Until recently the economy of North Dakota was dominated by agriculture in large, individual farms. In the west of the state, farming has become more difficult due to water shortages and this has led to population decline. In the last few years, however, this part of the state has become a boom area based on oil fracking (Figure 1). North Dakota has become the second biggest oil-producing state in the country and its economy has grown more than four times faster than that of the USA as a whole.
This article looks at the advantages and disadvantages of this oil boom and applies them to the proposals to extract shale gas and oil by fracking in the UK, reflecting on what this means for energy policy.
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