Appalachia's approaching energy boom

Salena Zito reports in the Examiner,

...Traditionally, Appalachia is thought of as coal country. Coal created steady jobs, many of them dangerous, to the people who lived here and kept the heat and lights on for most of the country for generations.

But new production methods, such as hydraulic fracking and horizontal drilling, have changed the regional energy picture and now allow extraction of vast amounts of natural gas from the region’s shale formations. Many sons and daughters of coal miners, and former miners themselves, are finding safer, well-paying energy jobs in the shale industry.

Central High School in Waynesburg, Pa., just south of here in Greene County, has developed a student certification curriculum in the shale industry that has high school seniors walking off stage in their graduation gowns and into jobs paying salaries that can start at $70,000 a year.

“This is real. It can transform the Appalachian region for generations to come and put America in a position dealing with our petrochemical industry that is very, very important to our national security,” Perry said.

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