"A group of Yale economics graduates, many of them energy industry executives, led by Yale Professor Emeritus Paul W. MacAvoy, were curious about whether they could quantify the economic benefit that shale gas has on America. So they recently set out to do a cost-benefit analysis, valuing and balancing the pros against the cons. They’ve released their findings in a paper called “The Arithmetic of Shale Gas.” I’ve parsed all the complicated academic equations so you don’t have to. Their conclusion: the benefits of continued shale gas development are enormous and dramatically outweigh even worst-case scenario costs of pollution and clean-up." http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/06/22/the-arithmetic-of-shale-gas/