Here’s an interesting video set from the folks at Energy In Depth, showing how natural gas development in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale play has lifted the lives of three women and their families. Take a look:

The point underscored throughout: Real people, real lives, real economic empowerment. Three women and three families – their lives made better with the energy-from-shale revolution that has come to Pennsylvania, paying more than $1.8 billion in lease and bonus payments to landowners in 2008 alone and which now employs more than 229,000, almost 2 percent of the commonwealth’s population.

For more information, visit Energy From Shale.

Check out the useful infographic below that shows how groundwater protection can work hand in hand with responsible natural gas development that uses hydraulic fracturing. Go here, and it becomes interactive.

Industry guidelines developed by API and its members call for key components detailed in the graphic: sound well construction, backflow prevention, secure impoundment strategies and smart water use and reuse and safe waste disposal. All are designed to prevent leaks and surface spills, and to promote good stewardship.

In addition, the graphic depicts some fracking basics that help blunt some of the myths about the process – specifically, that hydraulic fracturing occurs a mile or more beneath the surface, with thousands of feet of impermeable rock between fracked areas and gr... more »

Update: The author has changed the article, without noting so. Original article here. The new article suffers from many the same problems in that it fails to note that the majority of the money involved is through government efforts to lower prices in developing countries.  As the IEA notes ending this support will shift "the burden of high prices from government budgets to individual consumers…" and that “…low-income households are likely to be disproportionately affected by the removal…”

We see a lot of false arguments about “subsidies” for the oil and natural gas industry, but this tweet caught us by surprise:

First, as we have to explain every time, the oil and gas industries don’t get tax credits (which reduce taxes dollar for dollar) or grants from the government. They get t... more »

In December 2010 Jane Van Ryan put up a post urging us to not rush to judgment on fracking. The case in question was in Texas where the EPA issued an emergency order:

"…that 'tried, convicted and sentenced' a natural gas company accused of polluting two water wells in Texas with methane gas. Weeks later, evidence shows that the company Range Resources was not responsible for the methane leaks. As the article authored by Alex Mills of the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers explains, the water wells were drilled in 2005 and Range Resources drilled two natural gas wells nearby in 2009. In August this year, the water wells' owners complained to the state agency that oversees oil and natural gas drilling that their wells had become contaminated. They blamed Range Resources.  Tests showed... more »

April is National Safe Digging Month, and America's oil and natural gas companies join with the Common Ground Alliance on a simple message: Call 811 a few days before any digging project. API Pipeline Director Peter Lidiak:

"Eight-one-one should become as familiar to Americans as 911. April is the traditional start of digging season.  We strongly encourage individuals and companies to call 811 before they begin digging.  Millions of us live, work or play near or above pipelines and other underground infrastructure.  We need to protect it by calling 811.”

API encourages homeowners and professional excavators to:

• Always call 811 a few days before digging, regardless of the depth or familiarity with the property.
• Plan ahead.  Call on Monday or Tuesday for work planned for an... more »