, to maintain America's standard of living. The shale gas and oil boom is the result of U.S. business innovation and risk-taking. If we let the fear of undocumented pollution kill this boom, we will deserve our fate as a second-class industrial power.

That's the truth!

[EERinOK]

The biggest risk in shale gas drilling, production and Fracking is that it might increase employment, directly and indirectly, by 10s of thousands with decent and very well paying NON UNION jobs in areas of the country overrun by democrats, unions and welfare leeches. There is a reason that the enviro-wackos and democrats chose NY and PA, not TX and OK as the epicenter for their latest crusade against anything related to domestic fossil fuel development.

Technically, the biggest risks are surface handling of materials and water, and good near surface fresh water isolation by mechanically competent casing and cementing practices. Both of these are VERY easy problems to make consistently safe, and in practice, are working 99.9% of the time today.