October 7th, 2014
The Bakken Boom: East Coast at Risk
DOWNLOAD PDF
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking), an energy extraction method that injects large quantities of water, sand and chemicals under high pressure to crack the rock and release oil and gas, has caused a surge in domestic oil production. Fracked oil from the Bakken Shale has put North Dakota at “the center of a revolution,” now yielding more oil than Alaska and rising to second place for production behind Texas. But, as production soars, so does the demand for pipelines, trains and barges to transport Bakken crude oil to refineries, increasingly on the East Coast, the most densely populated region of the United States.