Fracks and facts

Daniel Raimi's book sifts through the bluster and rhetoric. The result will please and annoy both sides

Shale oil and gas have changed the world, but hydraulic fracturing, the technique that frees the molecules from otherwise-impermeable rock, is still controversial. Several European countries have banned it. Activists still picket UK drilling sites. Hillary Clinton, who in government sought to export American shale technology, came out against fracking in her doomed presidential bid. Industry boosters and anti-fracking campaigners duke it out daily online, always talking past one another. The opponents have quite a charge list. Fracking contaminates aquifers and drinking water. It causes earthquakes. Methane leakage worsens climate change. The US sector is an unregulated Wild West. Shale gas