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Alex Prud'homme
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Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know? (What Everyone Needs To Know®) Illustrated Edition, Kindle Edition

by Alex Prud'homme (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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Constantly in the news and the subject of much public debate, fracking, as it is known for short, is one of the most promising yet controversial methods of extracting natural gas and oil. Today, 90 percent of natural gas wells use fracking. Though highly effective, the process-which fractures rock with pressurized fluid-has been criticized for polluting land, air, and water, and endangering human health.

A timely addition to Oxford's What Everyone Needs to Know? series, Hydrofracking tackles this contentious topic, exploring both sides of the debate and providing a clear guide to the science underlying the technique. In concise question-and-answer format, Alex Prud'homme cuts through the maze of opinions and rhetoric to uncover key points, from the economic and political benefits of fracking to the health dangers and negative effects on the environment. Prud'homme offers clear answers to a range of fundamental questions, including: What is fracking fluid? How does it impact water supplies? Who regulates the industry? How much recoverable natural gas exists in the U.S.? What new innovations are on the horizon? Supporters as diverse as President Obama and the conservative billionaire T. Boone Pickens have promoted natural gas as a clean, "21st-century" fuel that will reduce global warming, create jobs, and provide tax revenues, but concerns remain, with environmental activists like Bill McKibben and others leading protests to put an end to fracking as a means of obtaining alternative energy. Prud'homme considers ways to improve methods in the short-term, while also exploring the possibility of transitioning to more sustainable resources-wind, solar, tidal, and perhaps nuclear power-for the long term.

Written for general readers, Hydrofracking clearly explains both the complex science of fracking and the equally complex political and economic issues that surround it, giving readers all the information they need to understand what will no doubt remain a contentious issue for years to come.

What Everyone Needs to Know? is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.
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  1. ISBN-13
    978-0199311255
  2. Edition
    Illustrated
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  5. Publication date
    November 8, 2013
  6. Part of series
    What Everyone Needs To Know?
  7. Language
    English
  8. File size
    1911 KB
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW About This Series

Who it's for:

Busy people with diverse interests, ranging from college students to professionals, who wish to inform themselves in a succinct yet authoritative manner about a particular topic.

What's inside:

An incisive approach to a complex and timely issue, laid out in a straight-forward, question-and-answer format.

Meet Our Authors

Top experts in their given fields, ranging from an Economist correspondent to a director at the Council on Foreign Relations, you can trust our authors’ expertise and guidance.

Popular Topics in the "What Everyone Needs to Know" Series

  • International Politics
  • Environmental Policies
  • World History
  • Sciences & Math
  • Religion & Spirituality

About the Author

Alex Prud'homme has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Time. He is the author of five books, including The Ripple Effect: the Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century, and the co-writer of Julia Child's bestselling memoir, My Life in France.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00FSAE23I
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Illustrated edition (November 8, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 8, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1911 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • Customer Reviews:

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  1. Alex Prud'homme

    Alex Prud'homme

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  2. Alex Prud'homme

    Alex Prud'homme

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    As a journalist Alex Prud’homme has covered subjects ranging from from French cuisine to Monster Trucks, biotech, terrorism, energy, water, art, and business for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Talk, People, and Time.

    As an author, he has written seven books, most notably as co-author of Julia Child’s 2006 memoir, My Life in France, a #1 NYT best-seller which inspired half the film “Julie & Julia,” and won the Literary Food Writing Award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP).

    Prud'homme's 2011 book, The Ripple Effect: the Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century, was published by Scribner, and inspired Participant Media’s 2012 documentary film “Last Call at the Oasis.”

    In 2012, Prud'homme wrote Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know, for Oxford University Press.

    In 2016, Knopf published The French Chef in America: Julia Child’s Second Act, Prud'homme's dramatic account of how Julia left “The French Chef” and classical French cuisine to re-Americanize herself as "Julia Child," reached the peak of her success and suffered her darkest moments, while finding her true voice in the 1970s.

    In 2017, Thames & Hudson published Our Lives in France: the Photographic Journey of Paul and Julia Child, a book of Paul Child’s evocative black-and-white images of Paris and Marseille in 1948-54. It is a visual companion to My Life in France, told from Paul’s perspective. Katie Pratt edited the images, while Prud’homme wrote the text.

    Prud’homme’s latest project is a history of food at the White House, to be published by Knopf. It examines key meals that helped shape America, and the central (if overlooked) role food has played in the nation's history, from George Washington and his slave-chef Hercules to the omnivorous Obamas and the fast-food friendly Trumps.

    See more on the author's page
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
34 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

M. Heiss
5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2017
Verified Purchase
The book begins with a glossary, this is excellent. It describes the national and regional disputes over fracking, using a Q&A format throughout. It details the fracking revolution and the spluttering environmentalist backlash.

