Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director, International Energy Agency, and former Minister of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands.
HOUSTON, TX — “The head of the International Energy Agency took aim at natural gas producers that dismiss public concerns about hydraulic fracturing, calling on them to increase transparency of the controversial extraction technique.
Speaking at Rice University on Friday, IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven blamed some companies’ failure to engage in public discussions for bans on fracturing in France and elsewhere. She said taking a just-trust-me approach is fueling public skepticism.
‘If people tell me, we know what we are doing. Then they don’t know what they are doing,’ van der Hoeven said. ‘Companies have to realize that they need to take people’s concerns seriously. There’s a very real posiblity that public oppositon to drilling for shale gas will halt the unconventional gas revolution and fracking in its tracks.’”
— Simone Sebastian, FuelFix
