An English county government rejected one of two applications for hydraulic fracturing for natural gas on Thursday, setting the stage for a decisive vote on the drilling technique next week. The Lancashire County Council voted against allowing privately held Caudrilla Resources Ltd. to use horizontal drilling and fracking at the company’s Roseacre Wood site in northwest England over worries about the increase in traffic. County planning officials had recommended the application be rejected. The council’s planning committee now is set to decide whether to give the go-ahead for a second site, also in Lancashire, on Monday. That site had been recommended for approval by planning officials and was supposed to have been voted on Wednesday, but councilors decided to wait until Monday to consider legal advice. If approved, it would be the first site to be fracked in western Europe since 2011. Cuadrilla said it was disappointed but not […]