The PRO side
+ fracking blasts apart the decades-long presumption of limited supply
+ there is no peak oil
+ low cost energy increases domestic manufacturing
+ exports increasing
+ OPEC getting crushed as global oil prices fall. Some very bad regimes are hurting now. That's good.
+ transforming transportation
+ decades of environmental evidence on fracking demonstrates no harm
+ natural gas power plants emit only half the GHG as coal
+ do methane leaks negate the good news onGHG? EPA statement from 2013, page 67
+ good quote: Pragmatic leaders understand... that with natural gas we don't have to choose between our economic and environmental priorities. (66)

Opponents of fracking say the larger point is not climate change or green house gases, but a required move away from energy production. The book presents the CONs of fracking.

- water use, especially in the west
- road use
- visual aesthetics
- potential for drinking water contamination
- studies on fracking have been limited to drilling, do not include accidents or spills

A few notes on the book:
(76) ProPublica is not an "independent online newsroom." They are a leftist propaganda group.
The EPA is facing political and financial problems complying with all the studies fracking opponents demand.
After the EPA poisoned the Animas River and the Navajo nation in retaliation over a land use dispute, people are right to be suspicious of the EPA's politicised findings.
The adverse health section offers too.many hypotheticals and unsubstantiated anecdotes. More academic rigor is needed - the situation is too emotional.
In many places, the problem is old infrastructure, like in Boston (90)

The conclusion is exciting: the opportunities for innovation brought by low cost, clean natural gas make renewables a much h worse option. As far as the grid, delivery, and storage systems, renewables are more.environmentally damaging. Financially they are ruinous. And try building a hydroelectric dam in the west. Environmentalists will not permit them to be built.

Decades of research, testing, and innovation have produced the fracking revolution. It is not inevitable. Politics could still stop it.

The book has a huge notes section and a great bibliography. Excellent for high school research project.
One person found this helpful
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jafrank
4.0 out of 5 stars A solid, extremely short introduction to the most contentious energy practice around these days.
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2014
I moved to Colorado this year, so I felt somewhat obliged to read at least something about this perpetually contentious and, for me, very local topic. It's a short primer and covers the absolute bare bones in a clear accessible style, Prud'Homme provides a slew of data and simple, direct summaries to explain what fracking is, where it came from and why it matters.

He tries to offer balance and clarity and to provide smart arguments both for (it's cheap and there's probably a lot of shale gas in American soil) and against it(it uses an obscene amount of water, its overall environmental impact can be a mess, and it's really just a stop-gap away from fossil fuels into renewables down the road).

Obviously a work like this is meant to offer the briefest of summaries. I would gladly have continued reading it if it had been another couple of hundred pages. There is obviously a great deal more to unpack when it comes to hydrofracking, or indeed to any energy policy than what can be hinted at here. This is a solid, short book if you want a light primer on hydrofracking. Now, where is the heavy primer?
(less)
7 people found this helpful
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wesley h. davis
5.0 out of 5 stars VERY INFORMATIVE
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2014
Verified Purchase
I THE MAIN REASONS I RATED THE BOOK HIGH WAS THAT IT STARTED WITH THE FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ENERGY
INDUSTRY AND MOVED INTO THE VERY BASICS OF WHY FRACKING IS SO SUCCESSFUL' I BORN AND RAISED IN THE OIL COUNTRY MANY YEARS AGO AND OUR FRACKING WAS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY. ALSO, DRILLING AND PRODUCTION WAS MUCH MORE DIFFICULT . IF THE INDUSTRY HNDLES THIS PROGRESS RIGHT,
THEY HAVE A "TIGER BY THE TAIL."
3 people found this helpful
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Robert Lott
5.0 out of 5 stars Balanced and fair review
Reviewed in the United States on December 8, 2014
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An extrmeley balanced review of the industry and its practicies. Though it is balanced there is no way to approach corruption and obviously destructive activities without appearing to have bias. Understand that this book left me with a feeling of loving the idea of hydrofracking but hating its execution.
2 people found this helpful
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P. Moya
5.0 out of 5 stars Enviorment rules
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2014
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This was great easy to read,covers all aspects of fracking, very informative, and delivered quickly. Reasonably priced, kudos to all involved.
2 people found this helpful
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Lonnie W. Morris Jr.
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2014
ITWAS OK>NOT REALLY GOOD AT EXPLAINING THE PROCESS
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Jane Davison
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2014
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It was an eye opener and I was glad to be able to read about this problem.
2 people found this helpful
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Warren Sheelar
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2016
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im satisfied
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Top reviews from other countries

nvision energy
5.0 out of 5 stars objective, concise, useful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 15, 2014
Verified Purchase
this is part of our energy library. the book is a short but sufficiently detailed introduction to fracking. Prud'homme, does a very good job at objectively presenting benefits and drawbacks of fracking. out of all the fracking books I've read, this is the best so far.
3 people found this helpful
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majortom
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 12, 2017
Verified Purchase
very good
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