People living near shale gas oilfields have reported striking a match and turning the water flowing from their faucets into flame. Desperate families have watched children’s hair fall out and pets grow mysteriously ill. In Oklahoma and Kansas, earthquakes have cracked the foundations of buildings that have stood since the pioneer days. At the same time, the new oilfields have brought prosperity, reversing decades of outmigration from small rural towns. Industry executives and the president of the United States believe that cheap shale gas could create an energy-independent United States. These are just some of the narratives in today’s fracking debate.

In a book by the same name, The Fracking Debate, Daniel Raimi raises and attempts to answer the biggest, most frequent questions about fracking. They range from the seemingly basic: “what is fracking?” (a more complicated answer than you’d expect); to the more complex: “Will fracking spread around the world?” (“Slowly,” according to Raimi).

Raimi explained that the definition of fracking changes depending on who you talk to. To critics, “fracking” is a new form of energy extraction and refers to the entire process, from the first truckload of sand to every gallon of gas pumped from a well. Therefore, all the problems associated with oil and gas development, including leaks, pollution, and earthquakes, can be blamed on “fracking.”

But Raimi reminds the reader that fracking has been around for more than six decades. It’s just recently that companies have been able to do it profitably. To these companies involved in extraction from shale rock formations, fracking is the specific step of hydraulic fracturing, when hydraulic fluid is pumped underground at high pressure to fracture the tight shale rock to allow gas and oil to eventually flow through. This step is just one of many steps before the well is finished and sealed like nearly any other oil or gas well.

From Raimi’s perspective, it makes more sense to differentiate between fracking, which he considers just one step of the process, and the entire process of extraction central to the shale boom. For example, when discussing water pollution, he asserts that only one study has ever found fracking chemicals in groundwater, which is far from the widespread problem of water pollution that anti-fracking activists warn of. But, he adds, chemicals and gasoline from the rest of the extraction process, like stray gas that migrates up wells and through bedrock, are a larger threat to drinking water and cause many of the high profile cases of flaming faucets.  This story – that the actual fracking process is relatively unproblematic while the rest of the oil and gas extraction industry causes problems – is what ties this book together.

In fact, that’s what I found to be the most striking implication of Raimi’s work: maybe fracking isn’t the problem, but simply one part of a much larger issue. Instead of focusing the attention and blame on fracking, perhaps we should condemn the fossil fuel extraction industry as a whole. All of the problems associated with fracking – stray gas leaks, earthquakes from wastewater disposal, and odors – are actually side effects of the rest of the extraction process and all fossil fuels. So why the focus on fracking when the problem is really much larger?

Fracked wells, Raimi answers, are often just much more close to areas with high population than traditional oilfields. His interest in the topic came, in fact, from years traveling to these communities near shale gas oilfields –  the communities often singled out in the narratives that link fracking and fracking alone to problems associated with the entire fossil fuel industry. And this is where I believe the book’s largest flaw lies.

Raimi talks about how he listened to the local chatter and “talked with hundreds of locals and out-of-towners, pipeliners and frackers, drill-baby-drillers and no-fracking-wayers” about the oilfields and fracking. Yet what is most conspicuously absent from The Fracking Debate were their voices.

One of the questions Raimi tries to answer is whether people living near fracking “love it or hate it.”  In no more than five paragraphs each, Raimi briefly introduces six communities central to the fracking boom. Fairview, Montana, population ~900,  is packed with “old trucks with bulbous hoods…lined up next to nearly new…F-150s covered in dust,” and the diner was “woefully understaffed.” Raimi’s descriptions are superb. In each of these sections, I could feel the town around me.

Though Raimi referenced conversations with people and integrated their thoughts into his summation, he included no quotes. I left these sections feeling like I knew the place but not the people. So when he tries to answer the question of whether people love or hate fracking by asserting that “the balance of conversations [he’s] had lean towards the positive side of the ledger,” I have difficulty believing it because the book didn’t include the reader in these conversations. Bringing in their voices may have helped me understand why we talk about fracking, and not just fossil fuel extraction.

Raimi is very careful with his words to avoid co-opting the language of either the anti-fracking movement or the industry surrounding it. And while he consistently championed balance and myth-busting, I wasn’t entirely convinced. A skeptical reader – one who comes in with strong opinions of “fracking” – might  say the book leans too generously to the side of the fracking companies.

But if the book is to be read as an expose not just of fracking, but of the whole industry, then this is both understandable and excusable. This is, I believe, the most valuable way to approach The Fracking Debate. Raimi does a wonderful job blending obscure science and economic concepts with a lively voice and real-world examples into a readable, engaging text. This book was uniquely informative and despite some faults, a read recommended to anyone wanting clarity and answers about fossil fuels.