But is it a good revolution or a bad revolution?

According to Steve Forbes, editor in chief of Forbes magazine and sometime presidential candidate, the “energy crisis [is] over!” (In case you’re wondering, that exclamation point is Mr. Forbes’s.)

What ended the crisis? According to Mr. Forbes, there’s an energy “revolution” on that’s due to the application of a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing or, in the parlance of those in the know, just plain “fracking.” Methinks that Mr. Forbes’s pronouncement of the demise of the energy crisis is premature.

The seeds of Mr. Forbes’s revolution can be found in pockets of natural gas trapped inside shale, sedimentary rock formations often located deep beneath the surface of the Earth. Geologists