General Electric’s entry into the oil and gas extraction industry should be welcome news to all but the most ardent anti-fracking activists.

Although the use of horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing, or fracking, to release natural gas and oil trapped in layers of shale a mile below the Earth’s surface has been controversial in some areas, the energy potential of trapped gas and oil cannot be ignored.

Outside of rigid environmentalists who oppose drilling everywhere, most people see the natural gas boom bringing economic benefits to the United States while creating domestic jobs.

If fracking, which President Barack Obama supports in speech after speech, is going to continue, the best hope for those concerned with the environmental risks is for the technology to change to make the process safer. Improved drilling techniques, better pipeline construction, a new and benign formula for fracking fluid and more effective recycling of used fracking fluids can all reduce the risks that this type of gas extraction poses to human health and the environment.

Even supporters of drilling and fracking must admit that risks do exist, at the very least from accidents or sloppy drilling operations or pipelines. But every major type of energy extraction carries risks — think the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, deadly coal mining disasters and the controversial technique of mountaintop removal. The March 2011 tsunami-caused shutdown a nuclear reactor in Japan, and the ongoing debate over how to safely store the nuclear waste kept at reactor sites around the world, are reminders that nuclear power also carries serious risks.

With GE’s investment of $15 billion over the past few years in the developing fracking-based gas and oil boom, it’s clear that the respected industrial company is serious. GE says it believes its engineers can help improve the safety of fracking and the overall efficiency of the natural gas industry.

Clearly, the company is not getting into fracking just to make it safer for people and the environment; the company intends to make a profit, too. But GE does bring credibility to the effort to improve the processes and safety of gas extraction. One GE executive compared the expanding efforts into fracking to the company’s involvement in jet engines for commercial aircraft. Noting that commercial air travel was once considered risky, but now boasts a strong safety record, a GE spokesman said the company would like to see the same sort of progress and improved safety brought to fracking and the extraction of natural gas.

There might be other strengths the company can bring to improving fracking and gas processing. GE has significant experience in the energy field, including wind energy, solar and nuclear power generation.

The company has opened a new fracking technology laboratory in Oklahoma and says it hopes that high-quality science and improved technologies will boost profits for the oil and gas industry while also making gas extraction safer for people and the environment.

While the loudest voices in the fracking debate are at the extremes — antifracking and antifossil-fuel activists pitted against “drill, baby drill” industry supporters — GE’s entry into the field should add credibility to the idea that gas extraction can be done safely and responsibly, which will bring significant energy and economic benefits to the United States.