A shale gas drilling pad in northern Poland. Image by Dimiter
Kenarov. Poland, 2012.  This article was also published in
Poland by Onet.biznes.  WARSAW — About a year ago, Poland lit
what it calls the "Flame of Hope," the first flare to burn over
a shale gas well in the country. Its photo ran as a full-page ad
in Gazeta Wyborcza and Rzeczpospolita, Poland's leading
newspapers. "Don't put out the flame of hope," the caption read,
urging readers to express their support for shale gas
development. In a deeply Catholic country, the religious subtext
was hard to avoid: Poland was the cathedral and this huge flame
was a candle of prayer -- a prayer for energy independence.
Ever since the U.S. Department of Energy's April 2011
announcement that Poland may hold enormous quantities of shale
gas -- 5.3 trillion cubic meters, enough for 300 years of
consumption -- hydrocarbon fever has swept the country. Even
when the Polish Geological Institute and the U.S. Geological
Survey reduced those figures by 90 percent in earl