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Gas extraction by hydraulic fracturing is not new, but the controversy over it is. While the process carries some notable risks, the potential and promise of fracking argue in favor of responsible development and regulation, not an outright ban.

Hydraulic fracturing has been growing in popularity as a means of extracting natural gas for several years. It was in 2011 that media and public attention began to focus on its possibilities and risks, bringing with it controversy and increasing concern.

Publication of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) final Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) in Thursday’s Federal Register means that the three-year compliance period mandated under the Clean Air Act will begin in 60 days, on April 16, 2012. Thursday’s publication also kicked up a storm of reactions and prompted several legal challenges.

A legal challenge to the Obama administration’s decision not to issue proposed ozone standards last fall was dismissed on Friday after a three-judge panel with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia held that it did not have jurisdiction to review the action.

Eleven U.S. nuclear plants received a Request for Information (RFI) from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Friday asking for analyses of the effects of “thermal conductivity degradation” for nuclear fuel developed by Westinghouse under certain postulated accident conditions.

UK power company Drax has canceled a 290-MW biomass power plant proposed for construction in North Yorkshire, citing high costs for transporting fuel to the £1.4 billion ($2.19 billion) inland plant and a lack of financial and regulatory support from the UK government.

The UK and France on Friday signed a landmark agreement to strengthen cooperation on civil nuclear energy between the two countries, reaffirming their enthusiasm for nuclear power. The agreement, made nearly a year after the Fukushima accident in Japan, seeks to help the countries achieve energy security within the European Union’s low-carbon energy policy framework.

Vermont’s attorney general on Saturday appealed a federal district court’s January decision that invalidated two Vermont statutes and ruled that Entergy could operate the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant beyond a state-mandated shutdown deadline of March 21, 2012.

Spain’s oldest nuclear reactor, Santa María de Garoña, can continue to operate safely until 2019, the country’s nuclear regulator the Consejo de Seguridad Nuclear (CSN) told the government last week. The report follows a decision last month by Spain’s recently elected conservative government to overturn a decree that would have forced the plant to close by April 2013.

Eleven states filed a lawsuit in federal court on Friday to induce the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to promptly revise national air quality standards for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5, also known as soot) and adopt them by a certain date.