‘Gasland’ powers Big Green myth-making about fracking

Published May 19, 2011 4:00am ET



I just learned I’m going to save money! My apartment building in New York will switch from heating oil to cleaner natural gas. Gas is much cheaper than oil now because energy companies found ways to get more of it out of the ground. Even more astounding is that by using this technique, America won’t run out of natural gas for 100 years or more! Time to break out the champagne?

Not so fast, say environmentalists. To get gas out of the ground, companies use pressurized chemicals to blow up rock. It’s called hydraulic fracturing, aka “fracking.”

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