Energy in Depth Takes a Bite Out of Rolling Stone Article

Drilling advocates are tearing apart Jeff Goodell's article
I saw a documentary once called Air Jaws, about these great white sharks that shoot out of the water to catch seals on the surface.  There was a scene in that documentary where there was a dead whale floating in the water off of the coast of Seal Island in South Africa, and all of these sharks were just coming up and taking big chunks off of that carcass.  A gruesome feeding frenzy on a bloated, lifeless mass.

That's sort of what the response by energy companies and drilling advocates to Jeff Goodell's new Rolling Stone article on Chesapeake Energy and fracking reminds me of.  First, Chesapeake struck back on their website yesterday, calling out Goodell for basically - to paraphrase - writing a biased story which was full of recycled theories and statements which have previously been debunked.  More after the jump...

But really, Chesapeake's response was only the beginning.  A new article posted on Energy in Depth, entitled "A Rolling Stone Gathers No Facts," takes another chunk - several chunks, really - out of Goodell's bloated 6,200-word whale-carcass-sized article.  As they enter the feeding frenzy, EID picks apart 12 "errors that contributed to what, in the end, was a pretty ridiculous piece," citing multiple sources to debunk each offending statement from the Rolling Stone article.

Energy in Depth, which describes itself on its website as "a research, education and public outreach campaign focused on getting the facts out about the promise and potential of responsibly developing America’s onshore energy resource base – especially abundant sources of oil and natural gas from shale and other “tight” reservoirs across the country," was established by Independent Petroleum Association of America and is supported by "a broad segment of America's oil and natural gas industry."  Thus, it is not surprising that they would go after Goodell's article.  The reports, statements, and quotes they use in debunking the article are interesting and definitely worth considering, however.

What do you think of the responses to Goodell's article?  Share your thoughts here or on the message boards!

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