And this does not appear to be the usual greenwash traditional energy companies like to spew. Evans-Pritchard quotes Tony Hayward, chief executive of British Petroleum, who said that "proven natural gas reserves around the world have risen to 1.2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent, enough for 60 years' supply."
"There has been a revolution in the gas fields of North America," Hayward said. "Reserve estimates are rising sharply as technology unlocks unconventional resources."
As Evans-Pritchard mentions, this doesn't come as news to everyone. On his Web site, No Hot Air, Nick Grealy "has been arguing for some time that Britain's shale reserves could replace declining North Sea output."
Gas is a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gasses when burned. But, according to the NaturalGas.org Web site, "combustion of natural gas ... releases very small amounts of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, virtually no ash or particulate matter, and lower levels of carbon dioxide." That's why you can cook with it in your kitchen without special venting.
Where is this gas? According to Evans-Pritchard, it comes from combining "3-D seismic imaging with new technologies to free 'tight gas' by smashing rocks, known as hydro-fracturing or 'fracking' in the trade."
Fracking, eh? Engineers say the funniest things. And get this: "The US is leading the charge," Evans-Pritchard writes. "Operations in Pennsylvania and Texas have already been sufficient to cut US imports of liquefied natural gas from Trinidad and Qatar to almost nil."
And Texas A&M University's Unconventional Gas and Oil Research Center estimates that fracking "could increase global gas reserves by nine times to 16,000 TCF (trillion cubic feet)."
Good news, to be sure. At least until we have the time to develop something better.
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