I'm more curious as to why you seem so hell bent on defending fracking?

I fear long term economic harm in killing a technology that has drastically improved the US's ability to acquire energy. At risk of sounding like hippie liberal, allow me to draw parallels to Cannabis. The government took the stance that this potential medicine may plausibly be a risk to public welfare and safety (in part due to some dubious testimonies to congress) and banned the substance. Consider the extreme value to the pharmaceutical industry of developing and selling a new class of substance, and the value to the people of that entrepreneurship. Yet legislation has manufactured an inability to test the substance and a fear of having no return on investment, which has made research sparse and industrial development nonexistent even decades after the fact. How would industry (and more importantly, why would industry) go out of their way to prove the safety of a process (an already impossible task) when a stagnant government and an apprehensive people are going to block them from making them any return off it anyway? There is no level of diligence on the part of oil companies that will bring about a trust of the public, because even at the current level of evidence of danger of fracking (which is bordering on non-existent, frankly), people will still call the matter inconclusive and ban it. To see more technologies fall into this black hole of self-fulfilling ignorance would be tragic, especially when the world is depending on it, which brings me to another point:

I think that the general public has a significant under-appreciation of the severity of the energy crisis that the world will soon be undergoing. As India and China become increasingly developed the global consumption of energy is going to skyrocket. (relevant wiki pic: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/World_primary_energy_consumption_in_quadrillion_Btu_by_region.svg) We simply do not have the infrastructure to accommodate ever-increasing demand, and I fear that lack of access to energy will be a global detriment to progress and economic development. Also, our main source of energy (hydrocarbons) is already plagued by "peak oil", and the increasing necessity to explore unconventional wells; even without more bureaucracy there will be challenges to face.

As one last comment, I think people often fail to see the benefit that the energy industry brings to their lives. The success of virtually all other industries are directly tied to the availability of energy, and it is virtually impossible to go a single day without the comforts that the oil industry provides. It's funny how people can go from a long day of TV watching, sitting in air conditioning, driving around in cars, ect, only to come home, log into their computer and post "what has the energy industry done for me lately?!". People seem to think fracking only serves to bring profits to execs, instead of improving the quality of their own lives. When the connection between industry and personal success becomes too abstract, they start to only consider the more tangible dangers (such as the "Somebody's poisoned the waterhole!" narrative).

I find your use of nuclear power as an example especially ironic. At one point in time, the public was assured that nuclear power was absolutely and completely safe; that it would usher in an era of power too cheap to meter with few, if any, risks to public health.

I would argue that nuclear energy example fits perfectly in my argument that some degree of risk is necessary in creating the technologies for the future. With the "ban all uncertainties" policy, we certainly would not have developed nuclear energy. The true irony is the fact that the most viable solution to replace hydrocarbons (nuclear energy) was developed in the exact same environment of mass fear, speculation, and misinformation as was fracking, and that it slowly developed to a state where people begin to recognize it as a safe, viable, and valuable solution (just as they may with fracking, would they but give it the same chance).

Are you a spokesperson or a lobbyist for the industry, by chance? Not accusing, just genuinely curious.

Not at all; they tend to be much more articulate. :) I work as an R&D Engineer developing new technologies for the wireline department of an O&G service company. (I won't go into specifics due to PR rules and liability, ect.) I don't own any significant stock in any O&G company and therefore have no direct profit to gain from the industry side of fracking (believe me if you want, I'm not about to offer proof), nor do I work on pressure pumping technologies anyway. I have however become more acutely aware of the general disdain for the oil industry and of the public belief that oil companies have no regard of safety or are "out to get us". I would like to believe I am being fair and impartial, as we all would.

Thanks for the comment.