CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Natural gas has always been the ugly stepchild of our national energy debate, never enjoying the political muscle of oil and coal, and never capturing the imagination like solar panels and wind farms. And to top it all off, it was in short supply.

But that is changing, and now this stepchild is being touted as the hope of the future - the answer to our energy problems.

What has brought about the change is there is a new unconventional process for extracting natural gas from shale, a dense rock formation two miles underground. And if you're sitting on top of it, you may become a new American phenomenon: a "shaleionaire."

And yet, if the BP spill taught us anything, it's that exploring for energy has safety risks. But that can get lost in all the excitement.

What is increasingly evident is that shale gas is overwhelmingly abundant right here in the U.S.A.

"In the last few years, we've discovered the equivalent of two Saudi Arabias of oil in the form of natural gas in the United States. Not one, but two," Aubrey McClendon, the CEO of Chesapeake Energy, told "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl.

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