Folks have lots of questions to ask about the environmental impact of natural gas fracking, but the more important questions to ask may have to do with the economics. Ultimately, the two lines of questioning are intertwined.

(Related: “The Great Shale Gas Rush”)

I reached out on Twitter for questions yesterday before I moderated a panel at the Aspen Environmental Forum called “Methane as Methadone.” In other words, should we be using natural gas to help us withdraw from our addiction to the “hard stuff” of energy—coal?

Most of proposed questions I received—understandably enough—had to do with worries over the impact to drinking water from hydraulic fracturing. But one person, @Robbclifton, asked whether all this new natural gas would affect prices—presumably by