| Summary: | In an extraordinary seven-year investigation, Justin Nobel traveled the United States reporting on the oil and gas industry and learned a disturbing and little-known fact, a lot more comes to the surface at a well than just the oil and gas. Each year the industry produces billions of tons of waste, much of it toxic and radioactive. The fracking boom has only worsened the problem. So where does it all go? In an Petroleum-238 provides the shocking answer. Shielded by a system of lax regulations and legal loopholes, this waste has been spilled, spread, injected, dumped and freely emitted across America. Nobel relies on oilfield workers, community activists, a century of academic research and a trove of never-before released industry and government documents to lay out a series of game-changing reveals into the world's most powerful industry. None have been more deceived than the industry's own workers, who are suffering mysterious health maladies and dying from unexplainable cancers. Petroleum-238 is a welcome breakdown of America's red-blue divide and the false wall corporations and politicians often set between industry workers and environmentalists. In the tradition of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, it is a landmark work of environmental writing and an urgent call to action.
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