Forbes: Billionaire Father Of Fracking Says Government Must Step Up Regulation
Hydraulic fracturing has been around since roughly 1950. But it was Mitchell, drilling in the Barnett Shale near Dallas and Fort Worth, who figured out that fracking could work to break natural gas free from the impermeable shale — this ultimately set in motion the boom in shale drilling that has spread across the country, and soon, the world.
So why does Mitchell think fracking needs to be controlled? “Because if they don’t do it right there could be trouble,” he says. There’s no excuse not to get it right. “There are good techniques to make it safe that should be followed properly,” he says. But, the smaller, independent drillers, “are wild.”
“It’s tough to control these independents. If they do something wrong and dangerous, they should punish them,” Mitchell says. MORE