Not to use the Sarah Palin 'knowledge by association' logic, but being from Texas it's almost impossible not to know a little about this topic. 3 million of the 4 million natural gas oil wells ever drilled in the history of the world were done in the Oklahoma-Texas region, and natural gas is one way to ween ourselves off Middle Eastern oil, because we can get to more of it than anyone else. We can still get it out of the salt water aquifers and if you drill right you can get through the water but the problem is the dirty water that comes out when the sand helps seperates the shale, but new technology is allowing us to use that same excess water by moving it to the next well. You still have to dispose of the water but you can use it for 8 or 9 wells before doing so. This technology has to be expanded, though.

44 stated clearly in the last state of the union that he's anti-oil, anti-fossil, and pro-green which is fine but it's not doing anyone any good right now. Since most U.S. ethanol is produced from corn, and the required electricity from many distilleries comes mainly from coal plants, there has been considerable debate about how sustainable corn-based bio-ethanol could be in replacing fossil fuels. But even Henry Ford advocated for ethanol as fuel even during the prohibition, but "cheaper oil" caused gasoline to prevail. Capturing CO2 from from coal fired fire plants is affordable but sequestering carbon dioxide is the problem; pipes for CO2 as complex as ones for oil. So it is indeed a hydrofracturing problem...but we have to get on renewables as much as possible. No doubt about that.