"It begins with the kidnapping of an Army Reserve officer on U.S. soil. Name: Captain Maeve Cassidy. Profession: Geologist specializing in natural gas drilling and fracturing. Mission: classified. Abducted less than twenty-four hours upon her return from Afghanistan, Cassidy's disappearance from a Fort Bragg compound is more than a security breach. It is the first stage of a large-scale domestic attack that few Americans could imagine--or survive{u2026}...

"A vivid window into the world of working class men and the value of hard labor, set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota Shiftless and unsatisfied in his life, Michael Patrick Smith decided in his mid-thirties to seek out the hardest work he could find, to see if he could do it. He wanted to be a person, unlike his father, who knew how to work and get things done. He found himself in the oil fields of North Dakota during the Bakken fracking...

"Tells the story of the energy boom's impact on a small town at the edge of Appalachia--and one woman's transformation from a struggling single parent to an unlikely activist. Stacey Haney is a local nurse working hard to raise two kids and keep up her small farm when the fracking industry comes to her hometown of Amity, Pennsylvania. Intrigued by reports of lucrative natural gas leases in her neighbors' mailboxes, she strikes a deal with a Texas-based...

The leader of a citizens' initiative to ban hydraulic fracturing in Denton, Texas, discusses the environmental and health dangers involved with the controversial process and details how the grassroots activism plan drove the industry out of the town.

Discover all about fracking and natural gas, their pros and cons, and what their use means for the future of our planet.

For the updated paperback edition of Under the Surface, Tom Wilber has written a new chapter and epilogue covering developments since the book's initial publication. Chief among these are the home rule movement and accompanying social and legal events leading up to an unprecedented ban of fracking in New York state, and the outcome of the federal EPA's investigation of water pollution just across the state border in Dimock, Pennsylvania. The industry,...

"In 2009, filmmaker Josh Fox learned his home in the Delaware River Basin was on top of the Marcellus Shale, a rock formation containing natural gas that stretches across New York, Pennsylvania, and huge stretches of the Northeast. He was offered $100,000 to lease his land for a new method of drilling developed by Halliburton and soon discovered this was only a part of a 34-state drilling campaign, the largest domestic gas drilling boom in history....

"Argues that obtaining energy through the hydraulic fracturing of shale rock is based on unstable economic foundations, and is having much more destructive effects on the economy and the government of the United States than its advocates claim." --

"Over roughly the past decade, oil and gas production in the United States has surged dramatically-thanks largely to technological advances such as high-volume hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking." This rapid increase has generated widespread debate, with proponents touting economic and energy-security benefits and opponents highlighting the environmental and social risks of increased oil and gas production. Despite the heated debate,...

"This book explores how and why controversies over liquid biofuels (bioethanol and biodiesel) and hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") unfolded in surprisingly similar ways in the global North and South. In the early 2000s, the search was on for fuels that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions, spur economic development in rural regions, and diversify national energy supplies. Biofuels and fracking took centre stage as promising commodities and technologies....