(2 of 2)
There is a final irony to the situation. The natural gas deposits being tapped by nuclear wells lie beneath much of the nation's vast reserve of oil shale, which one day might well become a major source of domestic energy supplies. If the blasts continue, says Biochemist H. Peter Metzger, they will leave immense amounts of radioactive fission products in the earth, posing a lingering danger to workers who may some day mine the shale.