Chesapeake has said in a statement that there were no injuries from the blowout and that no natural gas was released to the atmosphere.

FORBES: Chesapeake Energy Suffers Gas Well Blowout On Anniversary Of BP Spill

There is considerable worry by many observers of the gas industry that federal figures of overall greenhouse-gas-emissions reductions may be misleading because they fail to account for the impact of natural gas that leaks into the atmosphere from drilling and pipelines.

WSJ: Rise in U.S. Gas Production Fuels Unexpected Plunge in Emissions

Also, burning wood releases three times more carbon into the atmosphere than burning natural gas, per unit energy generated, said Booth.

FORBES: Massachusetts Addresses "Biomass Loophole" and Limits Subsidies

Norway's carbon tax means it is cheaper for the company involved, Statoil, to extract and bury the CO2 contained in the natural gas than vent it to the atmosphere.

BBC: Whatever happened to carbon capture?

Many industrialized nations are trying to use less coal, oil and natural gas to lower carbon dioxide levels, which is warming the atmosphere and changing the Earth's climate.

NPR: Paying Developing Countries Not to Burn Forests

The natural gas released from the depositing would go straight into a pipeline, not the atmosphere, she said.

CNN: Study: Tap natural gas from Alaska's frozen areas

Scientists say it's apparent that human activity -- namely burning coal, oil and natural gas -- has been driving a rapid rise of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

CNN: CO2 levels hit new peak at key observatory

Stacking up the numbers, he realised that human activities were adding CO2 to the atmosphere in a quantity and rate equivalent to all natural processes of absorption or emission of the gas.

FORBES: Global Warming Is No Threat?

The process will not be truly carbon-neutral (for that, the CO2 would have to come out of the atmosphere, and if the algae could use only the limited amount of the gas in natural air, they would not grow fast enough) but each carbon atom will have been made to do double duty in a fuel before it finally escapes.

ECONOMIST: Biofuels from algae: Craig's twist | The