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b'America is in the midst of a fracking boom. Most new oil and gas wells in this country are drilled using hydraulic fracturing, the injection of a cocktail of water and chemicals at high pressure to release bubbles of oil or gas trapped in shale rock. Thanks to fracking, America is awash in cheap natural gas and is poised to become the world\\u2019s largest petroleum producer next year. That would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. \\u201cPeople thought that the United States was tapped out.\\u201d says Russell Gold, a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and author of The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World. \\u201cThere\\u2019s more energy than we frankly know what to do with right now.\\u201d But some say the boom comes with a cost. Opponents of fracking cite risks to groundwater supplies, and argue that it\\u2019s not climate friendly. Mark Zoback, a professor of Geophysics at Stanford agrees that when dealing with a large industrial process like fracking, things can go wrong, but that fracking itself isn\\u2019t the problem. \\u201cThe real problem is well construction,\\u201d Zoback says, \\u201cand if you do a good job of building a well, and we know how to build wells, we really can prevent the kinds of problems we should worry about below the earth\\u2019s surface, and that is the leakage that could contaminate aquifers that could leak gas to the atmosphere and obviate the benefit of using natural gas instead of coal, for example, for greenhouse gas emissions.\\u201d Gold and Zoback recently sat down at the Commonwealth Club to weigh in on the costs and benefits of fracking, along with Trevor Houser, co-author of Fueling Up: The Economic Implications of America\\u2019s Oil and Gas Boom. Houser speaks to the economic benefit of fracking, but cautions against believing any hype. \\u201cThe climate consequences of the gas boom have been oversold by environmentalists, the climate benefits of the gas boom have been oversold by the industry,\\u201d Houser says. \\u201cSame as the economic story\\u2026.it\\u2019s not as good as you think, it\\u2019s not as bad as you think.\\u201d Hype or not, it\\u2019s a boom that\\u2019s taking place right in our own backyard, says Russell Gold. \\u201cThis is not an energy boom that\\u2019s happening above the Arctic Circle in Alaska or way off in Gulf of Mexico over the horizon,\\u201d Gold says. \\u201cThis is happening in county after county in many places. And while that is intrusive and while we are talking about an industrial process, if we\\u2019re not doing it here in the United States, it\\u2019s going to be done somewhere else.\\u201d Russell Gold, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal; Author, The Boom: How Fracking Ignited the American Energy Revolution and Changed the World Trevor Houser, Partner, Rhodium Group; Co-Author, Fueling Up: The Economic Implications of America\\u2019s Oil and Gas Boom Mark Zoback, Professor of Geophysics at Stanford, former member of the Secretary of Energy\\u2019s Committee on Shale Gas Development from 2011 to 2012 This program was recorded in front of a live audience at the Commonwealth Club of California on April 1, 2014.\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'