A new longread in The Guardian follows the boom and bust of the fracking era and its most legendary representative, Aubrey McClendon, who founded Chesapeake Energy. McClendon was a controversial crusader for natural gas in the US, and went through dramatic periods of financial gain and loss, always borrowing more and more millions and doubling down on his investments.
As the article argues, the fracking boom relied heavily on the low interest rates that followed the 2008 recession. By 2016, the year that McClendon died in a car accident in the immediate aftermath of his indictment for violating antitrust laws by a federal grand jury, the fracking boom had fizzled, and many companies had amassed incredible debt. Inside the late life story of Aubrey McClendon lies a mini-history of recent natural gas spending in the US.
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