At the same time these investments are being made to exploit the cheap natural gas resource, the chemical industry is ramping up tens of billions of its own investments, counting on affordable gas as a critical feedstock.

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The tricky part: keeping Exploit Hub from becoming a convenient resource for breaking into the systems it's meant to protect.

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But given its potential, the race is on to figure out how to safely exploit this resource.

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Thanks to the development of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, the US has been able to exploit a massive and hitherto unknown resource.

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Almost all of the increase in domestic natural gas production is expected to come from shale gas, a resource which has seen its output rise rapidly as technologies like hydraulic fracturing have made it viable to exploit the resources relativity economically.

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