A rally calling for a moratorium against hydraulic fracturing in New York.

fracking.jpg [4]

Hydraulic fracturing [5], the new, headline-grabbing natural gas drilling technique is making its way across the ocean from the United States to Europe.

"Fracking" test wells are being drilled in countries around the continent including Poland, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands.  The business potential of tapping Europe's shale gas reserves has large and small companies alike scrambling to secure leases.  The big players include Shell, Haliburton, and Exxon.

Beyond the enduring evironmental controversy [6] surrounding fracking, experts believe a lack of service infrastructure coupled with geological issues may make extraction of natural gas in Europe commercially unviable.

Dr. Andrezej Kassenberg of the Institute of Sustainable Development says it is important to keep perspective amidst the ever-growing hype around natural gas: "In the long term shale gas is still a fossil fuel, and in the short term it creates local problems related to nature conservation and water sources.  There is a need to think of the worst-case scenario and prepare for it."

Read the full story at The Guardian: Controversial gas 'fracking' extraction headed to Europe [7]

Image credit: Marcellus Protest [8] via Flickr