Ronald Bailey argues that the "environmental and economic benefits of fracking greatly outweigh the costs":
Natural gas is outcompeting coal as a cheap fuel for producing electricity and the result is that U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are down sharply to a level last seen around 1992. In addition, a study comparing the costs and benefits of coal with those of conventional and shale gas in the February 2013 issue of Energy Policy finds that burning natural gas produces far less in the way of air pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, soot, and mercury. The authors conclude that a shift from coal to gas would "reduce the overall likelihood of health problems affecting the nervous system, inner organs, and the brain"…
He goes on to address concerns related to methane leakage, local water pollution, and land disturbance. Meanwhile, Andrew Revkin relays two approaches that could "potentially [end] fights over the source of any subsequent contamination of water supplies in a drilling area":
[The first] technology, [developed by Southwestern Energy and Rice University] uses specially designed nanoparticles that exhibit a unique profile, or "signature," that can be detected at low concentrations. This new tracer technology is a stable, non-invasive, non-toxic tracer that can be used for long term fluid identification. The current schedule is to complete the laboratory testing by the end of the year and, if successful, start field testing in the first quarter of 2013…
[The second approach, from startup BaseTrace,] uses a unique, proprietary structure to make it withstand extreme temperatures/pressures and stop codons to make it completely inert. Because DNA has the advantage of providing a near-infinite number of sequence variations, the tracer is well-specific and easily testable.
Previous Dish on fracking here, here, here, here, here and here.
The Dish 