Questions Continue To Be Raised About True Longevity of Shale Gas Boom
For everyone with an opinion on natural gas, fracking and the great American shale gas boom, the holiday season kicked of with a bit of a bombshell when the prestigious science journal Nature published a news feature that called the decades-long promise of abundant natural gas a “fallacy.”
In broad strokes, that assertion was based on what has become a pretty familiar argument in energy circles: That forecasts for the longevity of the shale gas boom, including projections from energy companies and the federal Energy Information Administration, are little better than guesswork. Multiple indicators suggest that boom might go bust much sooner than expected, critics say — perhaps just a few years from now.
If that were to prove true — a point that is the subject of rancorous debate today — it might raise real questions about current American energy policy.
Natural gas, after all, is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, it has enjoyed tremendous rhetorical support from the climate-conscious Obama administration — and even grudging support from many green groups. And the expectation that new drilling techniques will keep the nation awash in cheap natural gas for many decades is driving plans to begin exporting the fuel as liquefied natural gas, or LNG, to global markets — a historical first in the continental U.S.Read more by clicking right here.
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