India's Energy: How to Power 1.2 Billion People

India is a country so unique and huge that there are few facts or anecdotes can do justice to the sub-continents dizzying mix of culture, religion and languages. It is a country that simply must be explored, and one that I'm lucky enough to have just spent the past few months travelling across.

On an environmental front it is apparently a country of extremes; streets are dusty and dirty, stagnant water is often filled with malodorous waste and the city air is thick with smog. On the other side of the coin, however, it is a country in transition. Its green-energy growth is faster than almost anywhere else on Earth and, by raw numbers alone, the average Indian lives a far more sustainable life than the average westerner.

Frack from Fiction - The Pros and Cons of Fracking

It seems that everybody is talking about fracking recently. It has been the cause of many polarised debates and is a hot topic amongst environmentalists and energy companies alike. Yet it is nothing new; breaking rocks to extract gas was first experimented with in the late 1940s and the method used today has been a serious source of gas since the late 1990s.

With the cost of fracking declining and the demand for cheap natural gas increasing, it looks as if the argument is here to stay. The number of new fracking sites have now outstripped the building of new conventional rigs and in excess of 200,000km³ of recoverable shale gas is reportedly trapped under our feet. 

It's probably time, therefore, to take an impartial look at the facts of fracking.