One of the major concerns about natural gas fracking is whether companies are allowing a significant amount of natural gas to escape, since methane-the main component of natural gas-is a potent greenhouse gas, more than 25 times stronger than carbon dioxide (CO2). The agencyunveiled the proposed rule last July, then revised it after receiving more than 150,000 comments from the public and industry, the EPA said today. Regulators are trying to keep up with the fast pace the rollout of fracking by writing new rules under the Clean Air Act. (See Interactive: “ Breaking Fuel From Rock” and “ Photos: The Science of Shale Gas“) Hydraulic fracturing has been in use since the 1950s, but in the past several years the volume of water has been dramatically increased and the technique has been combined with long horizontal drilling, allowing companies to unlock oil and gas trapped in shale formations, leading to a boom in extraction in states from Pennsylvania to Texas to North Dakota. Environmental Protection Agency, new oil and gas wells that are hydraulically fractured-or “fracked”-will have to use new equipment to capture the gases that escape, rather than releasing them into the air or burning them off.
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