Couple of odds and ends:
1) Hydrofracking is also being used to open up new oil fields for exploration, per today's NYT. As with gas, access to fuel is a good thing, but how clean can they make hydrofracking?
2) On a completely unrelated note, China is moving to control more agricultural products, in this case soybeans in Brazil. More demand for the product has to be good for farmers, but the article notes that contracts to ship raw materials across the world limit Brazil's development of its own industry, whether livestock, biofuels, or whatever.
