Is experimenting with synthetic life in the laboratory. Arent you playing god . Were not playing anything. Were understanding the roles of life. Do you believe in god . No. [ticking] this is the first allelectric sports car, the roadster, made by tesla motors. Yeah, you can floor it, no problem. Itll be fine. All right. Here i go. You ready . The chairman of tesla, elon musk, says the roadster can accelerate from 0 to 60 in four seconds. Its propelled by more than 6,000 fingersized laptop batteries and not a single drop of oil. Welcome to 60 minutes on cnbc. Im lesley stahl. In this edition, we look at the business of powering the planet. We meet a group of overnight millionaires getting rich from gas dug out of rocks. We also take a look at the financial promise of an emerging science known as Synthetic Biology. And finally, we examine an alternative car fuel that you probably never heard of laptop computer batteries. We begin with an unconventional process for extracting natural gas from shale, a dense rock formation two miles underground. Its being touted as the hope of the future, the answer to our Energy Problems. And if youre sitting on top of it, you may become a new american phenomenon a shaleionaire. And yet, as we all know, exploring for energy has safety risks. But as we first reported in the fall of 2010, that can get lost in all the excitement. Whats increasingly evident is that shale gas is overwhelmingly abundant right here in the usa. In the last few years, weve discovered the equivalent of two saudi arabias of oil in the form of natural gas in the United States. Not one but two. We have twice as much natural gas in this country is that what youre saying than they have oil in saudi arabia . Im trying to very clearly say exactly that. Aubrey mcclendon is the ceo of Chesapeake Energy, one of the largest independent Gas Producers in the country. Hes on a mission to get us off foreign oil and dirty coal. Gas has nearly half the Carbon Emissions of coal and no mercury. But natural gas is still a fossil fuel. So is it perfect . No, the answer is, its not perfect, but for the next 20 years, natural gas is probably our best bet, and the good news is, weve got it, and weve got as much of it as anybody else in the world. Look at a map of shale formations across the country, and youll see that in 2010, there was production or exploration in over 30 states. Its an American Energy renaissance. 10,000 wells will be drilled here in northwest louisiana in some of the poorest communities in the country where impoverished farmers are becoming overnight millionaires as they lease their land for drilling. I never dreamed of money like this. Now you can do whatever you want. I can do what i want. C. B. Leatherwood, a retired oil field worker, got a bundle to drill under his farm. Ive got a copy of the check here. Oh, my. Look at that. 434,000. Just like that. It fell out of the sky. Boy, you done good, c. B. It fell out of the sky for c. B. s cousin mike smith too. Golly. Look at that. He was paid nearly 2 million. So whatd you do that day . [sighs] i sat back and thought about it for all day, and i said, im a millionaire, and that didnt sound right, but. They actually call them shaleionaires, and they dont mind putting up with the noisy, smelly drilling when the wells are built because they get a cut of the profits, which could last for years and add up to millions more. So you gentlemen are living in a good, oldfashioned gold rush. Its a gift from the good lord. Within a year, shale drilling generated almost 6 billion here in new household earnings. As the rest of the nation plunged into a recession, this place added 57,000 local jobs, and the cadillac dealership in town was hopping. This is your new car. Oh. Yes. Mmhmm. That is nice. Yes. You love it, dont you . Yeah, i love it. I like the color too. Champagne. Its gold mist. This is a million years worth of shale. People have known for a century that shale contained gas, but it was too difficult and pricey to extract. I cant believe theres anything in this rock. Well, it doesnt look like it. It is so solid. I mean, you can tap. Pretty solid. Yeah, i know. Its really solid. But this is shale under a microscope. The dark spaces are where the gas is, and its everywhere. Heres a great one. For example. Thats whats going on in the middle of this thing . Yes. The breakthrough in extraction happened when two existing technologies were combined. The first involved accessing the shale by drilling sideways underground. Were currently over two miles down. Two miles down . Two miles down. Okay. Now, later today, well turn the bit from vertical to horizontal along this path, and then well drill in our target zone for a mile down to the south. The other technology is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, where millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals are pumped down the well at enormous pressure. We break the rock. We fracture the rock, and that stimulates the ability of the gas to flow into the well bore, where we can flow it to the surface and sell it. In light of the b. P. Oil spill in the gulf, i asked Aubrey Mcclendon about the safety of fracking. What would happen if you go down to dig for shale, and you have an explosion, and you destroy a whole part of the country . It cannot happen, okay . It cannot happen . Why do you say that . Well, because were not a mile underneath the surface of the ocean, and if something were to get away and there are incidents where wells have loss of control you can goyou can go fix it. An underground explosion is impossible because theres no oxygen or anything to ignite a blast, but as you can see from these pictures chesapeake took of their operations, drilling is now a fact of life near homes and farms, and the industry has racked up thousands of accidents and safety violations above ground. This really