Reporter's notebook: a bitterly contested $8 billion pipeline along the Appalachian Trail

Feb 24, 2020
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline is the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case to be heard Monday.
Climate activist groups protest the Atlantic Coast Pipeline in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 24, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Questions about shale production arise as U.S. oil production falls

Oct 1, 2019
Analysts have raised questions about the limits of shale oil wells in the United States.
A high-pressure gas line crosses over a canal in an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where fracking is used to extract oil and gas in Lost Hills, California, in 2014.
David McNew/Getty Images

Amid fracking boom, some drillers struggle to earn

Jul 11, 2019
Natural gas companies are struggling, in large part because the prices they’re selling at are so low.
Swallows fly past a high-pressure gas line crossing a canal in an oil field over the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil are extracted using fracking near Lost Hills, California.
David McNew/Getty Images

Central Texas sand mines shift west, taking jobs with them

May 13, 2019
The market for McCulloch County sand has been drying up.
BRADY, TX. January 28, 2019. The Momentive Sand Plant outside of Brady.
Gabriel C. Pérez/KUT

Energy giants to ramp up Permian Basin fracking

Mar 5, 2019
The Permian Basin is now far from the preserve of the independent producer.
Pump jacks are seen using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
David McNew/Getty Images

In West Texas, growing oil production comes with deadly highways

Mar 4, 2019
A combinations of dense traffic and time-pressed truckers has led to a spike in fatal crashes.
Trucking instructor Don Jefferies outside the training class he teaches at Houston Community College. 
Travis Bubenik for Marketplace

After 7-year ban, fracking for gas resumes in U.K.

Nov 8, 2018
Drilling company contends with protests as minor earthquakes trigger delays.
Anti-fracking protester Julie Daniels standing outside the fracking site in Little Plumpton, Lancashire.
Mimisse Beard

For public good, not for profit.

Fracking made the U.S. a major oil producer, but not energy independent

Sep 12, 2018
Author of "Saudi America," Bethany McLean tells us about why the key ingredient in fracking is capital, not chemicals.
A Cabot Oil & Gas natural gas drill stands at a hydraulic fracturing site in South Montrose, Pennsylvania. The process is controversial with critics who say it could poison water supplies, while the natural-gas industry says it's been used safely for decades.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

How the energy boom shaped a small town in rural America

Jun 12, 2018
About a decade ago, some in this country saw fracking as the solution to decades of economic decline. But others were determined to stop it.
A Consol Energy horizontal gas drilling rig explores the Marcellus Shale outside the town of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, in 2012.
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP/Getty Images

Oil prices creep up as the global economy grows

Jan 25, 2018
With the world’s major economies chugging along, people are using more oil. That means more demand for crude, just as some places that supply it are cutting back. Some production cuts are intentional — like Saudi Arabia’s — but other hiccups in supply are due to political chaos, like Venezuela. If U.S. fracking steps up […]