Iain Stewart investigates a new and controversial energy rush for the natural gas found deep underground. Sometimes, this is right under the places people live in. Getting it out of the ground involves hydraulic fracturing - or fracking.

The demand for energy has risen relentlessly over the last 150 years in line with industrial development and population growth.

Documentary series exploring how we've become so reliant on oil in little longer than a human lifetime.

Documentary series exploring how we've become so reliant on oil in little longer than a human lifetime. In this series, Professor Iain Stewart visits the places that gave birth to the earth's oil riches, discovers the people who fought over its control and supply, and explores how our insatiable thirst for oil is changing the very planet on which we depend.

By the early 1950s, a holy trinity of oil, plastics and fertilisers had transformed the planet. But as Professor Iain Stewart reveals, when the oil producing countries demanded a greater share in profits from the Western energy companies, the oil and gas fields of the Middle East became a focus for coup d'états and military conflict.

As we entered the 21st century, the world was guzzling oil, coal and gas like never before. Despite fears of 'peak oil', Professor Iain Stewart discovers that while huge technological advances are helping extend the life of existing oilfields, new unconventional oil and gas supplies like shale gas and tar sands are extending the hydrocarbon age well into the 21st century.

At the heart of Britain sits something so all pervasive we don't even notice it's there - the national electricity grid. This three-part series charts how our lives got wired and the impact electrification has had.

Miners, nuclear scientists, politicians, environmentalists and even the City have all wrestled for control of the national electricity grid and the power that it has brought.

International investigative documentary series. When a tsunami struck Japan in 2011, it swamped the Fukushima nuclear complex causing nuclear meltdown and releasing radiation that ultimately would leave hundreds of square miles uninhabitable, and cost a hundred thousand people.

Fracking has become a national debate in Britain and it’s one the Government are determined to win. With an estimated 1,300 trillion cubic feet of shale gas lying underneath Britain, just a tenth of which could supply our energy needs for over 40 years, it is seen by many as an opportunity which is too good to miss.But what is the environmental cost?

The Pipe meets members of a small community in a remote corner of Ireland resisting Shell Oil's attempts to lay a gas pipeline across their farmland.

It ran on electricity, produced no emissions and catapulted American technology to the forefront of the automotive industry. The lucky few who drove it never wanted to give it up. So why did General Motors crush its fleet of EV1 electric vehicles into landfill sites in the obscurity of the Arizona desert?