Here we go again? Shifting burden from one area to another.  A life cycle perspective should be taken:

In a December 8th, 2009 article, the NYTs reports: “Across vast regions of the country, gas companies are using a technology called hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas from previously untapped beds of shale. The push has been so successful that the country’s potential gas reserves jumped by 35 percent in two years. The new supplies have driven down natural gas prices for consumers and might help the global environment by allowing more production of electricity from natural gas, which emits fewer global warming emissions than coal.”

However the good intensions of cheaper, more abundant energy source that is less impactive on one area of the global environment, has a local serious environmental issue.   “Hazards like methane contamination of drinking water wells, long known in regions where gas production was common, are spreading to populous areas that have little history of coping with such risks, but happen to sit atop shale beds.”