Poland gives green light to massive fracking efforts

Referring to the larger geo-strategic implications of such policies Tusk added, "After years of dependence on our large neighbor (Russia), today we can say that my generation will see the day when we will be independent in the area of natural gas and we will be setting terms" before insisting that he had been "assured that well conducted exploration and production would not pose a danger to the environment."



Accordingly, whatever the ultimate fate of fracking in the U.S. and cautious European states like Bulgaria as additional environmental and scientific studies about the practice are conducted, Poland seems for better or worse to have firmly embraced the practice for the foreseeable future.



One can only hope that it is a judgment call that they will not soon have cause to regret in what in what Foreign Affairs Minister Radosław Sikorski has called "the gold rush of the 21st century."



Coincidently, on 11 January Waldemar Tyl of the Warsaw Appeals Prosecutor's Office announced that seven people, including government officials, have been charged with corruption during the granting of licenses for shale gas exploration, adding that bribes of tens of thousands of dollars apparently changed hands over the second half of 2011 alone.


Surely a coincidence, like those earthquakes and aquifer pollutants.
Nothing to see here, move along.