The Last Canary

The Marcellus Shale has been called the energy play of the century five hundred trillion cubic feet of natural gas trapped within sixty million invisible acres from upstate New York to West Virginia. But the only way to get at it is via a controversial recovery technique that involves pumping millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the earth called fracking.

When Deacon Energy sets out to tap into this precious resource near the fictitious town of Parksboro, Pennsylvania, they end up fracturing far more than the gas rich formations that hold this unexpected treasure. They fracture lives, the community and the promise of an independent energy future.

Perry Lovell is a hard-driving Texas wildcatter who has been hired to punch the six major wells of the Northfield Project. But when a reluctant landowner refuses to lease up his property for development, the tough-minded driller is forced to make alternative plans involving dangerous compromises.

Ethan Fahn is the proud patriarch of a family who wants nothing to do with royalties and gas money. Instead, he is determined to preserve his farm and a way of life for his son, a decorated veteran, who has returned from Iraq and Afghanistan damaged and disillusioned.

Neil Fischer is a popular college professor and prominent geologist who has been retained to study the impact of the contentious recovery technique being used to harvest the gas. But when one of his graduate students is killed in a potentially related caving accident, Fischer finds himself at the eye of the swirling storm.

Enter ardent environmentalist, Anna Beth Tull. Violently opposed to fracking, she rallies her loyal green minions against it at every turn. Introduce a greedy corporate executive; a corrupt state senator; a biased television reporter; and an ambitious local entrepreneur and chaos ensues as protests give way to riots and, eventually, an act of eco-terrorism results.

By the time this cautionary tale reaches its unanticipated conclusion -- with Deacon Energy poised to be sold to Chinese investors and the value of natural gas plummeting in the face of an over abundance of supply -- the undeniable irony of the story becomes obvious. Is the cost of development worth the ultimate price it exacts?

Timely and relevant, THE LAST CANARY explores multiple facets of one of the most important economic and politically divisive issues of our time. Drawn directly from headlines surrounding this controversial subject, it attempts to inform and educate, while simultaneously weighing the dream of energy independence against the human and environmental consequences of achieving it.

Dettagli