is your backyard. Oh, look at this. What happened in tim and Christine Ruggieros backyard is happening more and more. They moved to this pastoral 10acre ranch in decatur, texas, in 2004 to raise their horses and their daughter, reilly. But in 2009, a Company CalledAruba Petroleum came and drilled two wells outside their windows, leaving behind this permanent eyesore. You see over here on this tank . And you see where its just beenstill leaking . Why is it doing that . That leaking is just the half of it. They videotaped oozings and gushings. When the state Environmental Agency shot these hissing, toxic air emissions with infrared cameras, the company was hit with a fine. I keep hearing that this process the horizontal drilling and the frackingis safe. Well, define safe. Safe for who . Safe in the process, or safe for the people that are 200 feet away from it . They put a concrete casing down into the ground in between your water table and the drilling fluids, but cement doesnt ever crack . You dont ever have well blowouts . In other words, taking shortcuts and human error are endemic to this drilling process. Here, valves werent tightened, a tank left unattended overflowed, fluid spilled from a frack container. Aruba said they could not comment because the ruggieros were suing them. Aubrey mcclendons company, chesapeake, has a much better track record, but that doesnt mean they havent had problems too. If people are involved, accidents are gonna happen. Planes crash, trucks crash, cars crash. It happens. [ticking] coming up. Are there dangers in fracking . I can take my water, just put it in a gallon jug, shake it up, turn it up, and itll explode, like. Wow. Scary . Thats next, when 60 minutes on cnbc returns. [ticking] [ female announcer ] want to spend less and retire with more . Then dont get nickle and dimed by high cost investments and annoying account fees. At etrade, our free easytouse online tools and experienced Retirement Specialists can help you build a personalized plan. And with our no annual fee iras and a wide range of low cost investments, you can execute the plan you want at a low cost. So meet with us, or go to etrade. Com for a great Retirement Plan with low cost investments. [ticking] shale gas may be a significant new energy source, but it may come with some very toxic side effects. Among them, the chemicals used in fracking may cause Health Problems and contaminate the water supply. The Safety Record of Chesapeake Energy may be better than most, but the company had an accident in louisiana that drew a lot of attention. It happened in 2009 when 17 cows grazing near a drilling site died a gruesome death after drinking fracking fluids that ran off into their pasture. Industrywide, accidents keep happening like this well explosion due to machine malfunctions or workers cutting corners. Environmentalists like michael brune, executive director of the sierra club, say the industry is underregulated. I would say that theyve been cavalier. I would say that theyve been irresponsible. What should they have done . What should they do right now . The first thing that the industry should do is disclose what chemicals are being used in fracking and then limit the amount of toxic chemicals to a point of zero. The industry doesnt have to disclose whats in the tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals they use when they fracture the shale because of the socalled halliburton loophole. Halliburton is a leading fracking company, and the loophole was created in 2005 under Vice President dick cheney, who used to be halliburtons ceo. The 2005 energy bill completely exempted the Natural Gas Industry and Fracking Technology from any regulation under the Safe Drinking Water act. Its an outrage. Did the Vice President put that in there . The Vice President advocated for it, and he pushed congress to insert it into the language. Part of the fracturing process involves you pouring down some pretty nasty chemicals. What happens if they spill all over the place . Okay, lets define nasty chemicals. Nasty chemicals are underneath your sink. Reality is, you dont drink drano for a reason, but you have drano in your house. If you want to define whats nasty, go ahead. There are nasty chemicals that affect your liver, that cause cancer, that shut down your system. Yeah, you dont want to drink frack fluid. If you take away nothing from this interview no, but isnt there a possibility that you go down, and something seeps, and it gets into the water supply, gets into the aquifer . Ah, thats the fear, isnt it . Well, yes, its of course, its the fear. Okay, but freshwater aquifers are only from the surface to about 1,000 feet below the surface of the earth, okay . We are fracking wells at depths of 7,000, 8,000, 10,000, 12,000 feet, okay . So there is almost two miles of rock between where we are active and where freshwater is drawn from. In 2010, the Environmental Protection agency began studying the effects of fracking on drinking water. Is the problem fracking per se or human error . Consider what happened in this appalachian town in pennsylvania. In the shale gas gold rush, dimock is the ghost town. How many of you lost your water supply . All of you. Every single one. And there are many more . [together] yes. A Company Called cabot oil and gas paid many of the folks here 25 an acre, and they were happy until one day, a water well exploded. My boy had come over the night before and said he said, dad, yourewe got gas in the water over there. I can actually shake the jug up and light it. You put a match to your water and it went up in flames . I can take my water, just put it in a gallon jug, shake it up, turn it up, and itll explode, like. Bill ely demonstrated it for us by hooking a hose from his well to a jug and lighting it. Wow. Scary . State authorities have determined that gas leaked into the water because of