This means lots of hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, which means pumping billions of fluid into the ground to force the desired products out of hiding. Although it is mostly water, there are various additives to amplify the effect. This stuff can easily end up in the water table, and there is no way of getting it out.

Yes, it is profitable, but is it wise? The people making the money have far more influence than the people who are concerned that we will regret this later, so things have proceeded on the assurance from the industry that this is all perfectly safe.

There is something here that I do not understand... This gas is referred to as "undiscovered". How can they know how much gas there is if it is not discovered yet?

There is a lot of confusion in the public about hydrofracking. Hydrofracking is not a new technology. It has been used in vertical oil and gas drillings for over 60 years. Therefore there are no new environmental dangers involved with hydrofracking. The chemicals that are blended with the water that is used for hydrofracking are not toxic either. You can drink it without getting sick. However, the backflow of frackingwater from a drilled well is toxic because it contains hydrocarbons and other stuff that exist in the earth that you are drilling in. That is not a problem either. The used hydrofracking water can be recycled or it can be cleaned.

A little history is needed to understand what is up and down in the oil and industry. Vertical drilling for oil and gas is a 100 years old technique. Vertical drilling with hydrofracking started in the 1950’es. Horizontal oil and gas drilling began in the 1980’es and horizontal hydrofracking began around 2004.

Why is this history important? Because, if you use vertical drilling in a shale formation your gas well will produce 5 barrels of oil equivalents per day. If you use horizontal drilling or if you drill vertically with hydrofracking your gas well produces 50 barrels per day. However, if you use horizontal drilling with hydrofracking your gas well will produce 500 barrels per day. The latter is profitable in almost all kinds of shale formations that exist all over the planet. This is why the invention of horizontal drilling with hydrofracking in about 2004 is a big deal in the oil and gas industry. Nobody knows exactly how much gas and liquids that the global shale formations contain because we have not yet mapped them in sufficient detail. Remember until 2004 these formations were largely uneconomical to drill. However, we know enough now to conclude that they will multiply the existing reserves of conventional natural gas. In other words, in a country like USA natural gas and liquids from shale formations can easily replace coal and oil as there is plenty of it.

Peter XX-

Why is it not good news for climate change?

According to the Sierra Club, if fracking is regulated properly it can be far more environmentally friendly than guzzling foreign oil.

Anybody that is open-minded, included many of the environmental zealots at the Sierra Club, acknowledge that it's going to take a significant amount of time -- several decades -- to replace petroleum with renewables.

So, why not take sound interim approaches?

China is already the world's largest methanol economy and new geological surveys there suggest that China might hold the world's largest supplies of shale. I guarantee, they are going to tap into it, and they are already studying and buying the technical resources.

Environmentally friendly fracking is possible and we could not only benefit -- in terms of reduced foreign oil dependence and cleaner emissions -- but we can sell the technology throughout the world.

Saying its not perfect enough and waiting for some magical solution certainly isn't good news for climate change, nor US energy security.

It's time to start getting real.

The Spinach Party will do all and everything to stop the energy development. The latest insanity is a law suit brought by a California extremist group to sue oil companies which produce 100LL for aircraft piston engines. If successful it would effectively kill the General Aviation industry in the USA.

Incidentally other green idiots demand the shut down of hydro electric power plants because the associated storage reservoirs are a source of methane.

I suggest they all be rounded up dropped in the wilderness to see how long they survive.

The conversion of coal-fired to NG-fired central power plants is a good thing for environment provided the fracking process cleans up after itself.

NG should also be viewed as a primary fuel to a new distributed energy economy. Further expansion of NG fired CHP systems in business and residential buildings will lower demand for coal, old grid upgrades and imported oil. The security issue alone demands this evolution.

Biofuels are making steady headway via cellulosic "drop in" fuels like bio-gasoline and jet fuel. Catalyzing algal biomass conversion to these products is now underway.

Solar will provide supplemental energy to homes provided some storage mechanism is utilized. But the plummeting cost of materials is damaging the earnings - thereby threatening bankruptcy even for Chinese manufacturers:

"The fundamental problem for the [Chinese]solar sector is that supply has far outstripped demand, putting tremendous pressure on panel prices, a trend that accelerated in the second quarter."

http://www.environmental-finance.com/news/view/1937

"I suggest they all be rounded up dropped in the wilderness to see how long they survive." LMAO!

@Peter: "unlimited energy resources - no matter if it is climate neutral or not - we would destroy the environment on this planet anyway. "

How?

Just visited friends in PA who are both very knowledgeable about shale gas and are very excited about its economic prospects for the state - lots of good paying jobs and all that. I asked them how long they expect the gas to last. Answer: about 25 years. As these are both very intelligent people I was really surprised by how deeply they've accepted the "boom and bust" view. And here I was hoping that we'd all learn something from the current economic situation we got ourselves into.

Peter XX: exercise some imagination yourself. If we have unlimited carbon-free energy, we can e.g. manufacture graphene by combustion of magnesium in solid CO2. Cheap graphene would displace lots of uses of metals, as the same cheap energy made it easier to recycle the metal in discarded products. Last, making graphene from CO2 extracts carbon from the atmosphere, restoring the historical composition.

Fossil fuels were made by application of carbon-free energy in the first place (albeit slowly). Why not apply human ingenuity to replaying that scenario at speeds similar to the rate at which we reversed it?

While NG probably won't ever be widely used in cars, it might be adopted by the trucking industry. NG fueling facilities are being planned throughout major transportation corridors in the US. If Rick Perry gets elected, expect a lot of NG legislation passed in congress. ExxonMobil recently spent A LOT of money buying XTO Energy - they will use their warchest to lobby & get a more favorable climate for NG.

As Alain said "If NG is cheap and abundant, power plants could use ccs with 30% parasitic losses and still produce cheap electricity. This would offer zero-emission cheap abundant fossil fuel for many decades."

Even if it is only part way to zero emissions, it is much better than the status quo (and the “status quo” INCLUDES our unwavering snail’s pace to “sustainable” energy)

A recent study claims that by 2020, smart homes and buildings will be a $900B business. Over 50% of it will be in China. After Smart Phones and PC tablets, this may be one of the fastest growing industry. Many smart homes will not have to be connected to a national e-grid or NG pipelines.

By 2030, many evolved smart homes will produce enough sustainable clean energy for the residence and 2+ electrified vehicles. Many smart buildings may do the same on a larger scale.

The current argument about Coal, Crude oil, Shale Gas and NG burning will be history by 2040.