a poor cement job. Cabot began supplying bottled water to the residents but admitted no guilt, so these folks sued them. You know, this is a poor area. You know, this was a Perfect Place to come in and drill. Lot of guys didnt have work. Now theyre driving trucks, the bars are hopping, the rentals are full, so there is an economic boom here, but at what price . I can live without natural gas. I cant live without my water. No. We have these landowners who will say that their water was clean. They could drink. They couldnt light it on fire. And then the gas industry came in, and now taking a shower makes them sick. There are too many landowners who are describing the exact same scenario, and so its all over the country. Cant just be a coincidence. There is something wrong here. So here we have natural gas from shale, touted as the solution to our Energy Problems by one group. Another group says its the biggest environmental nightmare. Ah, well, actually, theyre both correct, so what we need to do is promote gas as a cleaner alternative to coal and oil but hold the industry accountable for tighter standards. Which Aubrey Mcclendon says he would go along with because, he says, natural gas is such a huge gamechanger. If you use natural gas, america can establish independence from opec, it can put americans back to work, we can lower our Carbon Emissions, and we can begin to improve the economy as well by not exporting 1 billion a day of american wealth. Greatest wealth transfer in Human History takes place every day, and it doesnt have to. Since we first reported this story, tim and Christine Ruggiero sold their ranch in decatur, texas, and moved away. They have also resolved matters with Aruba Petroleum. As for the problems in dimock, pennsylvania, when cabot oil and gas stopped supplying bottled water in late 2011, the Environmental Protection agency stepped in. The e. P. A. Is supplying replacement water to some residents and testing well water in 60 homes. The e. P. A. Also plans to propose new rules for shale gas extraction, which, by 2012, accounted for 30 of our natural gas supply. [ticking] coming up, maverick biologist j. Craig venter on dna. Dna is the software of life and the key to evolution of life on this planet, and now the key to the future of life on this planet is understanding how to write that software. Designing life, when 60 minutes on cnbc continues. [ticking] everyone in the nicu, all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. Everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment. I wouldnt trade him for the world. Who matters most to you says the most about you. Massmutual is owned by our policyholders so they matter most to us. If youre caring for a child with special needs, our innovative special care Program Offers strategies that can help. [ticking] in 2010, microbiologist j. Craig venter announced that his scientists had created a synthetic bacteria designed on a computer with manmade dna. The announcement was greeted with a mixture of praise, skepticism, and rancor. Known for his pioneering work in deciphering the human genetic code, venter may be one of the most famous scientists in the world, but as steve kroft first reported that fall, he is also one of the most controversial, a brilliant iconoclast with an outsized ego who has tweaked the staid scientific establishment at every turn. You dont have to spend much time with craig venter to understand that he likes to go fast. [chuckles] hes an adrenaline junkie whose willingness to take big risks has led to bold scientific breakthroughs, and he is not exactly shy about touting those accomplishments. Where would you rank yourself in terms of scientific accomplishments . Well, in the field of genomics, i think the record is pretty clearcut, so the first genome in history, the first draft of the human genome, the First Complete version of the human genome, and having the first synthetic cells. So the answer to the question is, pretty high. I mean, its really hard to assess that yourself, but i think the teams that we have and what weve accomplished are certainly amongst the biggest discoveries in modern science. If you have some stereotype of a scientist in your mind, craig venter probably doesnt fit it. He has scuba dived with sharks to gather microbes in the pacific and sailed through the greek isles on his 95foot research vessel, plucking new genetic material from the sea. He rarely goes anywhere without his wife, heather, and their dog, darwin. And their home high above the pacific in la jolla, california, suggests the quest for scientific truth requires no vow of poverty. This is a nice place. I have been lucky. Sort of the accidental millionaire, in terms of people keep giving me money to Start Companies to exploit the science. He runs both a privately held biotech Company Called synthetic genomics and a Nonprofit Research lab, the j. Craig venter institute. Together they employ about 300 people on two coasts, including one nobel laureate, hamilton smith, and some of the top scientists in the world. So im much more like an orchestra conductor, you know, than the violinist. What do you think your greatest talent is . You know, i have an unusual type of thinking. I have no visual memory whatsoever. Everything is conceptual to me. So i think thats part of it. I see things differently. Venter likes to think big, and his latest advancement is no exception. So this is what all the fuss is about . This is the first synthetic species. And how long did it take you to make this . Well, if you count the total time from the conception, about 15 years. And how many millions . About 40 million over that entire time period. In practical terms, its about as useful as the mold that grows in a bachelors refrigerator, but scientifically its a milestone. The bacteria, which is similar to one found in the intestines of goats, was desi